The Ultimate Authority 

I once had a party fight a Lich as final boss, but it wasnt going well and i got kinda attached to this group of PCs. So my solution was that a Marut teleports in, beat the living daylight out of that Lich and leaves with the phylactery saying he is arrested for tax evasion. Now that campaign could go on for longer and my players live in fear because they have also commited tax fraud at some point. 10/10 TPK averted

Imagine being a lich, fighting some foolish adventurers, and one of them summons a giant mechanical cyclops that ominously asks "Who Denies Death?"

The legless scorpion one, I'd change it's governance from deserts to mass terraforming, essentially the Department of Natural Resources officer. You opened an unattended extra-planar portal, unleashing multiple invasive species? We'll be turning you into this biomes flora

"Who Denies Death?" - probably the most badass quote for summoned creature.

Fun fact: The Marut does not roll for attack or damage. You can have a 300 AC, you still get hit for 60 force damage per punch, 2 punches a turn, every turn. Or it uses its big scary shoob da whoop laser to fry a 30 ft cone for 45 radiant damage and a chance to stun.

Multiversal peacekeepers can be a pretty cool idea, however you really have to walk a thin line to make sure you don't just make them way too busted

Fun fact. If your party is facing a BBEG who plans to become a god, Varakhut can be a great ally...... buuuut if villain succeeds at becoming a god, then Varakhut will assist him to fight you guys since you thecnically are now threatening god's throne.

So if maruts enforce death, does every litch ever have to 1v1 a marut? Id like to think thats why there isnt a near infinite amount of litches, because after they havent died for 100 years some marut goes "oh shit hes not dead yet" and instantly teleports to the litch and beats the crap out of him until it finds the phylactry

I think "inevitability of the desert" is a weird way of saying "inevitability of entropy", which is essentially change. Also its a snake scorpion _on treads,_ he's doing his best

Hello, I am here to represent my client, the devil that went down to georgia, in a case concerning the violation of a contract and the following punishment. The contract as stated a "golden fiddle" to be the price of the interaction between my client and the opposition. In the ensuing contest the opposition won and my client awarded them a golden fiddle made of pyrite, commonly known as fools gold and the opposition caused a pinkerton to abduct and assault my client. I am here to have justice enacted in this trial to sue the opposition for contract violation and repayments. The contract clearly stated a "golden fiddle" to be the price, there has never been any specification of which gold the instrument would consist of, as the chemical notation "Au" has not been used. As such the element pyrite, or Fools Gold was a fully acceptable price, as the common name suggested. Alternatively the terminology of "golden" implies but only the appearance of the object and not the composition. The fiddle therefore could have been made of brass and other alloys and still fullfill the requirements. Futhermore, we propose that the opposition would not be able to dinstinctively identify "Au" by themselves, not being able to differentiate between white gold, rose gold and other alloys which would also have caused a breach of contract and physical assault. There was also no disclaimer on the total amount of gold present in the instrument, it could have just been an alloy with a 2% gold makeup or coated with golden material via leaf gold or electroplating. We hereby sue the opposition for damages paid in the form of his and his families eternal soul.

THESE are what I use if a Warlock decides to try to go against the pact without renegotiating it properly with the being they made the pact with.

Cool fact about kolyaruts! If you're level 20, you can turn into one with a true polymorph spell and use all of their abilities since they do not have legendary actions. Have fun stunlocking every monster in the manual.

Scariest monster ever. Rules lawyers that will beat you up.

So if a warlock's patron was indisposed, they could outsource enforcement of their pact to these fellas? And then my players would have to save said patron in order to escape the Inevitables' much stricter enforcement of the pact? Neat.

Runesmith: “…The Inevitable.” Immediately an unskippable 20 second ad plays Sometimes YT has perfect comedic timing

Logan: "See what I-what I did there, I revived a dead series I can't use anymore because how bad, like, this title would be?" Marut: *"WHO DENIES DEATH?"*

My favorite inevitable is Obligatum 7. A bunch of lawful wizards broke a contract to imprison a chaotic evil god killing planet destroying eldritch monstrosity. They have sent no less than 7 kolyarut’s to attempt to free this thing. Which would slaughter every inevitable and lawful anything in the cosmos as its first order of business. Incredible self own.

One of our party members died and we later found a ring of wishes. One other party member who was married to the dead one in game wished for him to be brought back to life. It worked but we pissed off a marut in the process. We tried fighting it but when it hit WITHOUT ROLLING AN ATTACK we were scared shitless and used an amulet of the planes to gtfo. The marut didn't care. He followed us everywhere and eventually killed all but one player before dying. The final player was a true neutral lizardfolk who only cared for his own survival. The bbeg approached him and offered him safety in exchange for his service, which the lizardfolk accepted. One of the coolest ends to a campaign I've ever experienced

It's a simple rule of society, if you break the law you must contend with those that uphold the law. The inevitable uphold the laws of physics. So with that in mind, do you really want to try the peasant rail-gun now?

The editing on this is insane

I hate to be a lich when a cleric, wizard, etc summons a Marut. **"Who Denies Death?"**

The Maruts' in my setting are hulking, irresistible juggernauts personally set on a PC by Primus to forever watch over and maintain judgement over the world's most powerful NPC's and entities. NPC's who have risen to such a level that they have interfered with the wills of gods and elder deities, and are no doubt some of the most powerful mortals in existence. NPC'S who are more than capable of reigning over the planes and bringing terror to anything with an HP bar. In my world, they're parole officers for a group of adventurers who once wandered and explored all the planes and defeated a great and mighty evil, and a few mighty....not-evil's. They caused so much havoc that Mechanus herself wanted to have a word with them, so she sent Maruts to their doorstep with a divine arrest warrant. Knowing that these things were not to be trifled with, the smarter ones went quietly. The barbarian was not one of those smart ones and was beaten to within 2 Death Saving throws, and then brought to Mechanus for judgement. They all talked their way out of landing in godly prison for eternity, but we're set to have divine parole officers that follow them around until their sentence is over.

the scorpion one was actually written as an excuse to keep high-level spellcasters from turning desert settings like Dark Sun or sandstorm into not-deserts.

Ok, i'm gonna say what we all think. "Who denies death?" is such a badass line to appear with. It doesn't matter weather they are friend or foe, that would chiull my blood regardless.

“Who denies death?” That’s gotta be written down for someone’s campaign now

I don't see anyone here mentioning my favorite Inevitable, the kolyarut Obligatum VII, whose sole purpose is to enforce a pact made by an ancient cabal and unleash a chained eldritch abomination. There have been six previous incarnations of Obligatum, each slain by heroes who naturally don't want said abomination destroying their world. But Obligatum will not stop until the letter of the contract has been fulfilled, all anyone can do is delay it.

*Big Guy poofing in* "You have an appointment with me. Now. You are on time, good. Come with me." Me, taking a whole bottle of ultivitamin gummies to live forever: "What? I didn't make an appointment?" *bam, dead*

i think the justice ones could be interesting if they enforced the cosmic laws of each plane, if hell invaded the material plane trying to convert it into part of hell they would show up to stop them, their also the cops that show up if demon steals your soul without a proper contract to claim ownership, since it rightfully belongs to another, but they would also try to prevent a demon from finding redemption, since by their nature demons are SUPPOSE to be evil, of course this is temporary, once a demon is properly redeemed and changes its nature to an angel or something its no longer violating its nature so its fine, so they really can go either way

You _can_ enforce change. Shut down any attempts at stasis or stagnation, ambitious wizards trying to put realms outside of time, liches trying for immortality, etc.

for the anhydrut think of it as the anti immortality one for people who crash the local economy with infinite apples or like wizards and druids that make impossible ecosystems with magically replenshing base resources

The embodiment of “technically correct is the best kind of correct”

I could see an interesting Universal Constant being the Law of Consequence which is just, if you do something, something happens with its enforcers supporting the others as like the biggest enforcers plus if you try to undo something completely or prevent change they show up

I hate how the Inevitable that looks the most futuristic isn't the one who oversees the laws of time

I made my own Inevitable called the Clockwork Gorilla, who was essentially a reskinned Marut that served as a cyborg gorilla Time Cop. We had a lot of fun with the shenanigans with that. Made the flavor of the Marut much more quirky and fun to me

Quick note: the last spell still says "Call Zelekhut - 5th level" instead of "Call Marut - 9th level". Still a sick video as always!

I think regular lich's (If you can call them as such) are not *Removed* from the realm of death. A lich needs to pay a constant upkeep of souls in order to stave off death, but one slip up and death comes calling for them. If a lich were to become powerful enough to not require a phylactry or the use of souls, and thus removed themselves totally from Death's influence. That's when their door would be blown off it's hinges as a giant construct struts into his home to hand him an *Eviction Notice From Existence.*

The Anhydrut actually seems to me as the most badass of them all, representing the inevitability of entropy. Whatever your actions may be, be sure there will come a day that every trace of your existence is wiped off of the face of the universe. And that's a real thing, an inevitable thing.

These guys, along with Yugoloth, are some of my absolute favorite outsiders. I always love bringing them in as plot mechanisms for my players. They make great aids, antagonists, or just something awestricking and cool for the players to gawk at.

I like the concept of all powerful neutral gods. In concept, they make sure devils keep their contracts and prevent celestials from helping mortals too much. They don't care about good or evil. They only care about making sure the universe continues to exist. They establish the (bare minimum of) universal laws for this purpose. The only laws celestials and infernals are truely beholden to are the absolute laws of the neutral gods. Any and all who break these laws or any contracts face their wrath.

I feel there should be an enforcer of limits, like, destroying the things that shouldn't exist, reorganizing elements displaced into realms where they don't belong, putting souls back together when one gets destroyed, guys keeping the numbers, tracking inventory, making sure the well doesn't dry out nor overflow. So the universe doesn't shrivel into a quark, not pierce the film of others, or worse, pop and spill it's contents into nirvana.

RISKY RAIN 2 REFERENCE DETECTED, MUST MONSOON SPEEDRUN

Inevitability of Desert should be changed to Inevitability of Life, since Life always finds a way

Maruts remind me of the Dahaka from Prince of Persia.

These would be great for a campaign where the big bad is technically breaking the rules that would summon an Inevitable, but they're using loopholes to prevent that from happening, so the party has to basically pressure the big bad into slipping up so that an Inevitable gets summoned. Basically a really long, drawn out game of 'Innocent until proven guilty', but man would it be interesting to see what kind of out-of-the-box ideas the players could come up with in order to make the big bad slip up, because the goal isn't to defeat the big bad, the goal is to make them lose.

So, an admin of the universe's contracts database, enforces them by sending his root-access-bearing proxies, affectionally referred to as "mah root" (my root, obv.), to beat the crap out of the cause for bad data... Or sends an intern named Nikolai (affectionately known as Kolya), also with root access, to do the same?

I LOVE the idea that there are some devils or archdevil’s who have grown so accustomed to bossing their warlocks around; that they outright REFUSE to let the Warlock go, even if they manage to circumvent a pact, contract or bargain… …only to have a Kolyarut suddenly appear and “humble” the devil into compliance. I might have to keep them in my back pocket for any future long-term warlocks in my campaigns…

I feel like an adict that suddenly got a fresh puff of the good stuff into my system. Thanks for basically explaining things again.

Planescape is literally the best DnD setting in my opinion

You’re telling me when my party tried to sue a witch for breach of contract they actually had a leg to stand on?

this the thing you throw at murderhobos "ok you killed the quest giver mid-sentence, now a giant mech monster is stepping out of a portal to beat you to a pulp"

Ain’t no fucking way a turbo tax ad started playing while watching a video about inevitables XD

Being able to summon a Marut, even with a 9th level spell, is still absolutely insane

I love it whenever Sigil gets mention as the coolest hub for every story in DnD to exist simultaneously

So basically they are unkillible centurions from forgotten city.

Okay I actually find the inevitability of the Desert to actually be strangely existentially horrifying. Like, the inevitability that no matter how lush the forests or how mighty the mountain, everything is to become a barren wasteland.

Imagine considering Sigil the best when Sharn is a thing. I am unapologetic Eberron enjoyer, yes.

If you want examples on how to run Sigil, the Hall of Concordance, and Inevitables, watch Rolling With Difficulty. Red OSP, same player from Heart of Elynthi which Runesmith is on, plays there, along with several other really fun and cool players and a fantastic DM. Trust me, it’ll get your creative juices spilling.

So these are basically cooler Modrons

Their 2nd edition design looks like he really loves his job. Like... loves his job too much. He wants to make sweet passionate wedding night bliss to his job

I love the concept of summons that aren't immediatey obedient to you. They have values, and must be summoned at opportune times against certain opponents in order to motivate them. Even if it's something as simple as demonic summons only listening to you if you do something evil, and vice-versa with divine summons.

The Marut exists for when the DM has had enough of the players warcrimes: "That's it, you're going to the cosmic Hague!"

5:37 "JUST AS PLANNED!"

Inevitability of the desert actually makes sense. Few planets can retain water on their surface indefinitely, most have the moisture they collected stripped from them slowly and the majority of what's left have their waters sequestered beneath the surface or in ice caps. As galactic temperatures slowly fall, eventually all water present will solidify and everything will be a frozen desert.

Zealot barbarians: *Exist* Marut: “and I took that personally”

I love the concept of a automaton typr character playing as likena Quandrix or other sublcass that calculates odds and probability so quickly it looks like random choices but they all pay off in the end.

6:40 agreed. I watched One Piece once and now unless Smoker or Fujitora is talking it’s basically a dirty word

I've used Varakhuts and Anhydruts in a campaign before. A deity wound up being a villain, and the party started obtaining what was necessary to destroy them... So a Varakhut hunted the party and was one of the boss fights along the way. Later in the campaign (prompted by the party's druid), the party wanted to restore a huge desert that was slowly growing (gaining a few inches to its radius every year) back to being the fertile lands it once was before it got cursed. At this point, the desert had existed for a very long time and had reached the size of two average nations. The party realized that if left alone it would eventually engulf the entire realm, though this was FAR from an immediate threat. They were on their way to remove the source of that curse and found a Varakhut and several Anhydruts in their way. (The source of the curse was another deity, and the party had gathered the means to destroy them.)

Funny, I was reading about Maruts JUST YESTERDAY and now there's a video about them. I suppose strange coincidences are just another universal constant.

Call Zelekhut is just D&D and overall magic equivalent of Calling 911

Omg YES Sigil!!!! Please talk more about Sigil and planescape torment it’s awesome like how it neutralises damage a bunch. And the Lady of Pain. There’s also Primus of the modrons who ruled over Asmodeus’ trial against celestials! I think he’s kinda different though iirc

Makes you wonder why these things are enforcing contracts and rules of nature, meanwhile demons and devils are in an eternal existential war with devils effectively shielding all reality from chaos demons.

I always loved the inevitables concept, so much i actually made a character that was a prototype of a new kind of more human like inevitable made by the Primus to be able to assist adventurers while gathering information. He was basically android 16 from dragonball.

Enforcing death people doesn't make any sense. If these things are so powerful, why do Liches and Vampires even exist? Furthermore, what if a creature wants to be immortal? What if a PLAYER wants to be immortal? They aren't allowed to have fun? That's some Nintendo level bull.

My respect for you has grown tenfold after that Devil Went Down to Georgia reference

2:14 or so: this is my absolute favorite sentence in all of history.

Now, I'm imagining a fey who tricks a player into impossible contracts just so they can summon a kolyarut and watch it hunt them down.

When I hear Sigil, I remember waking up on that slab in the Mortuary. I remember the Smoldering Corpse, and that poor fool of a woman that was enamored of the flame. Also: what justice is and means depends. It can mean "in accordance with what is right", or, when reffering to action (so, as a virtue) it has been said to mean "to give each what belongs to them"

3.5 Marut was the best. Had a lot of fun seeing it in Dungeons&Dragons Online.

As a DM I had a great deal of success and enjoyment out of using them to reign in our level 18 party of 100% spell casters, specifically the wizard. I also played fast and loose with their lore, they were kind of the enforcers of cosmic law a general term I used to say "please stop fucking around guys" Then again I also made the marut the penultimate evolution of the modron. With enough of them and their evolved forms, they could combine, fold between space and fuse. It was a divine ritual that would take place every X celestial cycles or some loose concept. I see goofy robot man with 1 eye and giga chad robot titan with 1 eye, I connects them, sue me. They got a warning at level 15, literally an Inevitable showed up one night while they were camping out in some ancient dungeon. He made it very clear this was a simple formality and they were advised to make their way to a hidden away temple of Oghma. From there there they would be sent to Mechanus, or if they had means to get to Mechanus on their own that would also suffice. On Mechanus they were informed on cosmic law, they were reaching the upper tier of what mortals could accomplish, they were advised to avoid directly confronting the Gods. Cosmic law stated the Gods were not allowed to interfere "directly" on the prime material plane, they could use servants or emissaries to direct their will but couldn't personally act. That was not true of the planes, Gods could fuck shit up anywhere else pretty much. Point being if you bother a God, then start plane hopping, they can end you instantly. You die, no save, no check, no resurrection, soul is considered property of that God. Maybe someone could barter to get your freedom but that's a long shot at best. Now usually that wouldn't happen, you'd have to go way out of your way to piss the fuck out of a God and even then them showing up personally to smite a mortal is an insult itself. Most Gods wouldn't "stoop that low" so to speak, likely they would send punishment squads first, if those failed, half divines or divine servants, possibly even demigods. Long story short, in those situations it doesn't hurt having a God on your side. They were encouraged to have a patron deity. Additionally they were given a blast of magical energy that would "download" the contents of cosmic law into their mind. If they were doing shit I thought was shady or somehow game breaking, (we were very accommodating and loose with the rules), they would get a ping in the back of their mind. To continue down this path is to breach cosmic law.

I think they should've done Death, Time, Thermodynamics/conservation of energy/whatever you wanna call it and Souls. Death and time are pretty obvious, the energy one could be anyone trying to use magic or other means to create or destroy things without the necessary ingredient like casting fireball in a vacuum or trying to completely erase something from existence and then the Souls guy could interfere with extremely powerful necromancers or artificers on the verge of creating artificial life.

Yup. I can confirm. “Planescape” was a solid release from WotC. The “Darkweaver” is definitely going to get some use…yet another terrifying monster for arachnophobes; but one that is obsessed with cooking / flavor to a point that you might be able to survive just by saying you taste better with butter.

I found out about these guys a long time ago and was really struck by the Quarut in particular. I wrote a story about an archmage who became so only in order to go back in time and try to save his son, and succeed, only to be arrested by a Quarut and have the timeline repaired at the end.

41 Players Had their existence kicked then handed back to them by Inevitables

Once built a literal nuke and dropped it on an army, only to be abducted by a Marut and got put on trial 😢

The Marut's enforcing the inevitability of deathk, in a setting with necromancy, resurrection magic, and so many forms of undead has me thinking there must be a collection of "approved" ways to cheat death that don't set a Marut on you. Say if the _resurrection_ spell technically can be cast without the 1000+gp diamond, but that's against the rules and will get you beaten to a pulp. Perhaps the reason that spell is even allowed to work at all is the result of some compromise made long ago between a powerful magic user, appropriate gods, and Mechanus, so now the forces of Mechanus make allowances for "cheating death" provided it is done by the proper agreed upon procedure(s), and the diamond was chosen as an appropriately valued sacrifice for the exchange. Given Mechanus and the Maruts are LN that could also account for all the evil & undead methods, as well as explain why there's no "flawless" undeath; liches need to feed their phylactery souls, vampires need blood and have weaknesses, ghouls are constantly starving, ghosts & banshee's are bound to locations/ objects etc. Most undead either lose some measure of autonomy, either declining mental faculties or not having freedom of movement/ action, or have an "upkeep cost", needing to feed to maintain themselves and their condition. Few if any seem to be unconditional in their undeath, which fits the model of a contract fairly well. It could be that any time something would find that unconditional immortality, that's where a Marut will step in.

Literally thought of the scarab like immediately and was so happy it got brought up

I'd like to note that previously these guys came from mechanus, so thats and easy way to include them if you dont wanna use sigil for whatever reason.

I’ve allways thought of these creatures as the cosmic equvalent of an anti-virus, only arriving when the the laws of timespace threaten to shatter

Ngl these guys sound like they should be in mechanus

Gotta love creatures that you basically cannot fight

I love the Inevitables so much. Most badass name for a DnD creature, hands down.

The six most powerful words you can say to an inevitable are: "I demand to see a lawyer" Ballsy move, but then again... They are meant to be physicaly formidable for a reason

Imagine being the BBEG and the aprty calls the space police

Dude rhat second edition inevitable is like if Steiner from ff9 was a dark knight. I fucking love it

In a campaign I ran a while ago the bbeg was a Fae who had stolen the body of a Marut

To be fair to the Unhydrant D&D offers lots of ways to undesert a location so if you want a setting based on that enviorment you need a way to make sure wizards don't green up a desert. Plus Deserts can be a bit fragile despite there great ecological importance. The sands of the Sahara help feed the amazon after all so giving the one kind of environment even druids can dislike a dedicated protector can be useful.

Honestly, I liked the Anhydruts, and it makes sense why something like it might have to exist. Deserts are their own biomes with unique ecosystems... but unlike rainforests, wetlands, or praries, NO-ONE is going to stand up and say, "lets save the desert!" Especially if you get a few high level druids whp could make it green and habitable. It could even serve as a final boss for a party whose goal is exactly that

Okay from now on I'll call Maruts in my campaign Pacifista, thanks runesmith.

the only way that the Anhydrut makes sense as an example of pure law not making sense. it's absurd that they are trying to stop something like changing a biome, but it's the kind of absurd I could see a being of pure law be. Though it would need way way more and better fluff to sell that idea.

Avocado line killed me