Challenge Rating 11 to 16 (deadly encounters)
_These twisted dryads have been turned into vampiric monstrosities by undead warlocks and vampiric experiments._ **Charred Dryads.** With burnt and blackened skin, burnt twigs for hair, and clawed hands and feet that resemble burnt and twisted r...
_The frame of this withered demon’s corpse barely fills the ash-colored plate armor that encases it. It carries a serrated khopesh sword in spiked gauntlets that hiss with violet smoke, and a horned ivory mask devoid of features is nailed to its f...
_Writhing black tendrils stretch from this indistinct orb of pure shadow. The faintest flicker of something green, like an eye, appears for a moment in the center of the globe and then fades to black again._ **Called from Darkness.** Voidlings a...
_The dread sons of Fenris are hideously strong and dangerous in their mastery of the arcane. Their acidic breath stinks of death, and they move with a menacing grace. Eldritch blood runs in their veins._ **Demonic Wolves.** Demonic black eyes, t...
_This large statue of emerald-green crystal has a humanoid body with the head of an ibis. Tiny symbols and runes are etched into it, and portions are inlaid with bits of gold._ **Occult Initiates.** Smaragdine golems are crafted by disciples of ...
_Wisps of humid wind revolve around this spiny ball. Two massive black eyes and a dark mouth are the only features visible through its static straight quills._ **Chaos Aging.** Despite its comical appearance, a slow storm is a creature of chaos,...
_Skein witches are androgynous humanoids mummified in writhing diamond thread. Their skin is translucent, and suspended inside their bodies are dozens of quivering hourglasses in place of organs._ **Shepherd Destiny.** Skein witches are curators...
_This glittering pool stands among lush and verdant fruiting plants._ **Underground Oasis.** A vesiculosa is a huge, burrowing pitcher plant that dwells in oases, spurring nearby growth and luring in prey with soporific scents and tainted water....
Medium Undead, CR 13. From Tome of Beasts.
_These warrior women, armed with cruel-looking swords, sit astride massive winged wolves. Each of them is as beautiful, graceful, and fierce as a well-honed war ax._ **Choosers of the Slain.** Valkyries are sent by Odin to decide the course of b...
_Tall and powerful, this creature resembles a strong man with well‑chiseled muscles, save its equine head, flaring nostrils, and hoofed feet._ The orobas thrive in Hell, selling their knowledge to those who have the coin (or other form of paymen...
_The fiendish hulk bears features taken from a nightmare scorpion, with three stinging tails and four limbs, and wields a massive scythe._ _**Transforming Poison.**_ Poison from any one of the koralk’s three stingers liquefies the target’s insid...
_This mass of fused corpses resembles a butterfly with wings of skin, limbs of bone, and a head formed of several different skulls. The dark magic that formed this abomination swirls around it hungrily._ **Bound by Necromancy.** Flutterflesh res...
_The isonade’s gargantuan thrashing tail is lined with cruelly hooked barbs, and it delights in destruction. When it approaches a coastal village, its tail shoots high into the air from beneath the waves, and it smashes all ships, docks, and nets ...
_An eye golem is muscular giant, well-proportioned with smooth, marble-white skin covered in eye-like sigils. When it opens one of its eyes opens for a moment, a beam as bright as the sun shines forth, piercing the darkness._ **Covered in Arcana...
Large Elemental, CR 15. From Tome of Beasts.
_A hoard golem is a pile of gold, jewelry, and weapons that can rise on its own like a tidal wave of riches, with a cold and determined face. A hoard golem can crash down with the weight of a fortune, flattening everything in its path._ **Dragon...
_The heralds of blood are 20-foot-tall giants with bruised purple skin, and wart-like blood blisters that deform their features. They often wear cowled robes over golden armor streaked with black or green, and their staves of power are always ebon...
_The reeking pile of bodies and bones as large as a giant lurches forward. Corpses that tumble off it rise moments later as undead and follow the determined hill of corruption._ **Rise from Mass Graves.** In times of plague and war, hundreds of ...
_A thick swirl of dust rises, settles, and forms the vague outline of a man—two points of yellow light shine where its eyes should be, staring malevolently._ **Mound Haunter.** A haugbui is an undead spirit tied to its burial mound or barrow. It...
_With black wings and a body pale as alabaster, the vulture-beaked gypsosphinx is easy to identify. As powerful servants of the gods of death and the desert, their riddles and obsessions all hinge on death and carrion. Their eyes can spot prey mil...
_The gugs are giants of the underworld, long since banished into dark realms for their worship of the eldest and foulest gods._ **Underworld Godlings.** Gugs enjoy smashing and devouring lesser creatures, and their burbling and grunting speech d...
_A skeletal cadaver bedecked in the motley attire of a fool capers about while making jokes that mock mortality._ **Amusing Death.** When a jester on his deathbed moves an evil death god to laughter, the fool sometimes gains a reprieve. becoming...
_The black horse strides out of the shadows with its nostrils huffing steam. Its rider, swathed in black leather, raises his arm to reveal not a lantern but its own severed, grinning head._ Though it appears to be a headless rider astride a blac...