i have another fav from the monster manual, this one a bit more of a hear me out
the tsochari though
each individual is a colony of parasites that slither in your body and puppet it from within with telepathy and torture 🥺
they only care about pursuing arcane secrets and view humans as nothing but tools 🥺 but they themselves were created as tools to bring populaces to compliance in preparation for their masters' conquest
also i'm not even projecting with this, one of the clues of tsochar possession is a swollen belly. imagine walking around in public, filled with squirming parasites, and someone looks you up and down, then says "congratulations" but you can't correct them because you have no mouth and cannot scream
Horrid Things From Beyond the Veil - Aberrant Evils
Horrid Things From Beyond the Veil – Aberrant Evils
Heroes of D&D meet their match!
Among the most foul creatures within the realms of D&D is the aberration. Some hail these terrors of entities spawned from a distant realm unlike anything else; The Far Realm. Others fear that they are perversions of our own reality, distortions that prove how horrible magic can truly be. No matter the case, they lurk in dark shadows and hover beyond the veil,…
[I actually had a PC infested with a tsochar in one of my games who hurled himself into an active volcano rather than allow the tsochar to threaten his allies. Pretty sweet stuff. The original tsochar was a bit overwritten, with its ability to both ride inside a living creature and take over a dead one. The latter is cool, but it really feels like it’s cribbing off of the intellect devourer’s playbook. So I focused more on the riding part, and included the possession version as a variant.]
Tsochar
This lamprey-like creature appears similar to a bundle of living wires wound each other, ending in a multi-jawed maw. Four of the bundles extend from its body, ending in black claws.
The tsochars are a species of grotesque parasites from a distant world that serve the nihilistic Dominion of the Black. A tsochar is a body snatcher of the most horrifying kind, as it uses coercion and threats to render its victims accomplices. A tsochar crawls inside an unsuspecting host, striking sleeping targets whenever possible. Once inside, the aberration integrates itself into the nervous system of its host, able to share the senses of its victim but not control its movements. Rather, it becomes something of a wicked conscience, telepathically whispering threats and promises to its host in order to encourage the host to obey the tsochar’s cruel desires. A recalcitrant host finds itself wracked with horrible pain from the tsochar’s ministrations, and the tsochar makes ample use of its tendrils and stolen spells to injure the host’s loved ones until it proves compliant.
Perhaps more fearsome are tsochars that are inhabiting a willing host. These are typically destructive nihilists, maniacs or sadists who share the Dominion’s goals of absolute entropy. The partnership between a willing host and its tsochar is often mutually beneficial, as the host gains the ability to use its spells in a devastating nova of actions, whereas the tsochar gains a meal and the protection that the flesh of others provides. Such a host should not consider itself in an equal partnership, however, as the tsochar will gladly abandon or betray its host if the goals and desires of the two no longer coincide.
Tsochar Puppeteer
The greatest of the tsochar are those that can not only ride inside the body of a host, but consume and control them completely. A tsochar puppeteer is a tsochar with the advanced subtype and the body thief special quality of an intellect devourer. A tsochar puppeteer can access the spells and spell-like abilities of the body it steals, but cannot recover them through rest or study—as such, puppeteers tend to be very selective about their spell use. A tsochar puppeteer is CR 5.
Tsochar CR 4
XP 1,200
CE Small aberration
Init +4; Senses blindsense 30 ft., darkvision 60 ft., Perception +10Defense
AC 17, touch 15, flat-footed 13 (+1 size, +4 Dex, +2 natural)
hp 37 (5d8+15)
Fort +4, Ref +5, Will +8
DR 5/adamantine; Resist cold 10; SR 15
Offense
Speed 20 ft., climb 10 ft.
Melee 4 claws +8 (1d4+1 plus grab)
Special Abilities constrict (2d4+1), grab (Medium), steal spells, wear flesh
Statistics
Str 13, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 15, Wis 14, Cha 17Base Atk +3; CMB +6; CMD 17 (cannot be tripped)
Feats Agile Maneuvers, Iron Will, Weapon Finesse
Skills Bluff +8, Climb +9, Intimidate +11, Knowledge (arcana) +10, Perception +10, Stealth +16, Use Magic Device +8
Languages Aklo, Common, Protean, telepathy 100 ft.
Ecology
Environment cold plains
Organization solitary, tangle (2-8) or infestation (10-20)
Treasure double standard
Special Abilities
Steal Spells (Su) A tsochar using its wear flesh ability on a creature able to cast spells or with spell-like abilities may use any of these spells or spell-like abilities it chooses as a standard action on its turn. An unwilling host may resist this with a DC 15 Will save. Spells or spell-like abilities used in this fashion are still expended.
Wear Flesh (Su) A tsochar can climb inside of the body of a willing or helpless creature. The creature must be the same size as the tsochar or larger, and the process takes 1 minute. A tsochar can abandon a body it inhabits as a full round action that deals 3d6 points of damage to the host (Fort DC 15 half). A tsochar can be forced to abandon a body with a remove curse or dispel evil against a caster level equal to the tsochar’s Hit Dice, or with a heal spell or similar effect with no caster level check.
When wearing a creature’s flesh, the tsochar can communicate with the host telepathically and shares its senses. It may choose, as a standard action, to unsheathe its tentacles from the body of its host, dealing 3d6 points of damage (no save) to its host. A tsochar with exposed tentacles may make claw attacks against other creatures, but it may be attacked in turn, although it is treated as having cover inside of its host’s body. It may also choose to inflict horrible pain on a creature it inhabits, dealing 3d6 points of damage and nauseating its host for 1d4 rounds (Fort DC 15 negates the nauseated effect). The save DC is Constitution based.
Any damage dealt to a host of a tsochar deals half damage to the host and half to the tsochar. Likewise, any healing spell or effect heals half damage to each the host and the tsochar. The tsochar feeds on the blood of its host, dealing 1d3 Con damage each day. Most tsochars take means to mitigate this damage through the use of bed rest and restorative magic.
