D&D: Five Monsters from Outer Space
For a game about Dungeons and Dragons, there sure are a lot of monsters that come from outer space. Like these five space monsters.
There is a reason that sci-fi and fantasy go together on the same bookshelf. Look to the heart of any good fantasy story and there’s room for aliens. Conan fought an elephant from outer space once. Well, he didn’t fight it so much as fight to the location where it was, and then they talked and it was surprisingly emotional for the Barbarian, whose worldview expanded.
And that may be why D&D is full of space monsters. But just because they’re aliens, doesn’t mean they have to immediately have lasers. There’s plenty of fun horror to play around with.
Shake things up in your campaign with a falling meteor or an ill-omened comet and a number of monsters from outer space following suit.
Cosmic Horror
This one has cosmic right in the name, so you know it’s a D&D Space Monster. Cosmic Horrors are beings from the Far Realm that are drawn to the light of distant stars. When they invade the Material Plane, they often lay waste to worlds.
And they are all unique. Each Cosmic Horror has a physiology all its own, but these are the most powerful creatures the Far Realm creates.
Aartuk
An Aartuk, by comparison, is still alien, but it’s much less apocalyptic. Aartuks are intelligent plant creatures that are said to look like Starfish on some worlds. These plant creatures live to make war. There is nothing more delightful to an Aartuk than to wage war upon those made of meat, taking over their domains.
Ironically enough, their homeworld was destroyed during a war with Beholders. Because even alien plants don’t always know who they’re picking a fight with. But these space monsters fight by extruding a central “head stalk” and using a long tongue as a weapon. Yeah. Terrifying.
Combat Robot
Sometimes D&D space monsters do mean busting out the lasers, though. Such as with the Combat Robots out of Quests from the Infinite Staircase. These robots are decidedly science fiction.
They fight with grappling tentacles (though these ones are machine-like, for a pleasant change) and laser beams, and even with a rechargeable grenade launcher, making one of these capable of taking on multiple low-level opponents. One you get up there in levels, though, they have to be in groups.
Star Spawn
Star Spawn are a classic D&D space monster. These creatures hail from baleful stars and always represent bad times.
They arrive most often in the wake of a comet—or perhaps this phenomenon merely signals that star spawn are in the vicinity and available for communication. When the signs are right, cultists gather together, read aloud their blasphemous texts, and conduct the mind-searing rituals that guide star spawn into the world.
They’re servants of the Elder Evils. Things that exist in the darkness beyond the stars. In reality devouring corners of the multiverse who are cosmic threats that don’t even have stats, they’re so powerful.
Eldritch Lich
But if you want a cosmic entity you can kill, my favorite is the Eldritch Lich. This is a Lich that decided to go all Venom and get implanted with an alien symbiote.
These parasitic tentacle creatures devour souls and grant the lich undeath from beyond the stars. Even killing the lich won’t stop it. There’s no phylactery to destroy – you have to kill one while within a magic circle. So these can be surprisingly persistent foes if you don’t know what to expect.
