The Only D&D Monster Your Dungeon Will Ever Need 

now this is the shuckle evolution we need

A Deep Spawn and a False Hydra sound like natural enemies. Imagine these two long-lived rivals trying to outgaslight the other with the party and lead them to their rival's lair

I like the idea that the less of a victim a deep spawn eats the more degraded the first clone starts at.

Presumably, like their Beholder Cousins, the Deep Spawn are usually, shall we say, A bit mentally unstable. Imagine a Deep Spawn that was influenced by a Paladin to do good...A bit like Flower, but with a paladin instead of a wizard. So the Deep Spawn basically turns a dungeon into the equivalent of a Hippie Commune. All of its minions know that the Deep Spawn will be upset if anything evil goes on, so you could have some pretty bizarre situations. Cleric: Did that troll just invite us in for tea and cookies and promise it wouldn't hurt anyone? In the Paladin's Aura of Truth?

Actually, it'd be really cool if there was a Deep Spawn interested in nothing but exceptionally rare species and have it turn itself into the heart of a Garden of Eden of sorts where clones of these rare monsters can continue existing even after the species is extinct, like a living archive

Now I'm imagining a prestigious monster slayer's guild which is oddly devoid of taxidermied beasts. They claim they're doing it for the safety of the realm and not the glory, but in reality a deep spawn is eating their carcasses for its own purposes.

Massive plot twist you could have in your game is revealing that the party actually lost a fight with a Deep Spawn and its minions, being sent back out into the world as sleeper agents once they had been cloned. Perhaps they were somehow cloned *too* perfectly, allowing them to chip away at the mental shackles binding them to their new father/mother. Maybe they only realize what happened when something they find temporarily disrupts the enthrallment. They are still beholden to the Deep Spawn, but now a sliver of their soul has begun to rebel against it.

That is such a calm kitty. You obviously raised him well.

I used a deepspawn once, as a minion to a powerful red dragon. The dragon used him to prepare a themed dungeon for the party, as part of an elaborate revenge scheme. First, he populated the dungeon with multiple copies of an annoying miniboss the party had killed in the previous story arc. (he got him ressurected once to get a fresh body) Then, when the party refused to walk into a trap, he felt so insulted, he took a hostage they didn't save and fed her to the deepspawn so he could repeatedly snack on her.

In the second campaign I was ever involved in our dm used a deep spawn in a fairly early encounter of ours. We did decent but clearly were on our way to a tpk so we got out of the sewers it was hiding in and alerted the local slayers guild and that was the end of it for us. And a way time later we finally went back to our roots and returned to our first "Hub City" as we called it and the city was thriving as it was before thanks to it's agricultural and smithing focus. But there was seemingly a boom in technology in the last two years while we were gone, nearly more so than the last two-hundred years the city as been established. And so we investigated and we learned of a new faction that specialized in technological advancements in the city that had become nearly adjacent to the slayers guild and so we went to them and learned that anyone belonging to the new faction was never seen speaking or without a mask on. Which of course we thought was suspicious but nobody seemed to mind since they took commissions and would at least try and normally succeed at making what was requested. And due to some "base level mind reading," our buddy heard him say something on the lines of "why does this one not wear the uniform, has this one betrayed mother?" So our rougue did his thing and followed him to their headquarters (pretty much just an estate) and after some patience, he watched three of them take of their masks and boom. Three people that looked identical to our artificer then one more, then two more, and that's when he came back and told us. And I have never since then seen a table so crazy yet silent before, bouncing around yet we couldn't find our words. So we went talked to our old friend the king and with a small party of his royal guard, we took the estate with their help and they stayed on guard while we interrogated one of the clones. Got him to tell us about a secret tunnel and we found the foe that nearly killed us way long ago. And still to this day, it was my favorite dnd moment at the table because it showed me how insane dnd can really be. So happy you've covered one of my all time favorites!

"Now if you're like me, and I know I am" is SUCH a line. 10/10, one of the lines of all time

The whole time I couldn’t stop thinking about the psychology of the clones. What does it feel like to be so fiercely loyal to their Deepspawn? How do they justify their attachment or make sense of it in their head? What if the original creature hated Deepspawns, how does it affect the clone? Do they have mixed feelings about it? What happens to the clones once their Deepspawn dies? Do they just wander off and reintegrate into society the best they can? Do they mourn the death of their creator? All I’m saying is that this is a really interesting backstory for a PC for those who like to go heavy on roleplay and such. Imagine playing as a clone whose Deepspawn was killed and who is now conflicted about their identity and path in life. Torn between feeling like they should return back to the original character’s life, loved ones, and their responsibilities and wanting to be their own person and make their own path in life, all while dealing with the psychological turmoil of losing their creator, who was an objectively evil monster, but who they still feel lingering loyalty towards. But also, imagine a kingdom in which the crown prince disappears and the party is sent to find and bring him back. They find and kill a Deepspawn and discover that it made multiple copies of the prince. Now all these copies return back to the kingdom and throw it into chaos by fighting for the title of “next in line for the crown.” What will the current ruling king do? What will the younger siblings of the original crown prince do? What will the neighboring kingdoms do? There is SO MUCH potential for political intrigue, drama, royal murders, civil uprisings, scheming, spying, invasions, betrayal, etc.! The possibilities are so numerous that it’s overwhelming.

Unless I missed it, there's nothing that says their spawn will stop existing after the deep spawn dies, so it could be possible that after the players destroy one they may get attacked at some point by it's vengeful children.

I immediately thought of a Warlock whose patron is a Deep Spawn, and the warlock is a creature spawned from the Deep Spawn, plus you say that Deep Spawn are “typically” Chaotic Evil, so one could easily be of a neutral or good alignment. Edit: Since Kythons are native to the material plane I can see a Deep Spawn eating a Kython Slaymaster and creating a copy which starts laying eggs, soon the Deep Spawn has a huge colony of assassins who are fiercely loyal to it with no need to spawn any more copies.

I'd imagine that these have some horrible ties to beholders. -Meatballs with a bunch of eyes -Tentacles with face bits on them -Can clone stuff -Tactical -Abberations So you know if a beholder dreams of another beholder, it spawns a clone of itself? What if these guys come from a beholder's nightmare? Like, those weird ones where you see a creepy doppelganger version of yourself, that kind of thing?

Ok, but imagine using this as a player in your backstory. I could see being an aberrant mind sorcerer who was spawned by one of these. Totally awesome, and encountering clones of that character later would be a compelling and creepy plot point.

Ooh also, a deepspawn making itself a bunch of mimics and doppelgänger clones could turn into a real funhouse dungeon real fast

It might be cruel of me but I was imagining the deep spawn having asked a previous heroic party that has defeated a tarrasque a piece of his flesh so over the years he had amassed a small army of them, maybe one hiding underneath each city as the deep spawn wants to be the true king of the continent with the current party trying to find him and kill him without raising suspicion or else a tarrasque might have to come for them

A deep spawn clone as a player character sounds really interesting. You could totally have a low level adventuring party get munched by the deep spawn and then each of them gets sent back to join other parties, as a sort of twist on the motivation "I'm doing this to support my family".

"Giant tentacle mouth meatball" has to be one of the most apt descriptions I've heard.

If anything this has inspired me to make a homebrew shuckle monster

I'd use a deep spawn to be a guardian put into place to keep a greater evil being imprisoned/at bay whether it be a dracolich, demon, or aboleth. Say a neutral deity put this deep spawn in this position as guardian or to keep tabs on the imprisoned being to either prevent them from escaping or for studying said monsters and reporting their findings to that deity. The players are led to believe that this deep spawn is the monster terrorizing a town by a warlock whose patron is either the dracolich, demon, or aboleth so imprisoned. It could be played out in so many ways.

Imagine a session that ends with an encounter with a deep spawn, but the next one starts with waking up with a foggy recollection of the last session, and suddenly your new goal is to protect the deepspawn and do it’s bidding, with the players eventually finding out they’re clones

two words; Circus Horror. Clown monsters progressively getting more mangled and disheveled as the team tries to find the cause of the chaos sounds like a fun 1 shot

I've got a plot Idea thanks to your videos. A deepspawn has an entire town it controls. But, it seeks out a group of adventurers for help, as something plaguing Its town and its spawn. It wouldnt reveal itself, as it does use this town to lure travelers, merchants and adventurers. But it really needs help, as its town's population seems to be less and less despite it generating more and more spawn to expand said town. And what is actually going on, is the Deepspawn's town is being preyed upon by a False Hydra. a war over a town where neither of the two sides are even aware that theyre fighting each other in the first place. The party getting caught in the middle.

Immediately this makes me want an "elder deep spawn" whose copies have perfect copies of its victims minds, memories and personalities, to the point that the copy doesn't know about the deep spawn until intentionally "activated" - imagine a tpk then the adventure just resumes but turns out the players got replaced ans have been playing spawn for a session or so

It would be incredibly cool to see a special Deepspawn that could mix and match creature parts. Like some kind of Far Realm Dr.Frankenstein on a quest to birth the ultimate life-form.

I love the idea of the Deep Spawn being utilized as a last ditch defense effort for some impending invasion from a greater evil, like a portal to the abyss opened

What if all the players were spawn and they got sent out together to try and capture or kill a powerful monster. It could be a whole part of the campaign trying to get the creature back without rousing suspicion and it’d be really cool role playing as new spawn fanatically devoted to the creature that killed them, and seeing the traces of their previous lives. All this while they’re still trying to figure out who they are and develop their own personalities after forgetting who they once were.

I'm imagining a deep spawn slowly eating and cloning an entire country until the party is traveling through and notices something off about the people. Also do you think it could clone itself if it bit off one of its tentacles, I think that could be cool.

My first thought is a Deep Spawn that's learned how to mix and match DNA from the various creatures they've consumed to make hybrid chimera that have unique combinations of abilities. This would be especially useful for one that has a limited variety of creatures they have access to.

my first thought for how to boost the danger of the deep spawn, before the council of spawn was mentioned, was to have one powerful deepspawn consume and recreate smaller spawn. These spawned spawn would be fanatically loyal to the greater spawn and each one would increase the production capacity for lesser monsters and minions who would be fanatically loyal to spawn fanatically loyal to the greater spawn. This could also allow for more spawned clones without the loss of mental faculties by cutting up one creature into as many portions as there are spawn.

A truly fun idea i had was a deep spawn working with dragon and they scheme together. Not to mentjon the free horde protection the deep spawn can provide when the dragon is out hunting

Kudos to Ed Greenwood for creating them! (It’s his birthday today btw)

Love the idea of a city of spawn minions with a deep spawn at the center but they're... Entirely peaceful. The deepspawn just wants to chill and even has it's children seek out good relations and trade with normal towns

Sounds like a dope Warlock Patron. Comes with a built in 'mysterious resurrection' mechanism that doubles as a slide toward existential doom after too many deaths. A BBEG that won't stay down until you drop its boss, a Pc with a martyr reflex, an allied npc that miraculously survives offscreen dangers, the possibilities are myriad.

Damn. This creature does indeed have a lot of possibilities. The first one that came to mind for me was the party looking for a way to revive someone such as a party member. Which eventually leads them to a Deep Spawn. It offers to replicate that person, but they first need to bring them the body. After the Deep Spawn replicates the person the party wanted to revive, it obviously betrays the party, using the body of the person the party wanted to revive.

Ok, this one is amazing, so there is a kobold that was eaten by a deep spawn along side a magical creature (an arm of a wizard, an azimar, whatever) so this spawn has wild magic because of the mix of DNA. But the adventuring party kills the deep spawn when the kobold was a "newborn". So now there is this pup that has no master and is now out there trying to find its place in the world. NEW CHARACTER. It also works with warloks, any sorcerer sub class really. So thank you @DungeonDad

Here's an adventure idea I came up with after watching this video: A Royal Mausoleum once housed the greatest heroes of the land. Each of whom was entombed in a special coffin made to function as a "Chest of Preserving" so that each body is perfectly preserved. A window over each coffin would allow people to pay their respects to the fallen hero. It was seen as the greatest honor in the Kingdom to be entombed here as only the greatest most accomplished of heroes would go there. Each year the Mausoleum would be opened during a special celebration akin to the Day of the Dead where the people could leave offerings for the heroes of old. As a whole, the celebtration helped to solidify a patriotic attitude among the people so was heavily funded. This year, however, when the tomb was unsealed 2 weeks prior to the event it was learned that all of the bodies were missing. Generations of heroes gone without a trace. A full thousand in total. The entire situation is such a potential scandal that the royal family can't hire locals to deal with the problem for fear that the general public would learn of what happened. At the same time they aren't sure if any of the soldiers were party to the desecration so it's decided to hire a party of wandering adventurers to investigate the problem. A heft bonus is promised for each hero returned to the tomb. Even if the body is decayed the royal famiily can use a variation of a Mending spell to repair the bodies. It's explained if asked that most of the heroes who fall on the battle field are badly damaged, but spells are used to put them in the best possible quality for display. (think of it like a healing spell meets embalming) That much is the adventure hook at least. The party eventually finds and meets what appears to be all 1000 heroes of old and all apparently fully alive. If checked, no signs of resurrection magick or necromancy appears to have been used. The heroes won't know that they were from a Mausoleum. They will have a vague sense of being a great hero, but if questioned won't really be able to remember anything specific about their accomplishments. They just appear to draw blanks. The party will eventually learn that the heroes were produced using Deep Spawn. "But wait..." a simple bit of math will reveal that if it takes 2 weeks for a single Deep Spawn to produce a single clone they are dealing with quite an army of Deep Spawn. If they were stolen recently that could represent a thousand deep spawn, but if stolen immediately after last year's event would mean that each deep spawn could have created 25 copies in that time. Doing the math there must be at least 40 Deep Spawn. The party will eventually learn that the Big Bad Evil Guy (BBEG) has been raising Deep Spawn for many years and with a sizable collection of 40 Deep Spawn adults set in motion a plan to steal the bodies of the heroes to mass produce them. The plan went into motion right after last year's event to give just enough time to create a complete collection of heroes before the Kingdom would learn of what happened. The bodies are still kept preserved in their "Coffins of Preserving" though. The BBEG would sever a part of a body and feed it to a Deep Spawn instructing it to creating a clone of it. The body would then be repaired with Magick. The same unique Magick, in fact, that the Kingdom has long used to repair the bodies of the heroes suggesting who the traitor likely is. It's fairly obvious that the BBEG is planning to use fresh parts on a rotating basis so that there are no imperfections. It won't be copies of copies. It will be a single copy for each time it was fed part of a body. There are multiple potential outcomes of this adventure. Given the sheer combat potential a direct confrontation would likely result in a TPK. Murder hobo tactics would not work here. Here are a few suggested resolutions: 1.) The party could discover the magical apparatus used to steal the bodies in the first place. Either by evading detection via stealth or by actually joining the BBEG organization undercover. Once the bodies have been transported back the party could report to the Royal Family that the bodies were returned, who took them, for what purpose, and why. If they learn of who the traitor was they could also reveal this information as well for an additional bonus. 2.) The party could learn of a fail safe established just in case the Deep Spawns turned traitor. While the BBEG would not want to harm the Deep Spawn directly, the housing for the heroes all have poison gas traps. If the party triggers it they could kill the entire army and then just use those bodies in place of the original heroes. 3. The party could seek to take control over one or more Deep Spawn either through ancient Dwarven Magick or through some other skill that can persuade them. None of the Deep Spawn are currently under magical control. They only follow the BBEG because they were raised as the children of the BBEG. However, if the party doesn't learn of the gas before turning even a portion of the clone army against the BBEG the gas will be released and depending on where the party is when that occurs they could die with the army. There will be no gas where the Deep Spawn dwell so it's safest there. Depending on the outcome of this scenario the party could die from gas or could fight the BBEG without an army of heroes to contend with. 3.) The party could work out a deal with the BBEG. In this case the BBEG will agree to magically return all of the original heroes magically to where they belong. The BEEG won't tell the party, however, that a secret room exists with many chests of preserving each with enough material to create hundreds of thousands of original first generation copies to grow the army. For this reason, if in a corner, the BBEG may even try to negotiate by agreeing to gas the heroes and playing the sympathy card via a tragic backstory which may or may not be true. If the party doesn't learn of the backups this could result in the BBEG coming back later in the campaign with serious consequences. 4.) The party could join the BBEG organization as spies and then decide that the benefits and treatment is pretty good and actually side with the BBEG. Propaganda within the organization, which may or may not be true, will paint the Royal Family in a very unflattering light. If the party decides that the Royal Family deserves to fall and that the BBEG is actually in the right that could lead to an entirely new campaign direction. ... This is a first draft of the idea at least. What do you think? Is it good as is? Does it need anything?

Definitely needs an organisation built around it. I doubt most players would even question your settings adventure/questing/hunters/dungeoneers/explorers guild and the bounties they've placed upon everything useful and edible. "I hear the strongest and highest ranked guild members go through a special ceremony..." "Did you hear the tale about the Shining spears routing orc bands down Ashford way?" "I thought they died to a man last week in Barrowshire?" "I swear I saw that minister in Everglade last week, what are the chances twins ended up working for opposing kingdoms?"

I can easily see this implemented as some sort of entity tied to a cult. "You must rid yourself of your corrupted flesh and be born anew." Could either be a sadistic group that intentionally sacrifices others or maybe a group of fanatics that genuinely believe they are helping people, like they feed the sick or cripple to it and they come out healed. Maybe they don't even know what's actually happening behind the curtain, with only a select few being in on what is actually happening to these individuals.

Surprise this monster never returned. This is great stuff.

I kinda want to have a Deepspawn now and have it act as a sort of alternative to necromancers. "Oh, your (insert person you liked) died? I can bring them back if you let me have a nibble of their body."

This monster will be great to use as a reason for an unlikely alliance such as mind flayers and orcs working together in a dungeon because they are deep spawn clones.

Disappointed to see you leaked out one of my favorite monsters :)...just kidding of course. I have used this creature for ages after learning about a hunter in a Neverwinter Forest who used to sell hunting guided tours and have a Deepspawn spit out creatures for people to hunt (1st edition or 2nd edition if I remember correctly). This is one of my favorite antagonist allies Ed Greenwood ever created. Thanks for blowing the dust off this gem and sharing it with all of us.

Pokemon mystery dungeon has really been revamped! Cool shuckle variant!

"This is what you want, right?" Yes. We hunger for the wiggly gaslighter beasts.

I love the "DND INFINITE FOOD GLITCH???" nature of the way that deepspawn fed itself and the trolls lmao, like it's something that Spiffing Brit would do lol

Congratulations on the 100k bro! 🎉🎉

It's a good day when new Dungeon Dad drops.

now imagine an adventuring party who have a very hazy recollection of their past, and have been tasked by their shared father to hunt numerous creatures which inexplicably become the party's allies after being hunted, even if what the pwrty brought back was a corpse then, the party discover that another adventuring party who are mysteriously similar to them, but just so happen to be missing body parts. this then leads to the party discovering what their father truly is, and, by proxy, themselves.

These videos give me so many ideas and make me really want to see them in a game. For the dragon scenario I imagine the deep spawn hiding its true identity, maybe using some kind of a proxy to talk to the party so that they only know that this person wants a dragon egg/ baby and that they'll be handsomely rewarded, but they don't know why they want it. Then once they have retrieved the dragon and given their reward the deep spawn reveals itself and eats the dragon in front of them and only then is the potential gravity of what they've done revealed to them.

A couple of comments have mentioned the deepspawn eating each other to reproduce, but as they are genderless they could pit their spawns against each other to earn the right of being the one replicated like how some snails fight to determine which one gets impregnated, which would be such a cool plot hook of a party coming across a fighting league of spawns as each deepspawn tries to prove itself is better than the other with some weird romantic undertones.

Love the art lore! Would love to see more about that with some other creatures, especially when the 5th edition popularity might narrow people's view of some of them. I adore seeing different artist's interpretations

These would make for a truly wild high level boss battle with a dragon, beholder, giant, and other random creatures that do not belong together. Reminds me of the Necromancer fight from Castle Crashers for those who played it.

Plot Idea: Have a Deepspawn unknowingly follow the players as they travel. The Deepspawn eats everything the players kill. When it's time for the Deepspawn to makes it's presents known, the players then fight everything that they had slain so far. This could also be a good tool to show players that killing someone or something can have repercussions in this world.

Been looking forward to this video my friend and I came up with the idea of these guys being used in a war in their setting by wizards to clone neo-orogs (orc ogre hybrid) to fight against armies of constructs inspired by Star Wars

Glad to see your channel reached 100k, you definitely deserve it! And best of luck for your cat's surgery, hope it goes well!

deepspawn hanging out on a meteor or something in spelljammer, acting as the owner and announcer for a fight pit fueled by the monsters it creates, who out of loyalty to their deepspawn creator, put on the best show possible

This creature is so wild! I was already thinking up ideas for a deep dungeon crawl with this thing while I was listening, so thanks for the inspiration! 😁👍

Wild suggestion for a future MotW video: The Ormyrr. They are large slug-like monsters with arms (think Jabba the Hutt) with heavy Elemental Earth associations. They crave magical items as they are not really good with magic themselves, but especially magical items that let them fly, which is very quirky. How do I know of this creature? Back in the 90's, DnD's original home company, TSR, produced a collectible dice game called Dragon Dice. Its dice are beautfiul, and the setting, while separate from DnD at large, cribbed many things from it, particularly the monsters. You can get a frikkin' Ettercap die, for instance. Or a Remorhaz die. Or, of course, an Ormyr die, infamous for its rarity. It belongs to the Serpent Men faction and it is... pretty bad. Go figure. But it is a surviving bit of merchandise that tells of this obscure creature.

Could see the idea of a manipulator. "Your party is powerful" so it has one of its minions being the Amnesiac or the like "hiring" them to be their guard or guide into the dungeon... Only to lead them into the trap. So many chances for the fun of insight check with hints of someone who either seems far too familiar with the dungeon, or too reckless (too many close calls but pulls the punch so to speak). Plenty of fun options to see there.

Here’s a thought I had: a player character who is a Deepspawn minion. They travel with the party and mail parts of creatures the group defeats to their “mother” who is an “alchemist”. If the party ever encounters the Deepspawn, it would have a collection of every bad guy they beat. And if they fight it? They’re instantly down one PC.

So the possibility of a Deepspawn that is actually a righteous entity or maybe even serves a god that saved it in the past is amazing. Monster officially yoinked.

FINALLY! My fave monster in D&D gets some spotlight. Thanks for this! 👏

I'm just imaging it getting away from the party, then at the end of the next arc they find all thier allies have turned against them. It just made a copy of each and started destroying thier reputation, and as time goes on its just making more. They have to track the thing down, but this time it has copies of the party from a few levels ago as its bodyguards!

Very good episode! I especially approve of the fluffy guest co-host. It would be fun to take a spin on the Dwarven/ Deep Spawn history. The story begins with a party of adventurers, sent as trade diplomats from a local surface town, arriving at a clan mountain citadel. Their mission is to negotiate an alliance with the Dwarf settlement to combat a local Goblin horde. When they arrive there is a feast and mysteriously the dwarven Lord is murdered. The citadel goes on lockdown and the adventurers must do investigative work to not only help the Dwarves and save the alliance but also prove their own innocence because everyone is suspicious of them as outsiders. Now comes a fun homage to Shakespeare, for something is rotten in this state of Dwarvendom. The slain king's brother takes the throne but few suspect him of foul play because his relationship with his brother was a good one with even a mistress and blood relatives swearing his true nature. But there are also rumours of angry disagreements between the brothers leading up to the feast. There are a myriad of other suspects however; a court spy master, ambitious cousins, the royal chef, colonel Mustard with a candlestick and even Goblin assassins sneaking into the citadel. It all really hits the fan when the new king starts to crack under the pressure and his cleric asks the PCs for a private audience. The king is starting to be visited by the ghost of his dead brother each night. Through further investigation the PCs discover there really is no ghost as the new king is going mad, becoming a rambling mess. Through many trials and tribulations of possible imprisonment and escape the PCs find the mad king being confronted by the "ghost" of his brother in his chambers. He flees and the mad king confesses to knowledge of a secret passage where an ancient evil secret is kept, a family curse that cannot be destroyed. He mentions his brother was a ghost long before the feast and had made a devilish pact to save his people. Stricken with grief and unable to confront his fears, the mad king downs a vial of manticore poison, leaving the PCs with little choice but to take a diary of clues, the king's ramblings and a secret passage to clear their name. Traps, a few Underdark horrors and a puzzle or two separate their path from solving the mystery. They find something of a cross between an ancient temple and a prison with our celebrity monster inside accompanied the previous king... and just in time for the Deep Spawn to purge another not-so-fresh copy. Then we have our epic battle with various manuscripts, the king's diary and lore from the remaining Dwarf nobility to explain the exposition dump to follow once the monster is slain. Long ago this noble family had sealed away a magically bound Deep Spawn when they were supposed to destroy it. With the rising threat of annihilation from a goblin horde the previous king uncovered this lore and had the desperate plan to 3D print an army. His brother rebelled against the idea, they fought in the hidden chamber and broke the magic seal binding the Deep Spawn, which immediately ate the old king. Clones kept making their way up to the citadel however and the brother was forced to kill his sibling repeatedly till he has the clone publicly poisoned at the feast. This sends him over the deep end (pun intended) and gives a lot of fun Hamlet connections to play with. With the beast slain the curse is wiped clean, as are the reputations of the PCs and the alliance can move forward between the Dwarf and surface kingdom. Of course the story could play out differently if the PCs choose to back a Dwarf civil war, help the Deep Spawn or strike a deal with Goblin infiltrators in the Citadel but that's up to the DM!

im about to start an episodic 5e campaign when i stumbled onto your channel. this has been an absolute gold mine, thank you.

So if you (lore wise) are able to make a deep spawn in the material plane, that deep spawn could be fed to other deep spawn and be mass produced ?

Now the real question is, what happens when a deep-spawn clones another deep-spawns clone?🤔

In my homebrew setting, there's a lot of monsters running around that were the result of people in the distant past getting too into biomancy. This is immediately going in that category.

This is why I love this channel. You entertainingly go through a very weird, interesting monster, saving me time researching.

I like the idea of a deep spawn in conflict with another force, such as a mindflayer colony. The party could encounter its layer, which is filled with degenerate monsters as the deep spawn master struggles to maintain a supply of fresh material in its endless battles with the mindflayers. The deep spawn wants nothing more than to eat the flesh of the elder brain, and the mindflayers want to take control of it to build themselves an army. Can make for a scenario that lends itself well to classic dungeon crawling or outright horror. Bonus points if this is all within one massive cavern/dudgeon, and the players have the opportunity to pit either side against the other to advance their own interests.

Always a pleasure to see a new video :) You've given me quite a few creatures to run. Was there ever a time golem? Similair to the time elemental, but actually made by a chronomancer to guard their hideout

Plot idea: a deep spawn parent hires you to find their dead kid so they can eat them and bring them back to life. As horrible and sad it would be to work towards cloning a dead deep spawn, i think it could be a compelling story.

The moment you described that the clones only have fuzzy memories of their original's life, my mind was swarming with the idea of using that as a plot twist for an amnesiac PC. Was a bit dampened when you mentioned the fanatic loyalty part, but there's always a way to get around that.

If you’re dead set on all consuming monsters of eldritch horror, make the Event Horizon for DnD 5e!

Okay, the Deep Spawn as SO many possibilities. Easily the coolest monster I've seen yet. I'm gonna use this!

I could see some twisted magic in a lich using some horrific dark magic to use the deep spawn as a living phylactery. having his soul bound to it and making innumerable perfect clones of the same lich, just imagine a dungeon of almost hivemind-like beings amassing an army of the dead, ruthlessly slaughtering entire countrysides with a droving pack of undead.

Here's a homebrew I wrote that you might enjoy covering; the Admirer. The toughest fighter in all the land limps through the doorway, drinking his last health potion and holding the door open for his friends, before slamming it closed on one of the ghouls' heads, as the horde of supercharged undead monstrosities behind them slowly lose interest, and they all catch their breath. The cleric uses his last spell slot to heal the wizard, who casts an upcast cone of cold back out the hallway, and shouts obscenities at the now frozen solid and no longer stubbornly refusing to die corpses, kicking one over. The rogue goes out and loots them, stuffing dozens of enchanted weapons into the handy haversack, and tosssing the barbarian a warhammer of thunder, before they finally explore the room they just happened upon, and behold the treasure they fought through seven layers of trapped dungeon and a small army for, The Hoard of Xal'Hackthul; A pile of gold to make dragons jealous and dwarves swoon, a full _three hundred_ feet high, and exactly why they brought along four handy haversacks (which may still take several trips) stands gleaming before them, wreathed at the base with a veritable _fortification_ of magic items; a sack overflowing with decanters of endless water, a pile of foldable boats on what looks like a MASSIVE foldable boat, several golden coat-racks of various magical cloaks, dozens upon dozens of magic staffs, a pile of enough magic armor to suit a small army, and mirriad enchanted swords, warhammers, bows, crossbows, instruments, and countless more treasures, all laying on a floor LITERALLY PAVED in gemstones. However, before they can even begin to take inventory, a Booming voice echoes down from the top of the pile so loud it scatters coins flying, saying; "FOR CENTURIES MY EYES AND MINE ALONE HAVE GAZED UPON THIS HOARD, AND I WILL NOT LET SOME UPSTART INTRUDERS DEFILE IT WITH THEIR GAZE; PREPARE TO _DIE!!!"_ And to their horror, the party sees the horrible visage, of Xal'Hackthul, the Dragon-eater; A maw to rival tales of the terrasque houses hundreds of massive teeth, its breath coiling purple waves of antimagic around its jaws, dripping with saliva, the eyes, dear god the eyes! Two dozen of them deformedly twisting from the horn-like stalks of many colors sprouting from all over the floating head, their pupils burst open to jaws lined with teeth like some eldritch horror, each of them brimming with their unique magic, the largest eye in the center Glaring with menacing greed amd anticipation, as the beast ROARS a bellow that shakes the party to its bones, and a prismatic array of magic radiates from its screeching eye-maws like the corona of a twisted god, and the fighter feels true terror for the first time. When a beholder dreams of losing its curioes and its life to a dragon, it begins a metamorphosis that may never truly end, as it becomes an Admirer. Driven by a frantic need for the power to protect its curioes from even the mightiest of dragons, it sets out on frantic wings it didn't have before to devour every dragon it can find. When it does so, it grows another eye stalk that emits the dragon's breath attack, and its mouth grows into the snout of a dragon. After eating 5 young or older dragons, all its pupils grotesquely split open to jaws, though the eyes still work, its wings grow into dragon's wings, it gains 30ft of flight movespeed, and its mouth gains a special antimagic breath attack that inflicts large amounts of force damage upon any magic item or spellcaster, exploding them if it destroys the item or reduces the caster's HP to zero; the magic item's HP determined by its value. after eating 20 dragons, all the eye stalks double in power, and the Admirer grows one size. This occurs twice more; once after eating 50, and then once more after eating 100 dragons; after 50 it must use its wings to stay aloft and loses 30ft of flight movespeed, and after 100 it loses the ability to fly alltogether, and gains massive claws on the ends of 4 scaled legs, which give it 30 feet of walking speed, and attack with the force of an acient dragon. Ever the collector, it will enthrall mortals to help haul and carry with its telekinesis the hoards of the dragons it eats back to its lair, expanding the traps and minions within over time. If you use one, first roll a d100 with disadvantage to see how many dragons it has eaten, or decide yourself if you so choose.

Congrats on reaching 100k subscribers, & I send my well wishes to your cat

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Honestly the idea of one of these not being at all hostile, and like, only taking "donations" either from the willing for sapients, or already deceased animals seems like it could be the neat leader of a community.

The Deep Spawn is definitely my favorite DnD monster. My favorite Deep Spawn idea is a dungeon that has been carved out by the Deep Spawn's minions, growing deeper and more alien as the Deep Spawn grows in power.

It’d be funny to see an episode just about humans Or humanoids Just treat a commoner as a horrifying monster while not technically lying about them

Hilariously the deep spawn art makes me remember the Gibbering Orb, a monster from the 3.0 Epic Level Handbook made to be basically the monstrous ancestor to both the Beholders and Gibbering Mouthers. The thing is basically able to do eye rays and gibber like a mouther but it’s terrifyingly stronger because it’s a monster in the ELH(so it’s meant for characters that are level 21+

the whole 'cult' thing is a really amazing hook. Imagine the progeny starting out small in a moderately large city, and like 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' the progeny bring its family members first, then friends, and spread out until the entire city has been converted to being the spawn's progeny. Moreover, you can have certain NPC adversaries KILLED, obliterated, and absolutely dead only for them to come back weeks later. OMG. The implications are terrifying.

Imagine a Deep Spawn eats a part of itself and makes countless copies of itself, maximizing spawning...now imagine it also ate a False Hydra.

I was already planning to use this guy in upcoming sessions and now I’m even more excited for it

I've been waiting for you to talk about them for so long! dungeon masters deserve this knowledge

This sounds like a good rivalry for that gourmand dragon you brought into 5th edition. The deep spawn wants the dragon for its power and the dragon wants the deep spawn for its flavor

I love the idea of a party of adventurers being sent to find some missing villagers, only to find the villagers(clones) just chilling in a cave and just straight up lying about the whats and whys to get the party to leave before they find out about the deepspawn

Thanks for watching! What monster would you like to see next on the channel? Click here to check out our sponsor this week, The Crystal's of Z'Leth Kickstarter! - www.kickstarter.com/projects/obviousmimic/the-crystals-of-zleth-a-5e-survival-solo-adventure?ref=3iugdr Also, if anyone recognizes the music I used in the title card, I'm going to be actually impressed.

Love your channel man, you’ve helped add a lot of variety to my games.

Plot hook: The party visit a traveling doctor only to find out that instead of healing his patients he feeds them to his tamed deep spawn and discharges the clones rather than the person slowly controlling the region and gaining lots of gold in the process

Horrifying possiblity. A deepspawn running a Brothel of creatures it ate, and it wants to eat (if using the idea of only needing a part of them) exceptionally beautiful specimen

Imagine an evil artificer (lets call him Frankenstein) who's well versed in golems, enchantment, general magitek/artificer goodness, and he's entrapped a deepspawn as a slave; he feeds prisoners and bandits to the deepspawn, the deepspawn creates clones, and the artificer just scoops out the clones brains to replace the brains with magical equivalents to computers. This removes the problem of progressively dumber clones and makes the clones loyal to the artificer, not the deepspawn. Best of all, the artificer is likely not going to be the obvious villain, so the party is going to spend a lot of time going after the deepspawn only for the big reveal later on that the monster was just the middle-man to the *actual* monster - a mentally deranged and power hungry scientist.

I think their evolved or are related to the Odopis.

Can't help but imagine a deepspawn in a sort of a HARDAC scenario wherein the creature is aspiring to make the world into utopia by... just replacing everyone.

Here's a homebrew I wrote that you might want to cover; The Snatcher. Walking into the big city for some sweet sweet expensive loot to spend their treasures on, the party was impressed that not many rats scurried underfoot or slunk into alleyways, and very few shadowy figures lurked in the dark corners. They must have good exterminators and justice department!... The rogue was not so impressed. Crime abhorrs a vacuum, especially in the big city, and he could tell what organized crime there was here was afraid of the streets... and if the mob was afraid, you should be too... As if on queue, he felt his coin pouch get tugged on and lighten, a cutpurse! As he dashed in the direction of the thieving arm, his dagger at the ready, He felt strong arms wrap around his mouth and neck, cutting off his scream and slamming his head against the pavement. "How were so many thugs hiding?" Was his last thought as he faded off into unconsciousness... Three and a half city blocks later, the cleric noticed their resident brooder was missing from behind them, and alerted the paladin. The party pulled to a stop in the crowded street, and with the gnone wizard on his shoulders, the paladin began to retrace their steps to where they'd last seen theor missing rogue... Awakening with a start, the Rogue found himself being carried on his back down a dark tunnel, a quiet scrabbling noise beneath him, like many grabbing fingers. Attemting to move, he felt dozens of hands hold him still as the scrabbling stopped, and a brick in hand knocked him out once more. As the party found where the Rogue had undoubtedly been taken, the local bum surprisingly helpful, and scared, they noticed how smooth the ground around the sewer grate had been worn. With no other choices, the nearest inn five blocks away, and the sun setting, the paladin heaved the grate out of the sewer entrance, noting that while heavy, it had not been attached, and no stink came from this tunnel, as the party trecked into the dark after their lost member. Almost an hour later, and approximately directly under the city center, the paladin stood upright as they entered a larger tunnel, apparently leading to a chamber ahead, dim moonlight glowing from the crack under the door, as what they had thought was the sound of water flowing was now heard to be the distinct scrabbling noise of thousands upon thousands of hands from within the chamber beyond. Charging in ready to fight for their lives, the party beheld a sea of writhing, interlocking arms, all ending at the mid-forearm, holding glass shards and bent cutlery and rusty nails and gleaming daggers, all manner of salvaged sharp object arrayed against them by thousands of hands, some of which palm-out, with beady little clusters of black eyes staring the party down, and some hands rubbing together excitedly, ready for this feast, the Rogue's shortsword spotted in the arsenal, the torn tatters of his cloak slowly being dissolved by a sticky, slimy, oozing core of wet flesh, which grumbled hungrily as the miriad arms of The Snatcher prepared to incapacitate and devour its next precious bauble of a meal... The Snatcher is a monstrosity that manifests at rest as a large pile of dozens to hundreds of humanoid hands, each one ending at the mid-forearm, surrounding a gooey, gray, sticky core. When active, the hands interlock into whatever shapes are necessary for their task. Large pillars of interlocking hands acting as muscles in an arm ending with fist-like ball, daisy-chains of hands holding the base of other hands reach very, very far, acting as long tentacular structures, hands can line its underside to crawl rapidly over nearly any surface, eyes sprout from the palms of a few, and groups of clawed hands tear away at prey, killing them messily but efficiently, if no sharp utensils are in its possession. A Snatcher that gets its many hands on a cutlery box or a silverware drawer can be quite lethal in close quarters. An urban ambush predator, The Snatcher will lure humanoid prey to dark alleyways with glittering coins or enchanted weapons placed on the edge of the shadows, where it grabs the curious humanoid by the head, covering their mouth, eyes, and ears, and pulling them through a nearby window, doorway, hall, drain cover, trapdoor, Sewer grate, or other opening where they are pulled and carried back to its den, along with the bait. It then uses clawed hands or sharp utensils to kill and slice up its prey, dropping the meat chunks into its gooey core, which then spits out more hands for the pile. A city with a snatcher infestation will be characterized by streets surprisingly clear of rats, stray dogs, or homeless people, almost all of which snatched up long ago, and while few thieves hide in the alleys, party members will find coin pouches cut off and pockets pilfered if they rest very long on a city street. A very lethal threat to any greedy party rogue, the Snatcher will happily devour any adventurer foolish enough to walk over to that perfectly good sword someone just left there...