- Art Credit to Scott Purdy (on deviantART)
A mounted horseman gallops forth, soaked head to toe in gore and waving a blade with wild abandon. Yet as he moves, it becomes clear that horse and rider are joined as one—a humanoid torso sprouting from equine withers—and the gore is a grisly vision of naked muscle and leaking veins.
Nuckelavee
Large Fey, Chaotic Evil
---------------------
Armor Class: 18 (natural)
Hit Points: 160 (16d10+64)
Speed: 50ft, swim 50ft.
---------------------
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
18(+4) 16(+3) 18(+4) 8(-1) 14(+2) 14(+2)
---------------------
Proficiency: +5
Saving Throws: Strength +9, Dexterity +8, Wisdom +7
Skills: Perception +7, Stealth +8
Condition Immunities: Charmed, Exhaustion, Frightened, Paralyzed
Damage Immunities: Poison
Damage Resistances: Cold; Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren't cold iron
Senses: Darkvision 120ft, Passive Perception 17
Languages: Sylvan, does not speak
Challenge: 12
----------------------
Charge: If the nuckelavee moves at least 20 feet straight toward a target and then hits it with an attack with its longsword on the same turn, the target takes an extra 2d8 slashing damage. If the target is a creature, it must also succeed on a DC 17 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Horrifying Visage: Any creature that starts its turn within 60ft of the nuckelavee and can see it must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A frightened creature cannot take reactions. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of its turns, with disadvantage if the nuckelavee is in its line of sight. If the creature succeeds on its saving throw, or the effect ends early for it, it is immune to the nuckelavee's Horrifying Visage for the next 24 hours.
Innate Spellcasting: The nuckelavee may cast the following spells innately without expending material components. Charisma is its spellcasting ability modifier.
- 3/Day: Control Water, Fog Cloud
Regeneration: The nuckelavee regains 10 hit points at the start of its turn, or 20 hit points if it is in contact with water. If the nucklevaee takes fire or radiant damage, this trait doesn't function at the start of the nuckelavee's next turn. The nuckelavee dies only if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn't regenerate.
Two Heads: The nuckelavee has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks and on saving throws against being blinded, deafened, and stunned.
Underwater Camouflage: The nuckelavee has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made while underwater.
-----------------------
ACTIONS
Multiattack: The nuckelavee attacks twice with its longsword and then attacks once with a back kick. The nuckelavee also can use two reactions each round to make attacks of opportunity, one with its longsword and one with its back kick.
Longsword (Melee Weapon Attack): +9 to hit, reach 5ft, one target; Damage (1d8+4) slashing damage and (3d6) poison damage.
Back Kick (Melee Weapon Attack): +9 to hit, reach 5ft, one target; Damage (2d8+4) bludgeoning damage and the target is knocked prone unless they succeed on a DC 17 Strength saving throw.
Mortasheen Breath (Recharge 5-6): As an action, the nuckelavee can exhale a 30ft cone of diseased air. Any creatures within the cone must make a DC 17 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, they take 12d8 points of poison damage and gain the poisoned condition until they complete a long rest. On a success, they take half as much damage and are not poisoned. A poisoned creature may repeat the saving throw at the end of their turn, ending the condition on a success.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Living Irony: The dreaded nuckelavee is a manifestation of pollution and filth, be it the natural decay of a red tide or the intrusive pollution of sewage and other urban waste. A nuckelavee is a living irony—a carrier of disease and a spreader of corruption that unleashes its wrath against other sources that bring corruption into the world. The corruption spread by nuckelavees only serves to further their own sense of self-loathing and overall rage. While nuckelavees might, incidentally, carry out vengeance for the victims of such pollution, defending the denizens of their rivers, swamps, and bogs is not their primary drive, for they revel in inflicting the very corruption they hate and enjoy little more than watching their enemies sicken and die.
Keep It Close: Folktales tell of talismans to carry—fetishes of seaweed garlands, horsehair soaked in brine, or vials of sanctified seawater—or of prayers to recite to ward away nuckelavees or convince them the bearer is innocent. In truth, the protection afforded by such things against the vile plague-bearers is haphazard at best. Some scholars theorize that it is not the talismans or prayers by themselves that keep the nuckelavee at bay, but the rather the sincere belief that is invested into them by the monster’s would-be-victims. In other words, faith is what keeps such monsters away. A pity that faith is in such short supply in these dark times.
Despoiler’s Bane: Among the cruelest and most monstrous creations of the fey, nuckelavees ride forth from black waters to wreak bloody vengeance upon those who despoil nature. Horrifying, skinless amalgams of man and horse, these monstrous avengers embody every wound and wickedness suffered by the wilds, their bodies loosing trails of gore and the pounds of their webbed hooves beating an inescapable threnody for all who earn their ire. Once they emerge from their refuges beneath cool waves or rivers, only destruction satisfies their merciless crusades, either that of their victims or their own.
