D&D: The Five Most Awesome Monsters in Space
Spelljamer is chock full of new monsters. From the hilarious to the horrific, these are the five most awesome monsters in space.
In Spelljammer: Adventures in Space adventurers venture into the depths of Wildspace and the Astral Plane where all manner of horrible monsters lurk. From killer klowns to comets made by evil spellcasters, there are some truly twisted creatures.
And these are five of our absolute favorites.
Murder Comet
This one skates by on name alone, we’ll admit. But how are you not going to love a monster that is a literal murder comet? These are essentially flame skulls taken to the next level.
A murder comet is what you get when an evil spellcaster combines the essence of earth elemental with the essence of fire elemental. The result is a screaming, fiery comet, which would be bad enough on its own. But the murder comet’s creator can bind their spirit to the comet, causing them to become ageless and immortal, free to race across the stars without the need for air, sleep, or sustenance.
What makes this particular form of evil immortality interesting is that it’s remarkably self-sustaining once you do it. You don’t have to drink blood or sacrifice souls. You just become a murder comet. Sure you explode when you die and there’s no coming back from that, so it’s immortality as long as you don’t get killed. But hey, with a fly speed of 120 ft, who’s going to catch you?
Braxat
These towering armored beasts are covered in spikes and horns with tough skin. They’re like a walking pentaceratops, or at worst a styracosaurus, both of which are reason enough to love them already.
But a braxat is more than just a giant bipedal dino. They speak in “a voice similar to that of a human.” And they inhabit deserts, canyons, wastelands, and lonely asteroids. Also, they spit acid like a Space Marine.
But what pushes them over the top, is that they’re also extremely powerful psionics. Not only do they have a ton of hit points and high armor class, bolstered by their psionic powers. But they can also cause fear, cast a psionic shield, and can compel creatures to do things.
Eye Monger
Eye Mongers feel like a creature out of The Dark Crystal or Baron Munchausen. At rest, an eye monger is unmistakable from a normal asteroid, in as much as an asteroid is normal But when it senses vibrations in space (which offers up some insight into the physics of D&D) nearby, it opens up its eye.
And mouth.
And that’s the best part, really. These big asteroid monsters hunger for everything. And what they can’t digest, they store in their antimagic belly. That’s right, every eye monger has an antimagic gullet that negates any spell, magic item, or another magical effect within.
Esthetic
An esthetic is basically a living ship. It’s a biological, symbiotic creation of the cephalopod-like reigar, also introduced in the book. These cosmic space jellyfish ships are bioluminescent and have a variety of shapes.
Each esthetic can contain up to seven creatures and can survive as long as their creator is alive. It’s not exactly Moya, but hey, what’s not to love about something that lets you do Farscape but in D&D?
Kindori
Finally, we have the space whales. Space whales are a part of our collective subconscious because there’s something about looking up at the night sky and thinking “yeah I bet a whale could be in that” that’s just so universally human.
Even Link’s Awakening knows this. These majestic creatures communicate via flashing light across vast distances. They take nourishment from the light of the suns and stars. A single pod of kindori might cause the night sky to twinkle with stellar wonder as they swim through the cosmos.
And on top of all of that, they’re large enough to have their own gravity plane and air envelope, enabling smaller creatures to live and travel on their body.
Happy Adventuring
