Otyugh: Uh… Gesundheit?

How the hell do you pronounce that? Did someone at Wizards of the Coast trip over their own tongue in a meeting and they all just decided to keep it?

Oh yeah, by the way, the monster is a waking nightmare.

Lore: Gluttons in Garbage

Buried beneath mounds of offal and carrion, the otyugh only leaves its stalk exposed. Should an unsuspecting creature come across it, its vines will leap up from the garbage to attack. Often times, they’ll use their limited abilities of telepathy to draw their prey in to devour them.

Otyughs only tolerate light when there’s enough garbage nearby to hide within. Be it stagnant swamps, damp forests, sewers, graveyards, or manure-filled animal pens, they are drawn to filth. As they don’t care for anything other than food, they often settle down there, accumulating many treasures from their prey to blend into the trash.

Certain subterranean creatures coexist with otyughs, using them to dispose of garbage. When fed well-enough, the creatures grow fat and unmoving, refraining from attacking other creatures. However, many have underestimated the hunger of these monsters; many would-be masters have been devoured by their ‘trained’ otyugh when they failed to provide.

You can craft some interesting encounters or side quests out of this. Perhaps the players simply end up caught in its trap. Or maybe the BBEG of the quest tries to sick an otyugh on the party, only to be devoured by it and the group needs to put it down. It isn’t especially incredible, but you’ve got plenty of interesting options if you get creative.

Design: Disproportinate Disaster

This disproportionate creepy bastard looks like some psychotic thing I’d have doodled in my notebook back in high school. Only the artist behind this one is vastly more talented; mine just looked like a gray blob.

This guy is among the more grotesque and unique monster designs we’ve seen up to this point. It’s a three-legged monstrosity with tentacles and a gaping maw. Where have you ever seen a monster like this?

But it doesn’t do a whole lot in tandem with the creature’s lore. This doesn’t look like the kind of monster that might hide under trash and set a trap. It looks more like something you’d see rampaging in the Underdark or something like that. The design is so vague that it could fit any giant monster.

Still, it’s a good design overall. It’s wonderfully bizarre and gross. I can only imagine how much fun it would be to describe this thing as a DM to a group of horrified players.

Stats: Tentacles of Terror

I solemnly swear I won’t make a hentai joke. Nope. Not going to happen.

Otyughs are fairly durable monster. Its AC isn’t particularly high, but its HP more than makes up for it. You’ll have to buckle down for a while if you want to kill it.

With its Limited Telepathy ability, it can send simple messages or images to any creature within 120 feet of it, provided it can understand a language. The recipient isn’t able to respond. This is its primary method of luring in its prey.

It has three primary attacks. Its Bite attack does decent damage, but more dangerous is the potential poison effect. Fail to succeed the saving throw and you will be given a horrific disease. Every 24 hours, the victim’s maximum HP will drop until the disease is cured or their maximum hits 0.

Its Tentacle strike combines bludgeoning with piercing damage. Should the victim fail to make a saving throw, they will be grappled. This opens them up to its final action, Tentacle Slam, in which it slams its grappled victim into a solid surface for further damage and stunning them, should they fail another saving throw.

While not especially complex, this all still makes for a pretty intense fight. How do the party members deal with someone catching the disease? How do they handle the tentacles? Do they get lured in by its telepathy and ambushed or do they manage to get the jump on it? It’s simple, but it’s still a cool enough battle.

Placement

All around, this is an alright monster. None of its aspects are especially incredible, but none of them are bad. It’s a perfectly fine monster. Neither exceptionally good nor particularly bad.

With all that in mind, the Otyugh is going to #70 on the Best of the Bestiary!

1. Beholder
2. Death Tyrant
3. Mind Flayer
4. Dragon Turtle
5. Mummy/Mummy Lord
6. Nagas (all three of ’em)
7. Green Dragons
8. Red Dragons
9. Blue Dragons
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13. Couatl
14. Behir
15. Aboleth
16. Sea Hag
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20. Copper Dragons
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22. Chuul
23. Kuo-Toa
24. Gibbering Mouther
25. Kraken
26. Intellect Devourer
27. Chimera
28. Death Knight
29. Fomorian
30. Bone Devil
31. Dracolich
32. Faerie Dragon
33. Gelatinous Cube
34. Lich
35. Orcs (all four of ’em)
36. Magmin
37. Kobold
38. Kenku
39. Hobgoblins
40. Night Hag
41. Green Hag
42. Black Pudding
43. Ankheg
44. Hook Horror
45. Oni
46. Storm Giant
47. Hill Giant
48. Empyrean
49. Efreeti
50. Grimlock
51. Minotaur
52. Dao
53. Cloud Giant
54. Manticore
55. Drow (all four of ’em)
56. Shadow Demon
57. Modrons (all five of ’em)
58. Marilith
59. Drider
60. Aarackockra
61. Azer
62. Demilich
63. Spectator
64. Gray Ooze
65. Ochre Jelly
66. Hydra
67. Marid
68. Harpy
69. Werejackal
70. Otyugh <———-
71. Half-Dragon
72. Cambion
73. Fire Giant
74. Nothic
75. Animated Armor
76. Banshee
77. Basilisk
78. Yochlol
79. Bulette
80. Cloaker
81. Darkmantle
82. Doppelganger
83. Ghoul and Ghast
84. Ettin
85. Medusa
86. Pit Fiend
87. Erinyes
88. Chain Devil
89. Bearded Devil
90. Barbed Devil
91. Spined Devil
92. Ice Devil
93. Mimic
94. Djinni
95. Merrow
96. Nalfeshnee
97. Glabrezu
98. Chasme
99. Grell
100. Barlgura
101. Horned Devil
102. Balor
103. Shadow Dragon
104. Myconids (all four of ’em)
105. Werebear
106. Lizardfolk
107. Vrock
108. Dretch
109. Gnolls (all three)
110. Goristro
111. Hezrou
112. Manes
113. Frost Giant
114. Weretiger
115. Werewolf
116. Duergar
117. Quasit
118. Dryad
119. Flumph
120. Goblin
121. Nightmare
122. Wereboar
123. Wererat
124. Githyanki
125. Planetar
126. Imp
127. Ogres/Half-ogres
128. Clay Golem
129. Flameskull
130. Displacer Beast
131. Carrion Crawler
132. Githzerai
133. Grick
134. Invisible Stalker
135. Rug of Smothering
136. Bugbear Chief
137. Bugbear
138. Flesh Golem
139. Vine Blight
140. Twig Blight
141. Needle Blight
142. Mephits (all six of ’em)
143. Bullywug
144. Hellhound
145. Ettercap
146. Gas Spore
147. Cockatrice
148. Lemure
149. Homonculus
150. Merfolk
151. Solar
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155. Griffon
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157. Centaur
158. Ghost
159. Fire Elemental
160. Water Elemental
161. Air Elemental
162. Stone Giant
163. Deep Gnome
164. Dinosaurs (All six of them)
165. Iron Golem
166. Stone Golem
167. Earth Elemental
168. Galeb Duhr
169. Helmed Horror
170. Flying Sword
171. Crawling Claw
172. Violet Fungus
173. Shrieker
174. Gargoyle