Alex Clippinger brings H.P. Lovecraft's first published monster, Dagon, to 5th edition D&D. We track how monsters become "dungeon and dragons-ed", and explore how game mechanics imitate the experience and intent of the cosmic horror genre.
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Dagon lives in his own little layer of
Alex Clippinger:the Abyss called Shadowsea.
Alex Clippinger:I definitely envision it as very Marianas-trench style, dark, crushing
Alex Clippinger:pressure, a very oppressive, and so, so strange, the way that, we don't
Alex Clippinger:necessarily understand everything about our own ocean to the point where.
Alex Clippinger:It feels very, very alien.
Alex Clippinger:when you first encounter Dagon , there are all these different structures and,
Alex Clippinger:and, horrible demonic architecture and things that have been constructed,
Alex Clippinger:all these, obelisks and pillars, that have been built under water.
Alex Clippinger:And at one point you think that there's just another one of
Alex Clippinger:these massive structures in the distance until it shifts and moves.
Alex Clippinger:And you realize that , this horrific gargantuan shape, this form coming towards
Alex Clippinger:you is the shadow of Dagon himself.
Alex Clippinger:I'm like a "shiny object" person and like the new, the newest thing
Alex Clippinger:that I'm working on is always the thing I'm most excited about.
Alex Clippinger:it's Obyrith those are some Good old kids from like third edition that
Alex Clippinger:I've updated for fifth edition.
Alex Clippinger:I was excited about them because they're really mean they're just incredibly mean
Alex Clippinger:creatures and it's fun designing CR 23 creatures with horribly cruel abilities
Alex Clippinger:for killing high level characters.
Alex Clippinger:It's always just a great time.
Alex Clippinger:it's funny.
Alex Clippinger:I can, I will design and sell, high level, player- killing monsters
Alex Clippinger:all the time, but I've, I've killed like one - I've killed one PC ever.
Alex Clippinger:There are times where I was like, Oh, is this too much?
Alex Clippinger:do I need to pull some punches here?
Alex Clippinger:And then the longer I was running characters that, tier three or higher,
Alex Clippinger:it's I need to make it harder actually, because they're doing it just too well
Alex Clippinger:. what incredibly mean crazy things can I throw at them because I'm just going to
Alex Clippinger:sit back and watch them conquer it every time, no matter what, they will always
Alex Clippinger:find a way to do it, which is, which is a rewarding experience in itself.
Alex Clippinger:I actually finished this monster design and all this stuff.
Alex Clippinger:Probably a good four or five months ago, but I keep just thinking
Alex Clippinger:about Dagon , people have probably traditionally heard that name,
Alex Clippinger:associated with the cosmic horror entity.
Alex Clippinger:I just, I like , the approach and the tone a lot of times.
Alex Clippinger:one angle for horror is investigative, where we as readers are asked to go
Alex Clippinger:along with the protagonist, go along with the storyteller and have, these horrors
Alex Clippinger:or these terrible things revealed to us.
Alex Clippinger:And we usually do that kind of hand in hand with the voice of the protagonist.
Alex Clippinger:They are also experiencing these horrible revelations and things like that.
Alex Clippinger:And I think cosmic horror really enjoys leaning into that.
Alex Clippinger:When horror does that sort of flip from what's going on to, "Oh my God,
Alex Clippinger:this is what's going on I feel like it flips a lot harder with cosmic
Alex Clippinger:horror because it's not just, Oh my gosh, this person is a murderer."
Alex Clippinger:It's stripping away our very basic understanding of reality
Alex Clippinger:and, things beyond time and space and things that are beyond our
Alex Clippinger:comprehension beyond description.
Alex Clippinger:So it, it really does that flip in a much more dramatic, fashion than, other
Alex Clippinger:horror genres even other horror genre is that engage with the supernatural.
Alex Clippinger:It's actually translated over in Monster Manual II; that's like
Alex Clippinger:first edition Dungeons & Dragons.
Alex Clippinger:There's a lot of legacy monsters today.
Alex Clippinger:I mean, fomorians and everything are from world mythologies.
Alex Clippinger:And I think with each subsequent edition they've become more "dungeons
Alex Clippinger:and dragons-ed", where they say, "Okay, okay, we're going to pull them a little
Alex Clippinger:bit further away each time from the myth that they came from or the real word
Alex Clippinger:world origin and root them more and more firmly into, yeah, but it might have
Alex Clippinger:shared the same name or have the same concept, but like this is a D&D creature."
Alex Clippinger:We want you to feel like it's not just ripped from the page of some
Alex Clippinger:other book or some other mythology.
Alex Clippinger:There are aberrations and cosmic horror entities in D&D, and
Alex Clippinger:they exist in the far realm.
Alex Clippinger:You would think, if they wanted to firmly keep it as a kind of
Alex Clippinger:Lovecraftian creature they would, they would do a Far Realm thing.
Alex Clippinger:But I think they made a very conscious decision to pull Dagon out of that context
Alex Clippinger:and into something completely different to make it a sort of D&D creature.
Alex Clippinger:Dagon , is.
Alex Clippinger:often presented in art as this long, sinuous, eel-like creature,
Alex Clippinger:but it has limbs with clawed, with these massive clawed fingers.
Alex Clippinger:It gives a very distinct sense of being an aquatic creature.
Alex Clippinger:but not necessarily obeying the laws that we normally associate with it,
Alex Clippinger:like having almost humanoid like limbs that clearly aren't meant for swimming;
Alex Clippinger:these many, bulbous eyes are sort of embedded into the sides of its head; and
Alex Clippinger:of course, you have to have the "Jaws" element of , the massive gaping maw.
Alex Clippinger:The moment where the light hits.
Alex Clippinger:Part of Dagon just right or glimmers off, off of its eyes and this
Alex Clippinger:horrible realization of, Oh, that's that's him like that is real, this
Alex Clippinger:the kind of moment where it's God, I hate to say it, "That's no moon!"
Alex Clippinger:Yeah.
Alex Clippinger:But like the, the very moment where it's like, Oh no, that's, that's real.
Alex Clippinger:First I guess the most important one, regional effects: spells and other
Alex Clippinger:magical effects that allow a creature to breathe water, do not function within
Alex Clippinger:Dagon's lair unless it allows them to.
Alex Clippinger:So at any point, Dagon's just like "That - no, you don't just
Alex Clippinger:get to breathe under water."
Alex Clippinger:which is, yeah, that's a lot.
Alex Clippinger:And then its lair actions have things like, a whirlpool surrounds day gun
Alex Clippinger:creature spend extra movement while swimming, which is already a thing that
Alex Clippinger:if you don't have something that allows you to swim, it's already extra movement.
Alex Clippinger:So instead of, moving 30 feet, you're moving essentially you're
Alex Clippinger:moving to 10, which can be incredibly, crushing in a fight.
Alex Clippinger:layer action, shockwave ripples from Dagon throughout the layer, each creature
Alex Clippinger:holding its breath must succeed on a DC 23 constitution saving throw, or
Alex Clippinger:have the air force from its lungs.
Alex Clippinger:Which is very, very mean and yeah, it's very mean, and just, Oh yeah.
Alex Clippinger:Each one was unique to the, specific demon Lord it was referring to, and
Alex Clippinger:I did the same thing here, and it has a lot to do with, guess what?
Alex Clippinger:Drowning, because you're in an, a plane of the Abyss that is
Alex Clippinger:just a horrible, deep dark ocean.
Alex Clippinger:the way the madness , tables work is they're like character statements and
Alex Clippinger:first person and one of them is "I don't feel sane unless I'm immersed in water."
Alex Clippinger:Which can have very, very nasty role play meets mechanics, effects, for someone.
Alex Clippinger:And none of those things are even things that damage a player, and none of them
Alex Clippinger:are even part of the actual stat block.
Alex Clippinger:And then one more fun, little aquatic specific thing.
Alex Clippinger:When Dagon is in a body of water and knows the precise location of
Alex Clippinger:any creature within 120 feet of it that is in the same body of water.
Alex Clippinger:So no, you cannot hide from Dagon.
Alex Clippinger:You're in Dagon's domain.
Alex Clippinger:He is a aquatic, demigod-level creature, like he knows where you are.
Alex Clippinger:Okay.
Alex Clippinger:So, yup.
Alex Clippinger:Yup.
Alex Clippinger:That's, this is all the fun mean stuff that I come up
Alex Clippinger:with for high-level creatures.
Alex Clippinger:So I'm sorry.
Alex Clippinger:Yeah.
Alex Clippinger:Yeah.
Alex Clippinger:I think the goal that I had once I lit on the idea of, "Oh, I want to
Alex Clippinger:play with drowning rules" - nobody really thinks about drowning or
Alex Clippinger:suffocation rails and there's a lot of little corners of, of the rule set.
Alex Clippinger:The people don't really have to think about or engage with very often, how
Alex Clippinger:long a character can hold their breath.
Alex Clippinger:Even thinking about swimming, and so I thought, how can I make, how can
Alex Clippinger:I specifically make this water-based creature challenge players in a
Alex Clippinger:way that asks them to think about rules and challenges completely
Alex Clippinger:separate from their hit points.
Alex Clippinger:Because if you run out of air in the rules, you hit zero hit points and you,
Alex Clippinger:you start rolling death saving throws.
Alex Clippinger:You could have a thousand hit points.
Alex Clippinger:It doesn't matter if you cannot figure out how to solve the problem
Alex Clippinger:of, , how to breathe under water, or like how it's you out smart, the
Alex Clippinger:sort of affects that otherwise would prevent you from breathing under water.
Alex Clippinger:none of your hit points, none of your stats mean anything.
Alex Clippinger:And I think the solution to that, ideally, in a campaign where Dagon
Alex Clippinger:is featured as like either the main villain or just a villain in general,
Alex Clippinger:players could ideally ignore half the stuff that I've done here because a DM
Alex Clippinger:has broadcast these dangers to them.
Alex Clippinger:And like they've engaged with the mechanics of researching Dagon,
Alex Clippinger:or like, finding out the secret.
Alex Clippinger:I think all of the things about, knowing is half the battle, is accentuated with,
Alex Clippinger:very, very high level monsters, more, even more so than, than lower level, creatures.
Alex Clippinger:this is a way for DM to say, okay, I'm going to challenge you in a way that
Alex Clippinger:you have probably never been challenged before with rules that you never
Alex Clippinger:really necessarily thought of before.
Alex Clippinger:And I don't - you know, the mean way to do this is, "Oh, you, you show up in a
Alex Clippinger:watery area, you fight Dagon, you die", which is not how I want a creature like
Alex Clippinger:this to be run - as a creator or as a DM.
Alex Clippinger:I want the dangers and the existence of this thing to be broadcast.
Alex Clippinger:I think a lot of teams will get a lot of pleasure out of presenting this
Alex Clippinger:problem and just sitting back for 30 minutes and crossing your arms and
Alex Clippinger:smiling while players are just trying to figure out, how do we deal with this?
Alex Clippinger:how do we even engage with this before initiative is even rolled?