Mad Slasher
Image by Stephen Tappin, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the D&D Miniatures Handbook Art Gallery here
[Commissioned by @crazytrain48. All of the monsters in the D&D Miniatures Handbook have very simple mechanics, which means that I tend to add things to them. It is my philosophy that every monster needs some sort of unique mechanic, even if it’s a little thing. So I often have to fish around the flavor text for inspiration, which is how I came upon the mad tittering ability. Incidentally, I have run a fight with one of these--it’s one of the first big encounters in “The Whispering Cairn”, the first module in the Age of Worms AP.]
Mad Slasher CR 2 CE Aberration This creature has a body that is mostly a single oversized eye, low slung and carried beneath six insectile limbs. Each limb is tipped with a curved blade. The thing titters abominably.
Mad slashers are bizarre predators of seasonal forests, just intelligent enough to be cruel. They are communal creatures that live in hollowed out trees or crevices in the earth, packed tightly together in strange, quivering huddles. They are blood feeders, and their mouths are on the underside of their limbs, just above the claws. When a mad slasher strikes at prey, blood runs up a groove in the claw into the mouth. Once prey is slaughtered, mad slashers stand in puddles of gore, bobbing up and down and chittering obscenely until their prey is drained dry.
A mad slasher lives for violence. It tries to dive into the middle of a fray, allowing it to be surrounded in order to slash at as many foes at once as possible. Their tittering laughter grows louder and more frenetic the more blood is spilled, reaching a level that other creatures find upsetting and distracting. A lone mad slasher will typically fight to the death, but they are aware of each other enough that if multiple members of a pack are slain, the last survivors will flee.
A mad slasher can live for a remarkably long time with little food and water, and they’ve been reported as surviving in sealed dungeon rooms for decades, if not centuries. They understand Aklo, but attempts to communicate with them typically lead to even more frenzied violence.