It Is Believed That Only The Most Twisted Fey Become Bogeyman, As Well As The Victims They Abduct; So

It is believed that only the most twisted fey become bogeyman, as well as the victims they abduct; so long as they are male, can become bogeymen. The bogeyman looks like what the stories say he looks like. If a mother warns her son of a long thin man with knifes for hands who punishes rotten children, then the monster that appears before the child will be thin and tall with claws or metal daggers in place of fingers.

A bogeyman has its own preference for whether it's weapons are part of their body or held and this stays true no matter what the story of it is. Either way if it is slain it and any of its equipment melt into shadow.

They relish using their abilities to torment a creature, enjoying their growing realization that something is creeping nearby. They prefer lone targets as groups allow comfort to the victims, souring their taste. They only fight groups willingly if cornered or in their lair, where their victims and food sources are stored.

They usually haunt secluded locations but the most evil bogeymen are ones who become serial killers, tormenting entire towns and cities and feeding on the mass fear, in which case their powers grow but the likelihood that competent adventurers will find them rises as well.

Lair actions under the cut

Lair and Lair Actions

Bogeymen tend to haunt places where few people wander, like the abandoned shack just outside town, but arent shy of waiting under a bed or a closet. Once a bogeyman has thoroughly learned every inch of a building it can be treated as its lair, even while an unsuspecting family still lives in the house. Vermin, and spiders seem to show up out of nowhere, and the building becomes unsettling overnight.

Lair Actions

On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the bogeyman takes a lair action to cause one of the following effects; the bogeyman can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row:

Any two creatures the bogeyman can see are assaulted by shadows from the corner of the room. provided the creatures are within 10 feet of each other and not in bright light they must make a DC 13 Strength saving throw or be pulled up to 15 feet towards the wall and be grappled until the end of their next turns.

A identical copy of the bogeyman forms in a point it can see within 60 feet of itself provided it and the point are not in bright light. This copy is physical but has 1 hit point, and can take no offensive actions but can pretend to. At the point of forming the bogeyman can choose to swap places instantaneously with its copy, forcing enemies to guess which one to attack. The double lasts until the bogeyman dismisses it as a bonus action, uses this lair action again, or dies, or the double takes any damage. In any case it shatters and disperses into its choice of vermin.

Shadows swirl in a 10 foot cube within 30 feet of the bogeyman, any creature in this area must make a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw or lose all resistances until the next initiative count 20. Can be used on targets in any light level.

Regional Effects

The region containing a legendary bogeyman's lair is sullied by the bogeymans magic, which creates one or more of the following effects:

Creatures sleeping within or within 30 feet of the lair have difficulty sleeping, having a 50% chance to gain no benefit of resting in the area. Additionally these creatures lose their positive emotions over time.

Light sources dwindle twice as fast as normal, and if no creatures observe them for 20 minutes or longer they go out.

The air within the area blows with an unpleasant chill all hours of the day.

Creatures feel as if something is standing behind them breathing at all times.

If the bogeyman dies, these effects fade over the course of 1d4 days.

Dragon priests are a similar case to lichdom, cultists who devote their entire life to dragons, and if the dragon is powerful enough, their entire death as well. They typically have a mask and full body robe based around the dragons colors to hide their decayed and rotten body from those who might judge the dragon for unsightly minions. While technically possible for metallic dragons to have the servitude of a dragon priest, they are much more likely to shun the practice.

Toxling look the purple torsos of a large spider, lacking a head or abdomen, the underside is a pale almost white color.

They have excellent hearing and leap at any creature nearby as they can hear the blood pumping through them. Once they find prey they latch on and several stingers on the bottom of its body stab into the creature. Should it fall prey to their poisons they begin to slurp out the digested insides through a special mouth part in the center of their body.

Their carapace hides a thing layer of gases that isolate all sound coming from inside the toxlings body preventing them from interfering with the toxlings sense of hearing, however should this gas heat up it is violently flammable.

Ooooookay, so I did some proofreading, formatted the thing, and made it a bit nicer to look at. This took me faaaar longer than I wanted it too, and I’m not even done. Since this is a playtest I only included the single fortification type (walls), and have kept the maneuver system simple to avoid any complications since there are so many systems working in unison here. I know this is definitely going to need tweaks, but for now it’s at least usable. I need to find some time to do some dry runs with it to work out the kinks but things are for too hectic right now to be able to set aside time for mechanical testing. If anyone gets a chance to go over this please let me know how it goes!

As always, questions and comments are welcome. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Dare: The Glittering Reef: 

“While the dragon may long be dead, there’s more than one predator in these waters. You best be quick if you wish to claim your prize.“

Setup: Generations ago the crystal clear waters of the Ildathan coast ran red with blood, as a terrible archdrake terrorized the trade routes and savaged any merchant ship it caught eyes on. Known to locals as Hullraker, this beast would use its powerful claws to crack open the body of ships to gorge itself on sailors and treasure alike. 

While its a myth that dragons eat gold, they do sometimes devour valuable objects to spit up into their hordes later. This habbit would eventually lead to the drake’s defeat, as a group of clever pirates tired of the drake’s meddling caste a series of golden cannonballs, then hollowed them out and filled them with black powder, and an alchemical compound that would ignite after being exposed to the drake’s insides for some length of time.  Loading up a dummy ship with their deadly decoys and piles of coin as bait, they watched in glee as the drake’s belly exploded mid air, showering the sea with golden shrapnel and sending Hullraker plunging into the reef below. 

The Challenge: Since the time of its death, treasure hunters have paddled out to the glimmering reef in the hopes of  reclaiming a portion of the dragons last, fatal meal. Having stripped most of the upper reef clear of coins. Now after years of plundering only the strongest of divers can make it down to the dark, shark infested shelf of the reef where the dragon’s bones and the bulk of its treasure remains. Tradition is that each diver only takes a single coin, and while one gold piece isn’t much to an adventure, a “drowned queen” (one of the particular printing of coins the pirates used for the bulk of their bait) is a mighty prize among sailors and other folk of the sea, said to confer the luck and cunning of the pirates that took Hullraker down. 

Last of the location plot hooks. Support or commission me here!