Fiend Factory 5E. White Dwarf 28: The Birch Spirit

Issue 28 The Birch Spirit

The Fiend Factory for Issue 28 is entitled:

 

and is a loose collection of forest-based creatures, with some gorgeous illustrations that I’ve given at a larger than usual size to show off the level of background detail. I think the artist is Ian McCaig, judging from what I can make of the signature and who is listed in the art credits. It’s not Russ Nicholson or Emmanuel, I know that much. And as I recall, Ian McCaig was the artist for the Fighting Fantasy book Forest of Doom:

How appropriate, then, that he should be illustrating a “forest”-themed Fiend Factory.

The first couple of entries aren’t “monsters” as such. The Whispering Tongues by Simon Miller are a type of spy plant, although the entry suggests some form of intelligence to go with their psionic powers, because they can be bribed with the right kind of soil. A fun little tool.

Similarly, Albie Fiore’s Driver Ant army is more of a natural hazard than a monster – even using swarm-style statistics this one covers a huge area and is probably better treated simply as an area that causes damage while anyone is in it.

RD Bowes’ Chameliads are a fairly straightforward humanoid race, available in two flavours – stone or wood, depending on what kind of material that their chameleonic ability matches.

They remind me a little of the Salsham’ai (Tree Folk) of our own World of Conclave setting – tree-dwelling, agile climbers and with some ability to blend into the surroundings. Having a cave version is an interesting twist. The only other element is the hunters that like to strangle with a garrotte. Good, but too simple for a truly fun conversion, I think.

The Black Unicorn, by Alan and Anthony Howcroft, is a tough creature. Not, as you might expect from the usual fantasy tropes, an evil version of the unicorn, but is instead more of an uber-unicorn that guards ancient forest ruins and sites of power. They can dimension door, cause fear, paralyse with their horn and emit an anti-magic shell. Much of the creature’s description, however, is either various magical uses for parts of their bodies, or some complex rules for charming them to ride them.

Looking at the regular 5E unicorn stats, I reckon just use these, give a bit of a stat bump and add a few more powers, such as the Fearsome Presence of a dragon.

And so I chose the Craig Cartmell’s Birch Spirit, which is an undead dryad (Craig here known as CN Cartmell, but we’ll see him again).

The best starting point for an undead dryad would be, I would say, the base statistics for a dryad, and then make it a neutral evil undead. The birch spirit has more Hit Dice than the dryad, so I bumped that up to the 8HD of the birch spirit. There are some clear damage immunities, resistances and vulnerabilities in the birch spirit description – I was kind and made the birch spirit resistant rather than immune to nonmagical weapons.

Now, the birch spirit doesn’t seem like it has the dryad’s charm ability, so I removed that, and I also took away a couple of the “nicer” innate spells. I didn’t think it was particularly interested in talking to woodland beings, since it hates all life. There’s nothing in the birch spirit description that suggests that it even has any innate spellcasting, but keeping them, to me, made it feel more like it was a corrupted dryad rather than a different creature entirely.

The birch spirit is described as being 15 feet tall, which to me is a Large creature, but the dryad is a Medium. I compromised by keeping the birch spirit Medium but giving it reach, since really it’s tall, but very slender, going for a Goliath style effect.

Finally, rather than give the birch spirit what amounts to a touch attack (in 3.5 money), I made its attacks magical.

The signature ability of the birch spirit is the heart-stopping attack. This I fudged a bit to turn it into a rider on a critical hit – deadly if a Constitution save is failed, dealing the regular critical damage but in the form of necrotic energy if the save is a success. It may not really come up that often, so you could change it back to the original version where the effect occurs of the attack roll succeeds by 5 or above, but there it is.

Birch Spirit

Medium undead, neutral evil

Armour Class 11 Hit Points 36 (8d8) Speed 30 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 10 (+0) 12 (+1) 11 (+0) 14 (+2) 15 (+2) 18 (+4)

Proficiency Bonus +3 Skills Perception +5, Stealth +7 Damage Vulnerabilities lightning Damage Immunities cold, fire Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing and slashing from nonmagical attacks Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 15

Languages Elvish, Sylvan

Challenge 5 (1,800 XP)

Deadly Critical. If the birch spirit scores a critical hit against a humanoid, beast or monstrosity with its claw, the target must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, it drops to 0 hit points and is dying. On a successful save it takes the normal critical hit damage, but in the form of necrotic damage. Magic Resistance. The birch spirit has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects. Magic Weapons. The birch spirit’s attacks count as magical. Turn Resistance. The birch spirit cannot be turned while within 50 feet of its tree, but it can be destroyed by a sufficiently powerful Turn Undead attempt. Innate Spellcasting. The birch spirit’s innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 15). The birch spirit can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:      At will: druidcraft 3/day: entangle 1/day: barkskin, pass without trace ACTIONS

Multiattack. The birch spirit makes two claw attacks. Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 10 ft., one creature. Hit: 5 (1d8 + 1) slashing damage.