Ah, the hybrid creatures. Beasts that turn into men and vice versa. Another staple of fantasy. Although a jackal is an interesting choice; usually its a wolf or a bear. Let’s see if that original concept works, shall we?
Lore: Demonic Beasts
Tainted by demonic powers, an ordinary jackal becomes a wandering murderer as a jackalwere. It takes three forms; an ordinary jackal, a human beggar, or its true hybrid form. It will only reveal the last when its victims invite it into their midst out of kindness or pity, and only to slay their hosts and to feed on the bodies.
Created by the demon lord Graz’zt, jackalweres were made to serve his servants, the lamias. To further this end, he granted them the ability of speech, as well as their humanoid forms. In doing so, he made them natural liars, so much so that they’ll wince when speaking the truth, a fact that a perceptive creature may notice. They’ll fight alongside others of their kind, as well as lead regular jackals. Under their leadership, jackals are made into deadly beasts indeed.
The primary purpose of a jackalwere is to kidnap those their lamia masters order them to. With its gaze, it can render its victims unconscious, making them easy to drag away or to help it escape a deadly enemy. Those taken by a jackalwere are often condemned to a life of slavery, if not an agonizing death.
There’s a surprising amount of depth in those three paragraphs. You could weave a ton of interesting plotlines out of it! Perhaps the party needs to rescue an established NPC from a jackalwere pack before they can be taken to the Abyss. Or maybe you could set up an encounter with a wandering traveler who turns out to be a hungry jackalwere. You could tie them into a greater campaign with Graz’zt and the lamias as the villains. The possibilities are grand! Even if the monster itself only plays a small role in it.
Design: Take a Guess
Wow. That’s… exactly what I was expecting.
This is a really boring design. You could replace it with any number of animal-humanoid hybrids and the effect would be the exact same. It’s just a man and a jackal smooshed into one. There’s nothing here to help it stand out.
Boring. Next.
Stats: Go To Sleep
Wow. This dude is made of tissue paper. No wonder its god gave it hypnosis powers.
This is not a bulky monster. Its AC is almost as low as its HP. If it weren’t for its immunities to non-silvered melee damage, it would die in one round. Maybe two if it is unlucky.
Or maybe one turn if there’s a wizard in the party.
Now, this monster doesn’t just have one form. There’s its jackal form, human form, and hybrid form. The jackal form has access to its bite attack, the human form its scimitar, and the hybrid form can use both. Aside from that, there isn’t much of a difference between forms. And given how weak each attack is, the difference there is is miniscule at best.
Make no mistake, though. In a pack, these guys are deadly. At least for a low-level party. With Pack Tactics, they have advantage on all attack rolls, so long as they’re within five feet of an ally. With Keen Hearing and Smell, they have advantage on perception checks related to those senses, which makes ambushing them or hiding from them rather difficult.
Most dangerous of all is Sleep Gaze. Gazing at a target within 30 feet of it, it can force a Wisdom save with a fairly low DC. Fail, and they will be rendered unconscious for ten minutes, ensnared in a magical sleep. Should they succeed, they’ll be immune to the effect for 24 hours.
This is definitely not a monster you want to send at your party one at a time. Alone, they aren’t all that threatening. But in a pack? You can push your players to the brink fairly early on if they have to deal with a group of these guys. Between Pack Tactics and Sleep Gaze, you could quickly overwhelm them. And if they lose, you don’t even need to kill them! You can have the jackalweres kidnap them and take them away to move the story forward!
Placement
This was a surprisingly interesting low-level monster. Its design is incredibly boring, yes. But its lore and stats more than make up for it! There is a ton you can do with this one, at least early on in a campaign.
With all that in mind, let’s put the Werejackal on the Best of the Bestiary!
- Beholder
- Death Tyrant
- Dragon Turtle
- Green Dragons
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- Couatl
- Behir
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- Shadow Demon
- Marilith
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- Aarackockra
- Azer
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- Spectator
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- Marid
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- Werejackal <——————–
- Half-Dragon
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