D&D General [Eberron Homebrew] Cooking With Gaze Attacks: Droaam's Monstrous Industry

Khargra (Earth, Mordenkainen’s Fiendish Folio, Volume 1): These metal-eating elementals are primarily used by dwarves of the Mror Holds, although a few found their way to Droaam. It was a common tactic in border conflicts with Breland for a summoner to conjure groups of the creatures, sending them to sabotage the defenses of armored soldiers and the functions of arcane machinery. As many monsters can fight just fine without arms and armor, the strategic deployment of khargra won Droaam several key battles.

In peace-time, khargra are used to mine for dragonshards. As they can pass through nonmagical earth and stone for a short range and are only interested in metals, they regurgitate gems and organic matter after a period of several days. The elementals are trained to venture into underground areas ordinarily hostile to living creatures and report back their findings. The only times khargra are not used is when miners have belief of a byeshk vein to be nearby. As this is the other major natural resource of Droaam and invaluable in fighting the daelkyr’s creations, Droaam doesn’t want to risk famished khargras depleting such resources.



Meazel: Not much is known about the Maezels other than the fact that they’re most common in manifest zones tied to Mabar. Coming from the Hinterlands of that dark plane, they are living creatures, bearing the ability to teleport through shadows yet cursed with weak, sickly forms. Most meazels are suspicious of outsiders, believing that agents of the Dark Powers (beings of Mabar who rule their own realms of linked layers) are active in Eberron and hunting to take them back into the darkness. Their oral history teaches that they’re descendants of wandering prophets who sought to travel the planes in order to make contact with gods who bear resemblance to the Dark Six. During their travels, they managed to find a realm bereft of life and light, leaving nothing but the peace of the void to reflect on cosmic truths. As part of this test, they were attacked by malevolent entities living within the void; the strong among them are still adrift, holding fast. The weak among them fled back to Eberron via manifest zones and must spend the rest of their lives in solitude as penance for the price of fear.

Sora Maenya learned of a group of meazels in the Watching Wood. Impressed by their powers and seeing value in them as guerilla fighters and assassins, she offered them protection from the Dark Powers in exchange for serving her as loyal soldiers. The maezels accepted, but only on the condition that she survive a dangerous game of hunter-and-hunted against their best warriors in a manifest zone. When Sora Maenya returned with the heads of all the warriors, she gained rulership over the clan and her own cadre of shadow magic-using assassins.

While the Meazel’s signature ability can only affect itself and Medium or smaller creatures, they’ve come up with some unconventional uses. A Meazel equipped with a Ring of Feather Fall can teleport themselves and a grappled target up to 500 feet in the air, dropping their victim to great injury or death.

As the shadow teleport only requires the meazel to grapple and not injure a creature (the ability doesn’t specify use of the garrote), they’ve been known to have trained animals or intelligent allies use them for long-distance travel. While the shadow teleport has to begin and end in dim light or darkness and needs time to be reused, this gives meazels a surprising amount of mobility. The downside is that the temporary curse from being teleported in such a way makes the person riding with the meazel easily detected by undead and other creatures native to Mabar. Thus, this isn’t used when on operations against Karrnathi, necromancers, the Blood of Vol, and similar groups.

However, undead working in tandem with the meazels can also become good scouts. Beyond just tracking enemies cursed by their racial teleport, meazels also use small animals such as rats and bugs in a “catch and release” way, which they then put inside a container or sent somewhere ahead of time. As the sensory range is up to 300 feet away, this is ideal for shadowing marks.

While the above tactics have been tested out in the field, the major thing holding the meazels’ effectiveness back is that their culture makes them extremely xenophobic. The ones loyal to Sora Maenya do cooperate with others at the behest of her orders, but otherwise are very unpleasant to work with. Conflicts and misunderstandings are inevitable, so Sora Maenya only deploys them in multi-species groups during times of great need.



Water Weird: The barren landscapes of Droaam means that water sources are fiercely guarded and have been the site of many wars. This has not prevented more vengeful chibs from resorting to poisoning water in order to wipe out a vilified group. While such tactics were commonplace before the Daughters of Sora Kell, they’re disastrous for long-term nation-building. The hag sisters gathered groups of spellcasters to summon and bind water weirds to strategically important wells, aquifers, lakes, and other major water sources to act as guardians of such locations. In so doing, the elementals were loyal first and foremost to the Daughters and their summoners rather than whatever chib or warlord held sway over the territory. Being of human-level intelligence, water weirds have been trained and instructed to look out for various kinds of sabotage, from common waterborne poisons to various kinds of blighting magic.

While the water weirds helped decrease incidents of sabotaging water supplies, this is still an ambitious project the Daughters have only just begun, and they prioritized major locations and population centers versus smaller villages and isolated locations. Some communities have been lax in security, trusting the Daughter’s plan fully and treat the weirds as their first and last line of defense rather than an insurance policy. Additionally, the weirds act as a tool of soft leverage in preventing local communities from rebelling against the Daughters by cutting off safe access to water. This threat is often unspoken, but has been enforced against chibs who stepped above their station. It's one thing to send your subjects to fight your battles; another for subjects to turn on you when you're blamed for their starvation.

MarkB said:

so they could work well in the construction industry, quickly assembling and securing wooden structur

Click to expand...

If ya know, ya know.

Berbalang (Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse): The aberrations known as berbalang rarely appear on the Material Plane, preferring to wander the realm of Dolurrh and divining ancient knowledge from spirits. They rarely work for others save for the promise of secrets or the bones of unique creatures. As Sora Teraza is one of Eberron’s foremost diviners, she has the former in spades and regularly employs the creatures for intelligence gathering. They do not interact with greater Droaamish society, often acting as representatives of the dusk hag when visiting the halls of chibs, Dragonmarked Houses, and foreign diplomats in Graywall. The Berbalang’s ability to speak with dead at will, combined with their sense of truesight and ability to converse in every language, makes them investigators with few peers. They are most often tasked with deciphering vexing cyphers, communing with mass graves to piece together what happened among many witnesses, and vetting out mundane and magical deceptions. Most Droaamish citizens fear the berbalangs, for their presence means that Sora Teraza herself has an interest in someone or something nearby.




Ettercap: The majority of Droaam’s ettercaps live deep in the Watching Wood, keeping to themselves with their vast colonies of spiders. Although possessed of a cunning far beyond any natural animal, ettercaps don’t possess any communication methods that allow other creatures to speak with them. Or it could be that they simply choose not to acknowledge such attempts. And yet their webbing is extremely resilient, capable of being fashioned into various woven goods. The ettercaps display a knack for setting up traps that turn sections of the forest they claim into untouchable battlefields.

Attempts at bringing the spiderfolk to heel have met with failure, and those in the know are aware that the ettercap despise the fey. This includes the Daughters of Sora Kell, which goes far to explain their hostility to the rest of Droaam. However, the oni warlord Drul Kantar managed to find a way to earn the cooperation of a clan in the northern woods, and Thrakelorn sees modest trade from import and export of spider silk. The ogre mage understandably keeps how he did it under wraps, but it’s not just to maintain a virtual monopoly. As a secret agent of the Lords of Dust, the fiends imparted to Drul Kantar magic to speak with and enchant spider-like beings. In addition to enriching his domain, the warlord also has a growing command over the Watching Wood via these monsters, and thus Droaam’s fledgling forestry and logging industry. By building a solid economic base to fund their operations, the Lords of Dust can more easily corrupt the country’s warlords.




Tressym (Storm King’s Thunder): Tressym are a common presence in Khorvaire, particularly among mages and the upper class. While appearing and acting much like a winged house cat, they have intelligence on par with a human and easily form social bonds with humanoids. They often serve as noncombatant sentries, for they have the natural ability to detect invisible creatures and objects, are immune to all forms of poison, and can detect poisonous substances. While they aren’t of much use in a conventional fight, quite a few warlords of Droaam have sought to obtain tressym as warning systems. Many cruel tyrants sought to treat them like pets, capturing them rather than developing bonds of respect. The smarter tyrants avoided this, for more than a few tressym pretended not to see threats and let their owners suffer a just demise.

Geonid (The Tortle Package): Geonid are small shelled beings of elemental earth originating from Kythri. When withdrawn into their shells they appear indistinguishable from boulders, and their close connection to stone gives them a psychometric sense of the type and number of creatures that have been in the immediate area. Although typically only fluent in Terran, their intelligence is on par with orcs and humans so it’s trivial to get them to learn important phrases in other languages. Gargoyles, mages living in rocky areas (which Droaam has in spades), and other individuals with an affinity for elemental earth typically use geonids as sentries and trackers in otherwise trackless terrain. Combined with their natural camouflage, they can lay in wait at various chokepoints and common expressways without drawing attention. Droaam’s warlords place them along trade routes and settlement gates when it comes to taxation and population surveys, as well as determining the arrival of unseen intruders.



Pech (Descent Into the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth): Hailing from pockets of earth drifting in Kythri, Pech are elementals who took to their planar homeland’s mutable nature by learning to reshape the fundamental properties of stone and soil. In Eberron they are most common in underground manifest zones linked to the plane. In Droaam there are several communities of them in the Graywall and Byeshk Mountains, and recently made first contact with House Tharashk prospectors.

Pech have a strong aversion to sunlight, which isn’t lethal but disorients them, so most don’t leave their underground communities. But in spite of their self-imposed isolation they’ve been more than helpful in informing miners and explorers about unseen dangers and even assisting in excavations themselves. Their fortified pickaxes can easily hew through even the hardest of stones, and while limited in daily use their ability to cast wall of stone and stone shape without spell components lets them fulfill many important functions that can only be matched by experienced mages.

A less readily apparent skill of the pech is their ability to cast the greater restoration spell. While it requires the work of at least eight of them to cast it, their ability to do so without expensive consumable diamond dust means that they number among Khorvaire’s best healers. Only the most senior dragonmarked members of House Jorasco have access to this spell, and among fellow monsters only androsphinxes and couatls have equivalent or greater healing powers. The former of which are incredibly rare and powerful, and the latter of which are nearly extinct in the modern day.

While the pech don’t want for much in being elementals, House Tharashk is aware that they have a great asset on their hands. The House has made deals with wealthy and connected individuals for transportation to mining colonies if they don’t want to deal with House Jorasco. The Daughters of Sora Kell, Xor'chylic, and other VIPs in Droaam have private underground clinics set up in the event of afflictions that cannot be cured by lesser means.

House Jorasco, which has dominated healing services in Khorvaire, would naturally feel threatened by the pech if they cannot get them under their control. And many other groups would go to great lengths to get their hands on a group of pech for their powers, whether the elementals agree or not.



Tlincalli (Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse): Having the appearance of tauric scorpions, the tlincalli are commonly known as scorpionfolk to outsiders. Although native to the Blade Desert, a sizable number of them immigrated to Droaam and the Shadow Marches due to placing a near-holy reverence for hunting. They’ve long respected House Tharashk for having an agreeable outlook and skill set, and many tlincalli join the Dragonmarked House in order to prove themselves in the wider world.

Virtually every tlincalli is trained in Perception, Stealth, and Survival. The former two skills are self-evident in their usefulness, but Survival means that they’re veteran outdoorsmen in a variety of climates. Many Tlincalli serving as monstrous mercenaries are well-versed in various ecologies beyond just their native desert biome, and the best among their number took up lucrative yet dangerous contracts in mapping out the Demon Wastes and Shadow Marches in order to find potential resources for House Tharashk. The poison from their stingers has a potent paralytic agent and their spiked chain martial art specializes in restraining targets, meaning that tlincalli also serve as as bouncers, embassy guards, and other occupations where muscle is needed but outright killing is a last resort.

Jackalwere: Calling themselves the “Chor’eska,” or “hounds of the desert” in Goblin, the jackalwere are related to lycanthropes rather than being a unique subtype. During the downfall of the Empire of Dhakaan, their people sought to rid themselves of the lunar curse via an alliance with a powerful city-state of lamia mages. They lost their ability to pass on their lycanthropy to others and could freely choose their forms at will, and also gained the ability to induce magical slumber by merely looking at nearby creatures. Ever since, the Chor’eska and lamia have had strong ties with each other, the former often acting as honor guards and scouts to lamia rulers.

Now that lamia have a respected place in the new nation of Droaam, so too do the Chor’eska. Although they are immune to conventional physical harm from non-silvered sources, they make for poor soldiers on account of finding direct violence distasteful, preferring ambushes, strength in numbers, and using the power of shapechanging and sleep to trick foes. They are fragile to magical attacks and cantrips, and aren’t as physically resilient as typical lycanthropes.

Although not as well-spoken as their lamia allies, Chor’eska are well-learned in the matters of Deception, so they often take up occupations suited to this. Merchants overselling the value of their products, charlatans preying on the judgment of others, and spies for Daask and the Dragonmarked Houses, are but a few of their most respected paths in society.

The slumber-inducing gazes of Chor’eska give them some unconventional yet still useful roles. In the medical field it’s used as a pain reliever, and for hunting and animal husbandry it can calm down and subdue beasts of burden and prey. As it is most effective on creatures lacking good judgment, it’s a potent equalizer against physically imposing yet weak-willed monsters like ogres. This is how the Chor’eska survived for so long in Droaam and shaped their mentality. A few establishments in the country employ Chor’eska to non-lethally subdue disagreeable customers. Some kalashtar and mystics who study Dal Quor have sought out Chor’eska, seeking to use their powers to delve into unwaking mysteries.



Nothic: Creations of Belashyrra, one of the daelkyr, nothics were cursed to possess great knowledge yet unable to use such power for their own betterment. Each nothic contains generational memories of countless magical secrets, yet none to this day are known to have mastered even the most meager of cantrips. From breaking into arcane laboratories for new magical innovations in hopes of reversing their condition to sending prayers to the Shadow who remains silent to their pleas, nothic are more desperate than ever in modern times to attain the spells that now dominate daily life in Khorvaire.

Given their powers and aberrant connections, most lands shun nothics. But Sora Teraza saw promise in them, particularly their vision of truesight and ability to derive secrets from others. A few influential warlords and Daask cells retain a nothic as a resident spiy and interrogator. By sending a disguised or invisible one out into a population center or fortification for a night, they can accumulate a large dossiers’ worth of blackmail material and confidential information from a variety of inhabitants. Furthermore, nothics make for invaluable countermeasures against illusionists, ethereal beings, and all manner of shapechangers thanks to their truesight. Due to their abilities, it’s common for nothics and berbalangs to work together; the nothic finds some secrets, and then shares their findings as payment for the berbalang’s services.

But in spite of their capabilities, most people hold nothics at arms’ length, or attempt to gain some leverage on the monsters in order to prevent their betrayal. At times this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the fear of a nothic learning too much causes the ally to plot against the monsters, who in turn severs their loyalty at the earliest convenience. The few people comfortable enough to work with these monsters long-term are those who feel that they have nothing to hide, are so sure of their standing or personal power that they don’t worry about being ruined from a nothic’s revelations, or managed to gain the unconditional trust of said nothic. And in the post-Mourning cold war of Khorvaire, there are precious few people in power who qualify for any of these.



Troll Types (various sources): From the ice trolls whose hearts brim with powerful magic to the ghostly spirit trolls that can phase through materials, the giants’ vaunted regenerative capabilities grant them great diversity in the evolution of potential powers. Such variants existed in the past as rare individuals often coming out of unintended circumstance, as trolls themselves rarely have the foresight to bring about such changes themselves. As Droaam’s army heavily draws from this race, the Daughters of Sora Kell spared no expense in researching the limits of trollish power.

Most non-standard troll types in Droaam are serving in some military capacity, with the greatest number found among Sora Maenya’s elite forces in the Great Crag. They aren’t numerous enough to form their own unique subcultures, although their powerful status often means that they’re more arrogant and fearless than the average troll…which is saying something!

Venom trolls were designed for biological warfare by infusing troll flesh with copious amounts of poison and germs to turn their bodies into incubators. Their skin is supple enough that even the merest harm from any non-psychic source causes their blood to spray onto nearby targets, and the trolls can do this themselves by cutting their own bodies. They used this during the Last War to sicken Brelish soldiers and taint their rations, causing casualties far in excess of direct violence.

Ice trolls (Rime of the Frostmaiden version) were a magical experiment by the Daughters, seeking to breed a variety of troll who can store ambient magical power within their bodies. Upon their death, an ice troll’s heart can be extracted and used for a variety of purposes, such as granting the heart’s consumer regeneration or cold resistance. But its more potent effects include rituals that can summon blizzards or being formed into magical talismans that lower the surrounding temperature to dangerous. The creation of blizzards was used to great advantage during the Last War to cut supply lines and hinder travel.

Troll Mutates were made via experimentations conducted at a manifest zone to Xoriat in the Shadow Marches. By slaughtering local Gatekeeper guardians with aid from a Cult of the Dragon Below cell, the Daughters subjected troll soldiers to maddening torture. Such trolls are far smarter than their kin, and their variant forms such as elastic bodies and wings allow some of their number to be more mobile than the standard breed. They all possess blindsight and telepathy, making making them skilled tacticians that caused more than a few foes to underestimate these supposedly “dumb, giant brutes.”

Rot trolls have similar origins as troll mutates, but originated in manifest zones to Mabar instead. The necrotic energy coursing through their bodies is continually pushed out by their inherent regeneration, causing them to emit a damaging field that harms adjacent creatures. This harms plant and animal life, so the Daughters of Sora Kell haven’t made much use of them in Droaam proper due to fears of collateral damage. But they have been useful in destroying food supplies and farms of foreign countries, and have been used by Daask for extortion purposes.

Spirit trolls are the rarest breed, and what few exist are currently working in Daask cells. Made from exposure to psychic energy, these trolls are incorporeal and have resistance to acid and fire. In fact, only psychic and force damage stops their regeneration, making them nigh-invulnerable against most foes. They serve as the equivalent of “ghostly special forces” soldiers, able to ignore physical barriers and shrug off most attacks. Their greatest foes tend to be mentalists and warlocks who have access to their weaknesses, so spirit trolls rarely work alone or without allied mages from other races.

The dire troll and troll amalgam are unique creatures, existing in the tunnels beneath Great Crag for the Daughters of Sora Kell to unleash as doomsday weapons. Or inadvertently unleashed to run wild in the city, depending on the adventure. Made from gruesome experiments involving the consumption and fusion of many trolls together, they look like giants haphazardly glued together into bizarre, painful-looking forms. In addition to great size, strength, and endurance, these troll subtypes are resilient against mental effects and magic along with possessing keen senses. However, they are only a little bit smarter than the average troll, and given their lack of contact with wider society they don’t know much of the world beyond what the hag coven tells them.

That's Cheating! I'm aware that I'm violating my own rule in regards to the troll subtypes, as they're all above CR 6. However, since trolls have such an important role in Droaam and one in particular has a hag-specific use (the ice troll's heart), I made an exception with this write-up. Like ogre mages and mind flayers, they still exist in Droaam, but are appropriately rare in number so as not to violate Khorvaire's overall low-powered nature.

Chitine & Choldrith: Chitines are an offshoot of elves who appealed to one of the fiendish overlords of Khyber during the uprising against the giant empires of Xen’drik. Disappearing into the dark tunnels they believed themselves free, only to discover that they traded one wicked master for another.

Chitines have long since spread across Khyber’s endless passages, worshiping a variety of faiths beyond their original overlord. Albeit that one’s influence still carries on with their resemblance to and affinity for arachnids. Choldrith are both the secular and spiritual leaders of chitine clans, born among only a few eggs in hatcheries rather than being an independently-bred race of their own. For unknown reasons Choldrith naturally take to divine magic, with all the self-assured faith and certainty that comes with it. Beyond fiendish worship, chitine clans have become surprisingly diverse in religious traditions. One group living beneath the Great Crag may pay homage to an interpretation of the Devourer as the living manifestation of storms and earthquakes, while another in the deepest forests of the Eldeen Reaches might adopt druidism and pacts with malevolent fey. Sometimes a clan’s religious persuasion can change as rapidly in one or a few generations, where the next line of choldrith feel passionately about encounters with new and altered matters of faith.

When it comes to outsiders, a chitine’s webbing is their most valued trade good, capable of being made into architectural structures and even hardened objects on par with tanned hides. They’re a more reliable resource than ettercaps, albeit they rarely export their goods and use most of their work for self-sufficiency. The Choldrith’s possession of divine magic makes them valued assets, particularly to communities with a shared deity or ethos, albeit they often withhold services to those of opposing faiths and ideologies. These two factors cause many to treat chitines as fairweather friends: people who have something of use, but don’t expect to rely on them for long.

In Droaam, many chitine colonies worship primal deities who bear close resemblances to the Dark Six. Al’hathgora, the most popular of the deities, is a wizened spider who gave them their forms as the price for learning magic.



Darkling: While virtually every culture knows of them in some form, fey aren’t generally known for having regular interactions with mortal society. The darklings are an exception, living beneath population centers and lending illegal services to those above. But unlike typical criminals, the darklings represent storybook archetypes and stock tropes of criminals from popular works of fiction. They are the nameless lackeys of limited imagination who respond to your every whim with “right on it, boss,” or the trenchcoat-wearing fellow with sunglasses passing you an envelope full of blackmail material.

Darklings do not have “off hours” where they’re going about their daily lives between jobs. To contact them, one must perform genre-appropriate rituals, such as leaving a bottle of absinthe and tarnished silver coins behind the loose brick of a condemned building sitting on a Thelanis manifest zone, or a blood oath where one cuts their palm and presses it over the drawing of a hated enemy before hanging it up in the town square. That is when the darklings appear, and ask what must be done.

The particular archetypes of Darklings are shaped by surrounding cultures. Even in a nation such as Droaam, where laws are looser and subject to individual whims, there are still outcasts and behaviors that marks one as worthy of scorn. Given their lack of physical power they are often called to tasks involving cloak and dagger tactics, often by weaker and less magically proficient monsters. Such as a would-be usurper having the drink of a chib poisoned before a duel when they know they cannot win at strength of arms. In the nation of monsters they can be the Fury of the Small, appearing as shadowy goblins and hobgoblins resentful of the downfall of their empire, using their size and blindsight to hide in a nation filled with races possessing innate darkvision. The flashes of light they leave behind upon death take on a silver tone, reflecting the hatred of the Church of Silver Flame, playing upon fears of agents of that faith subtly working to cause the downfall of the monster-nation.



Leucrotta: Like the worgs’ relationship with goblinoids, leucrottas are intelligent animalistic beings whose history is tied closely to a more humanoid monster: gnolls. The history of both races teaches that leucrottas were fashioned from fiends, meant to serve as hunting companions to fiends.

Leucrottas rarely live in communities of their own, often joining larger gnoll settlements where they’re treated as family and kin in spirit. With their size, quadrupedal gait, and superior speed they often serve as mounts, and their ability to mimic all manner of animals and humanoids make them skilled hunters. Their stench is offensive to all other creatures besides themselves and gnolls, so a wide manner of poisons and repellents are fashioned from the bodily leftovers of leucrottas. While they’re not the most persuasive or well-spoken, virtually all of them are fluent in Abyssal, so they often act as translators pertaining to demonic affairs for those who don’t speak the language.

In Droaam, most leucrottas are part of the Znir Pact, serving as mercenaries. They help supplement the cavalry forces, which combined with the groups’ penchant for archery make them forces to be reckoned with.

In today's Droaamish Department of Labor survey, we see how our fine beholderkin citizens excel in the industries of construction, communication, and food preparation!




Gauth: More common than true beholders, gauths take advantage of common misconceptions others have towards them in order to attain leadership positions. The ancient seals of the Gatekeepers would ordinarily send them back to Xoriat, but gauth can delay this process via regular consumption of magic. While they are capable of surviving in Xoriat, they are small fish in an endless pond of eldritch horrors, and prefer living on Eberron where their powers can make them feel important.

Few in number, most gauth in Droaam are chibs or high-ranking underlings of more powerful monsters, using their position to search for magical objects. Most live in or near the large cities and roads to the more industrialized nation of Breland in order to have better access to such items. Gauth prefer wands, given that their charges are restored each day and multi-use. Sometimes they gather together in small groups of their peers, but as this creates competition for magical sustenance, gauths prefer commanding others.

The gauth’s greatest asset in Droaamish society are its various eye rays. Their combat applications are self-evident, but that’s not all they can do: the ray that devours magic is often used to rid cursed and troublesome magical items of their powers, and their fire-producing rays generate prodigious amounts of heat that’s useful for smelting. Pushing rays are useful in corralling heavy, rowdy animals without physical contact, while paralyzing and sleep rays combined with their stunning gaze are good at incapacitating large numbers of nearby creatures.

Due to their habitual magical consumption, most gauth gain an artificer’s level of understanding for various magical items. Even if they cannot cast the spells themselves or use dragonmarks, a community’s gauth is often the go-to figure when someone needs to identify an unknown or unusual item.



Mindwitness: Mindwitnesses are beholders altered to serve as telepathic communicators in the armies of the daelkyr. The fact that they’re far less powerful than a typical beholder causes some to theorize that it may be a form of punishment, but that is conjecture at best when it comes to the alien minds of their creators.

For unknown reasons, mindwitnesses are particularly willful and open to change, and when they come into contact with other telepathic creatures they quickly take on their viewpoints and alignment. Kalashtar, warlocks with aberrant patrons, and telepathic monsters have established unusual yet strong bonds with such creatures. In Droaamish cities it’s common to pair them with the community’s otyugh to act as a long-distance communicator. Great Crag and Graywall have 3-4 mindwitnesses each placed around strategic points in the cities, allowing them to send rapid, private messages between each other and those within range.

A mindwitnesses’ telekinetic ray is also of great use. While Droaam has access to big, strong monsters for heavy lifting, the beholderkin’s ray can be used at long range and also exert fine control, which combined with their natural flight makes them useful assets in construction projects.



Spectator: Spectators are not native to Eberron, instead being summoned from Xoriat via a ritual involving the consumption of beholder eyestalks. Mordain the Fleshweaver was fond of using spectators as magical sentries, albeit isolated from each other due to having a hatred for all others of their kind. As the summoning is one-way, they become free upon completion of the terms of their service, and quite a few live in Droaam.

Physically speaking, spectators are not very strong, and while their eye rays are potent they pale in comparison to their stronger beholderkin. But the most useful ability they have in earning the loyalty of others is being able to create a virtually endless supply of food and water. While such a power is typically used to feed themselves during a summoner’s service as guardian, the nourishment can be shared with others. While Droaam relies on a similar function to feed its populace,* the Daughters of Sora Kell were eager in recruiting or press-ganging spectators to supplement the national diet. This power is a curse as much as a blessing; many individuals are loath to depart with a spectator if their community is poor in resources, and they’re often treated as little better than prisoners, be they in an iron or gilded cage. Furthermore, for those with more altruistic mindsets spectators alone aren’t enough to solve a wide-reaching hunger. Distribution plays a part in this, and the Dragonmarked Houses specializing in food production (notably House Ghallanda and House Vadalis) fear their post-scarcity capabilities and encourage the Five Nations to impose heavy tariffs on food exports from Droaam along with supporting legislatures against “aberrant magical research” involving the monsters.

*Regenerating troll meat in grist mills.

Choker: Calling themselves the Siashlien, or Deep Speech for “Survivors,” chokers have long been regarded as nuisances at best, dangers at worst, by miners and other subterranean denizens of Khyber. It was long thought that the Siashlien were little more than evolved animals due to their solitary lives and lack of larger societal units. Being fluent in only Deep Speech and not Undercommon doesn’t help matters, cutting them off from more meaningful contact with a larger number of neighbors.

Siashlien live this way in order to preserve resources, with parents letting children fend for themselves once they come of age, and also to better evade the stronger denizens of Khyber. The more people who gather long-term in a cave or tunnel system, the easier it is to find evidence of their existence. If communication with others is necessary, Siashlien make use of echoes in areas with the proper acoustics to carry their voices.

House Tharashk and Xor'chylic made meaningful contact with a few Siashlien living in the Khyras tunnel network of Graywall within the past year. Their ability to squeeze through narrow crevices is useful for the purposes of subterranean exploration, and combined with their quickness is helpful for rescue operations where time is of the essence. By bribing them with food and tools to secure a relatively safe life, Graywall’s power players were able to chart vast reaches of Kkhyras that other races are physically unable to reach. In doing so, the city was able to seal off dangerous areas which the forces of the daelkyr and other dangerous creatures could take advantage of. However, some Siashlien haven’t returned from recent sealing operations, and Xor’chylic expects the worst.



Moldfolk (Renamed Vegepygmy): Although outsiders typically call them moldfolk due to being humanoid fungi originating from corpses infected by russet mold, these monsters refer to themselves as "Klaahist." Klaahist in Droaam are most commonly found in the Watching Wood or in caverns throughout the country. When it comes to relations with others they most often ally with the myconids, who have no problem communicating with their otherwise obscure language. Both races use their powers in mutually beneficial ways: when a myconid sovereign’s spore servants are of no more use, they often feed it to russet mold, allowing moldfolk to replenish their numbers. While they dislike sunlight, Klaahists do not suffer ill effects from prolonged exposure, so myconids use them for making expeditions to the surface world in their stead if other races aren’t available to do this. Klaahists also have regenerative properties akin to a troll, with the only reliable way to fell them via cold, fire, or necrotic damage. Some druids and horticulturalists grow them to serve as guardians, albeit they lack the training and tactical mindsets of more professional soldiers.

It is these qualities that motivated the Daughters of Sora Kell to engage in a covert project within the Byeshk Mountains known as Operation Landmine. While most Droaamish citizens would name Breland or the Church of Silver Flame as their nation’s greatest enemies, the hags also fear the druidic factions of the bordering Eldeen Reaches. As an insurance policy against a mountainous invasion they set up various caves and tunnels exiting out into the northern forests with russet mold cultivation facilities. Should a hostile force move through the caverns, they would contend with Klaahists who could use the corpses of the fallen to grow more of their own. In theory, the fungal settlements would serve as a self-sustaining border guard.

While it is billed to those in the know as a preventative measure, it’s inevitable that some Klaahists will escape into the forests of the Eldeen Reaches, upsetting the delicate ecosystem as they spread beyond the mountains. Druidic retaliation in this case will be inevitable if discovered, although some of Droaam’s chibs believe that this outcome is intended by the Daughters of Sora Kell. Klaahists are not strong enough of a hazard or as obvious as harpies or trolls, so there’s some plausible deniability. It also lets the hags gauge the strength and reaction times of the druids without having to commit to more expensive, riskier ventures.

Editing Note: Based on a UN forestry report, native African ethnic groups notable for their short heights consider the term "pygmy" offensive and prefer to be called by their appropriate ethnic names. Thus my use of the other term, moldfolk, for this monster type.



Winter Wolf: There aren’t many winter wolves in Droaam, living in the highest reaches of the Graywall and Byeshk Mountains. They find the warmer lowlands disagreeable and so only a rare few are found elsewhere. Given that the mountain ranges form natural defensive barriers against Breland and the Eldeen Reaches (to say nothing of their largely-untapped mineral wealth), the Daughters of Sora Kell have a heavy stake in controlling them. In addition to local harpy flights, more than a few winter wolf clans pledge loyalty to the Daughters of Sora Kell, with those few resisting suffering dearly from raids and forced into the most remote reaches.

In addition to their role as alpine border patrol, winter wolves as well as the other races of Droaam make use of their freezing breaths in a variety of ways. The most common uses are for preserving perishable supplies and corpses for later resurrection or reanimation, as well as alchemical experiments requiring drastically low temperatures. They’re also fluent in Giant, making them well-suited to working with ogres, trolls, and hill giants for communication purposes.

Aartuk: The goblins and gith were not the only ones whose civilizations were destroyed by the daelkyr. The aartuk are one of the more unusual example, being sentient mobile plants infused with radiant energy. Their numbers vastly reduced, the aartuk survivors are a warrior society who worship a deity they call the New Star, who some sages theorize to be an aspect of Dol Arrah. Native to the Astral Plane, they recently learned of Eberron’s existence, and more importantly the existence of daelkyr sealed in the depths of Khyber. Viewing the Gatekeepers as having merely delayed the inevitable, several aartuk expeditions made their way to Khorvaire, eager to build alliances with natives to conduct underground raids to finish the job.

The aartuk’s strange forms, requirement of psionics among their higher-ranking castes to speak other languages, and otherworldly origin makes most Khorvairans uneasy around them at best. Ironically they found the warmest welcome in Droaam via myconid translators. House Tharashk, who has its share in prospecting operations and monstrous mercenary work, were all too happy to exploit their murderous anti-daelkyr desires and hire them as private security in high-risk dragonshard mining projects. A dwarven clan from the Mror Holds recently hired them in reclaiming portions of Sol Udar, finding an alliance against a common enemy more than agreeable.

Most aartuk in Khorvaire are serving in some martial capacity, although the psionic capabilities of the higher-ranking ones have some broader focus. An elder’s ability to cast the equivalent of a sending spell once per day is ideal for long-distance communication, particularly in the depths of Khyber where House Sivis Sending Stones won’t be present. And while myconids are preferred to have on-site, a Starhorror’s ability to use the equivalent of the tongues spell lets them speak and understand other languages for a relatively short amount of time.* Overall they are slow, but their ability to climb sheer surfaces and use of elongated tongues to pull heavy objects and creatures lets them help others vertically ascend for spelunking. Their radiant pellet attacks also make them good fighters against undead foes, albeit this function hasn’t seen much use in the field yet, given that most are on contract in areas where aberrations are the major threats.

*The Spelljammer errata replaced this spell with Speak With Plants, which is of more limited function in most campaigns. I think Tongues is a better power.

Due to their worship of a starry entity, the Vol’shera (blindheim) hate and fear the aartuk, convinced that they are soldiers of Dol Arrah sent to punish them and reclaim their light-vision. The aartuk themselves have no strong opinions one way or the other regarding the Vol’shera, as they still find much of the Material Plane and its people unknown variables to form any strong biases yet. After a few tragic misunderstandings, House Tharashk quickly learned to never have aartuk and Vol’shera mercenaries hired for the same job or in areas where they’re likely to run into each other.



Half-Ogre: Chasei’ras, or “people of many lineages” in Goblin, is the commonly-accepted term for half-ogres in Droaam, Darguun, and the Shadow Marches. Much like half-elves and half-orcs, half-ogres aren’t solely born of unions from an ogre and human parent. They also include descendants of ogre-goblinoid and ogre-orc couplings and generations’ worth of lineages among the four peoples to the point that they’re a distinct group on their own. Chasei’ras come from hobgoblin and bugbear heritage specifically: goblins are too different in size from ogres to be reproductively compatible.

While humans are rare in Droaam, orcs and goblinoids are some of the most populous groups, and ogres are a common sight in the nation and beyond. Marriage and relationships between the groups occurred from continued proximity in the Barrens, and ogres in particular were favored in order to produce strong children. Ogre chibs ruling over orc and goblinoid clans often had spouses and concubines drawn from their subjects as well as their own race. Ogres who grew old, became chronically injured, or were exiled from their fellows could find a welcome among smaller folk, where their relative weakness was less of an issue. In particular, several communities of Gaa’ran orcs have been known to take in ogres who tire of a violent lifestyle.

The Chasei’ras frequently have ties to people beyond their own local communities, and are the most likely race in Droaam to be multilingual in Goblin, Giant, and/or Orc.* Additionally, they have greater relative freedom of movement in being conspicuous among communities of the three peoples. While Droaam’s largest cities are diverse, most smaller companies are still monoracial. An orc in a goblin town may look out of place, but a half-ogre would not, for passersby are more likely to assume that they’re a relative of one of the locals. It was these qualities that the Daughters of Sora Kell seized on for their project of uniting the region into a nation. Chasei’ras have heavy representation in Droaam as couriers, guides, merchants, and translators, and so they found ample employment in the Dragonne’s Roar, House Tharashk’s middleman service for vetting monstrous mercenaries.

*If using Kanon sources such as Exploring Eberron, Goblin is already the lingua franca of the three groups, so their linguistic diversity can be excised while still keeping their role as multicultural ambassadors.



Xorn: The presence and use of xorn is a growing yet controversial issue within Droaam. These elementals typically find their way to Eberron by accident, stumbling through manifest zones linked to Khythri or summoned by mages. Their ability to harmlessly swim through earth and rock, as well as being able to smell nearby sources of precious metal and stone, makes them valuable assets as treasure hunters. Unlike khargra they do not suffer harm or are shunted out should they lair in the stone for a bit, and they can smell non-ferrous as well as ferrous metals.

The biggest hindrance holding xorn back from widespread use are several factors: they don’t like staying in Eberron for long, they eat gems and precious metals (their waste doesn’t produce substances of equivalent value), and they’re willing to resort to violence to obtain such things if starving or they feel slighted. Would-be miners often make deals with xorn ahead of time for finding mineral veins, where a portion of product is set aside as “Eberron’s share” to feed the elemental. As gems and metals given to xorn more or less vanish and thus cannot be put into circulation, this negatively impacts the economic value of mining operations long-term if xorn are allowed to persist for too long.

The more underhanded use of xorn is by rival mining companies seeking to drive their competition to financial ruin. When a vein, dragonshard, or gemstone deposit is discovered, saboteurs summon xorn to let loose into the mines to have their fill and attack any miners who try to stop them. Given how valuable mining is as a resource for Droaam, there’s been discussion among the chibs to reign in xorn summoners. But at the moment, the nation is still too young and decentralized for anything systemic to be done. Whatever must be done will have to be at the local level, likely by adventuring PCs.



Important Note: Xvart are very much a comic relief monster. As humor is subjective and this may not tonally fit everyone's campaign, this is more of an "optional" entry than the others for this homebrew. I still wanted to incorporate their setting-specific lore into a way that works in Eberron while preserving their silly nature.

Xvart: During the Age of Demons, there was an Overlord known as Raxivort. The weakest among his kind, he got lucky in finding out the couatls’ plan to trap the other Overlords within the Silver Flame. A weak and fearful being by archdemon standards, Raxivort did everything in his power to find a way to avoid being bound. In fact, he hoped that with the other Overlords trapped, he would be able to rule Eberron uncontested.

Only half of Raxivort’s plan worked. He was able to tap into a powerful ritual that would let him evade the watchful eyes of dragons and couatl and thus remain free, but in so doing scattered his essence across the world. The first xvarts were created from the countless shards of the former Overlord, individually infinitesimally weak to the point that they don’t register as fiends to conventional magic.

Raxivort’s name and legacy has since passed into history, forgotten even by the dragons who considered the whole idea ridiculous. But the xvarts never forgot, and praise their demonic ancestor as the only one clever enough to avoid imprisonment. That their societies never rose to the heights of legend doesn’t dissuade them, as the xvart people have faith that they will summon Raxivort again and become the true masters of the planet. Other civilizations pay them little mind, unconvinced that such a weak and meager race could be the favored inheritors of such a powerful and evil being.

Most xvarts live on the fringes of society given that their size, poor judgment skills, and relative lack of magical power makes them easy pickings for other groups to chase off or otherwise take advantage of them. In spite of their open and proud fiend worship, xvart have a history of inadvertently aiding the forces of good. The other Overlords are regarded as competition for their god, and they have a vested interest in seeing the Silver Flame maintained. As for the daelkyr, they’re regarded as newcomers and opportunists making a mess of their master’s carefully cultivated world. In regards to more mundane evils, xvarts prize Darwinistic treachery and frequently sabotage their superior’s plots in the belief that this will help them climb up the hierarchical ladder by making their superiors look weak in comparison. Waldorf Fragerman, Khorvaire’s most famous xvart, accidentally achieved status as a Brelish national hero this way by pushing a necromantic terrorist of the Emerald Claw off the top of Sharn’s tallest tower during the middle of her magically broadcast ransom message.

Some xvart clans made pilgrimages to the Shadow Marches and Thrane, offering to form alliances against greater evils. The Gatekeepers assigned them to weed duty, which the xvarts gleefully interpreted as carte blanche to commit floral mass murder on account of druidic teachings that every living being has a soul. As for the Church of Silver Flame, they didn’t know what to make of them and put the xvarts in a prison/school in hopes of converting them to a more wholesome religion. The xvarts interpreted these efforts as having successfully infiltrated the Church in order to learn all their secrets, and so are more than willing to play the role of eager converts.

For useful abilities, the xvart’s universal method of speaking with bats and rats gave them leverage for unique societal niches. Many cities and towns employ xvarts to persuade rat infestations to leave or be corralled somewhere else for slaughter, which is indispensable in minimizing and avoiding the spread of plague. In regards to bats, they are some of the most prolific guano farmers in Khorvaire, and during the Last War many magical battalions made use of xvarts to supply material components for fireball spells. Their inability to speak with mice is a source of great anger and shame, and xvarts believe the animals to be treacherous servants of rival Overlords.

When it comes to relations with other cultures, xvarts are quick to declare them their rivals and seek to outdo them, but only for Small and Tiny races that can’t easily overpower them. The propensity of some gnomes to communicate with small beasts causes the xvart to chide them for trying to “make too many friends with too many people,” suggesting that they “settle with a few trusted companions, like my lil’ buddy Bubonic.” While for goblins, they are quick to claim that ancient Dhakaani poetry and siege weapons are “but a pale shade of the victory-screeches and rat-slings of our Overlord Raxivort.” No matter how powerful or grand some other group of people are, a xvart will find an excuse to see their shortcomings.

For the past two weeks I’ve been diligently working on this homebrew project. While I did have plans for future monsters, I’m beginning to run out of steam and must shelve it for the foreseeable future. I’d like to return to it sometime, but with 40 unique entries I’m quite happy with what I accomplished already and hope it’s of inspiration to peoples’ Eberron campaigns.

Over on the Eberron Discord, Jamie. Servant of Xor’chylic suggested that it be more explicit in the Daughters of Sora Kell using the water weirds used as a threat against dissension via controlling access to water supplies. I liked this idea, so I edited it into the monster’s entry up above.

“Additionally, the weirds act as a tool of soft leverage in preventing local communities from rebelling against the Daughters by cutting off safe access to water. This threat is often unspoken, but has been enforced against chibs who stepped above their station. It's one thing to send your subjects to fight your battles; another for subjects to turn on you when you're blamed for their starvation.”