10 Coolest New Monsters In D&D 5e’s Book Of Many Things

The Book of Many Things for Dungeons & Dragons 5e adds a lot of utility and lore to the much-loved Deck of Many Things magic item. For decades, players have been able to draw a card from the Deck for a random and sometimes game-changing effect. The newest version has been expanded in ways that will ensure players and DMs have resources of all kinds for almost any kind of game they want to run.

The new 5e version introduces dozens of new cards that characters can draw and interact with. On top of that, The Book of Many Things has nearly three dozen new monsters and NPCs for players to encounter, all tied into the Deck’s lore. These include creatures summoned by the magic that created the Deck in the first place, new factions working to find and protect or destroy the Deck, and even chaotic creatures simply themed after some of the more interesting effects found on the cards.

10 Fate Hag

Punish Players With Disadvantage & Force Damage

The Fate Hag is tied to the very powerful card, The Fates. The card makes it so that any character who draws it can change or avoid one event from the past. Fate Hags “carry gleaming magical shears they use to snip strands of fate. These shears are frightful weapons, severing a foe’s destiny as well as its flesh.” They have a powerful legendary action called Destiny Curse that not only imposes disadvantage on a character’s ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws so that they are more likely to fail, but when that character fails one of those rolls, they take 2d6 force damage which is unlikely to be resisted.

9 Harrow Hound

An Undead Dog That Tracks Prey Across Planes

The Harrow Hound is a part of the Grim Harrow, a group of souls who have been killed by the avatar of death, which is itself summoned by the Skull card in the Deck of Many Things. If the hound gets the scent of a creature in possession of the Deck, it can follow them across planes until its prey is located. If a party of adventurers comes across the Deck, seeing a nearby Harrow Hound means it may already be too late.

8 Otherworldly Corrupter

A Shapeshifting, Amorphous, Doppleganger Alien

The Otherworldly Corrupter might just be too much for most groups. With a challenge rating of 17, only the heartiest and prepared adventurers stand a chance. It has an innate Spider Climb for mobility, the Alien Mind trait stuns anyone who tries to delve into its thoughts, and a legendary action that allows the monster to morph into “a shifting mass of flesh, tentacles, eyes, claws, and mouths.” The Otherworldly Corrupter is truly a creature out of a Lovecraftian, cosmic horror fever dream.

7 Living Portent

Living Light That Helps Prophecies Come To Pass

Living portents are Celestials that are sent to the Material Plane in the form of falling stars to help different prophecies happen. They search for people and things involved in the prophecy and nudge them toward the fate that they believe needs to come to pass. They strike the ground, leaving an impact crater when appearing, but hurting no one in that vicinity, as they are most often on a helpful mission from a god. The Book of Many Things also includes variants of the living portent that might come from an evil deity too, such as the Elder Evil Hadar, who has multiple 5e spells named after them.

6 Solar Bastion Knight

Protects The Multiverse From The Deck’s Chaos

The Solar Bastion, as an organization, monitors and protects the DnD multiverse from the chaos caused by the Deck of Many Things. Representing the Sun card from the Deck, Knights of the Solar Basion are often at odds with the Grim Harrow and other Evil-aligned groups and cards. Wielding spears made of radiant energy called Sunspears, the Solar Basion knights are base CR 9 creatures who can easily demolish Fiends and Undead, making them excellent additions to the side of Good in campaigns such as Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus and Curse of Strahd.

5 Hierophant Of The Comet

Powerful Warlocks That Represent The Deck’s Cards

Every world has 22 hierophants, members of the cult known as The Heralds of the Comet. These warlocks each represent one card from the original Deck of Many Things. They draw power from the All-Consuming Star, an eldritch alien mind that helps them understand the Void and attempt to bring about the end of the multiverse and return everything to the Void itself.

4 Breath Drinker

Living Voids From The Far Realm

Breath drinkers come from the Far Realm, home plane of mind flayers, beholders, and Elder Evils. They can draw out a creature’s soul, even consuming their victim’s personality. In game terms, the breath drinker can lower a character’s Charisma by 1d6 until it reaches zero, at which point the character dies. Luckily for players, the breath drinker is so evil that when exposed to necrotic damage, their abilities are amplified and even begin to consume themselves from the inside out.

3 Werevulture

Greedy Lycanthropes With A Hunger For Flesh

Werevultures take the full-moon change of other lycanthropes and combine it with the greed of vrocks and the scavenging of vultures. They can polymorph themselves into the normal humanoid they were before the curse, as well as a hybrid form with bird-like characteristics added on, or as a full vulture. Werevultures are a grotesque addition to any campaign, and they could easily replace wereravens or wererats for a little more twisted storytelling.

2 Riffler

Fey Created By The Deck’s First Shuffle

Obsessed with The Deck of Many Things, rifflers are small, gnome-like Fey that desperately want to alter fate. When visible to mortals, a Deck is likely somewhere nearby, and if engaged, the riffler can attack by spraying spectral cards at its enemies to keep them at bay. DMs can add chaos to their sessions by introducing players to a riffler and its unconventional damage dealing. On an odd damage roll, the riffler will deal necrotic damage, and on an even, the damage will be radiant.

1 Malaxxix The Shackler

Fiend Of Cunning, Rage, & Bloodlust

Perhaps used best as the main antagonist of a campaign, Malaxxix the Shackler is a CR 18 Fiend that can summon an entire vortex of lesser Fiends called mezzoloths. Malaxxix crafts cursed items and leaves them for unwary adventurers to find and gain the curse of Malaxxix after attuning to it. Rather than give the attuned character negative attributes or effects, the curse lets Malaxxis scry on them from any plane in the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse at any time, and the Fiend can teleport within 60 feet of the cursed creature any time it wants, meaning there is really no escape from its machinations.