Dalliance’s Monster Compendium Ghosts by Kayla Bayens (@JustThinkingKay)

Spirits, ghosts and ghouls aren’t just for Halloween, though these will inspire and enrich Halloween games, these are a brilliant bunch of things that go bump in the night and put the might into Fright!

“Spirits are great for your low level players before they get magic weapons or items.

They are dangerous and a challenge and have that certain zing only an incorporeal can have. However enter the after of the players receiving their first magic weapons and the spirit might as well be hot air. Now in my opinion this is a disservice to the incorporeal, but fixable. Please allow me to offer to you this day my humble musings on the matter in the form of some very scary ghosts and spirits.”

This is a collection of eight spirited creatures ranging from CR 4 to CR 21 filled with ghostly lore and ghastly delights, as well as art from Syrene (@Valldoesdnd) that ranged from the spookily sublime to the ridiculously terrifying, which will ensure that the living maintain a healthy fear of the undead, regardless of their level and ability.

Grim

“...A strangely shifting black cat sitting on a headstone with bright yellow eyes. A black dog pacing the fence line. A swirling black cow lazily grazing between graves...”

These unrestful souls, depicted as ghostly black cat, are protectors of the graveyards they find themselves tied to. They retain their original size and shape, but are granted great necromantic power, making them formidable guardians of the grave, able to call the dead to serve and lay the restless to down as needed. This makes them an intriguing choice as an NPC that could aid the party and/ or become a an ongoing questgiver, as well as formidable foe.

With access to true resurrection, they could be the party’s only hope and the DM’s solution to reviving a PC. Perhaps, the party must beseech the Grim of a desecrated graveyard that requires they force a local cult of necromancers to leave graves alone in return for their assistance.

Minyak

Content Warning: Child Death/ Eating of

“Out of the shadows appears a tall and lanky form, their body made up of almost a black oily substance.

No face is visible, but their long fingers with curling claws and gaping toothed maw catch attention.”

These sickly, slender shadow stalkers hunt in the dark, which aids them in their wicked endeavours – searching for snacks, particularly children which they “sometimes being so excited as to gobble them up right away.” The night envelopes their victims and masks the predation of these nightmares that sap their victims of strength and impart curses with their touch.

Freaking creepy. Freaking cool!

Myardos

“Myardos steal people’s lives. They take on their appearance and do evil deeds to sow disaster and feed off of the hurt, emotions, and chaos it causes.”

These cruel doppelgangers are masters of manipulation, both physical and mental, which they use to mimic their victim and take control of their mind. There are few fiends more adept in the art of inducing anguish and uncovering the darkest fears. It’s one thing to be torn asunder by an enemy, it’s quite another to broken from within, throttled by your own nightmares. Gorgeous evil magic mirror representation of the Myrados. Pathfinder

“... A gnarled hand reaches out from a very tight well-hidden tunnel to gesture your party to follow. You can just barely squeeze through in a single file... Just a distant glowing lantern floating ahead...leads you through twisting tunnels before you finally empty out on the side of a mountain.”

Not all undead are evil and not all of them wish you harm. These amorphous beings sometimes appear as elderly femmes with lambent guiding lights. As Charon and Athreos guide the dead, Pathfinders guide the living and find...paths. Lost in the mountains and desperate to get past? If you are incredibly lucky you might find a helping hand that could give you the mean to pass through the mountains.

I can’t help but imagine evil Pathfinders leading lost adventures into twisted tunnels resulting in something like The Enigma of Amigara Fault (Manga) by Jun Jilto...

Poltergeist

“When a place is so purely a person’s their soul can become fused with the place in such a way that, in their death, it becomes a living location...Poltergeists aren’t always malevolent in nature, but trying to change or destroy their location will cause them to go into a frenzied rage against those that dare disturb them.”

This is a far more robust and gooier poltergeist, not to be confused with the Variant spectre in the Monster Manual with greatly expanded abilities, lair actions, regional effects and a “Heart of the Haunt”. This item is the connection that keeps the poltergeist tethered to the location, meaning that if this item “isn’t destroyed, a destroyed poltergeist gains a new form” after a time and reappears in the house.

With the arsenal at this new and improved poltergeist comes, this is not an entity you want to mess with!

The voluptuous viscous artwork is glorious and appears to have butt teeth!

Spiritual Guardian

“...They look like the knights from books your mother read to you as a child. You can see through them and their feet don’t seem to be touching the ground even as they stand...” These ghostly knights are chivalrous protector caught between life and death that appear to keep the worthy protected with abilities to diffuse or decimate any situation. An older sibling to Guardian of the Faith with far more control and the ability to bring their other spiritual guardian biddies, which is such a glorious image!

Tanmeaclu

“Thoughts are powerful things, more powerful than most know. When enough people believe, and feed their psychic energy into something, it takes on a life of its own...”

Evoking Jafar’s genie form from the end of Aladdin and, of course, Return of Jafar, the Tanmeaclu does seem to have phenomenal cosmic (or at least spiritual/ mental) power, though their living space does not seem to be constrained. Folx should indeed cower at the power in their pinkie because it is literally exhausting to attack them, and their thumb is number one on every list because they can use it to snatch souls like cheap wigs in a back alley lip-sync battle.

Terrifying undead soulflayers (quintilithid?)

Vyctobol

“To come into the world you need strength, the quickest path to strength is to steal it. Vyctobol live in cursed objects and latch onto the person who take possession of it. As it grows in strength it takes on a wavering mirror form of the victim for brief bursts of time...”

The final creature of this compendium is a life and body vampire, an ephemeral, malignant undead trapped in a cursed item. The very worst lamp to rub! This is not genie! In some ways this reminds me or the dybbuk, but this is undead, while the dybbuk is a fiend, and the vyctobol is a soulless essence trapped in a cursed item, the dybbuk is a demonic jellyfish, otherwise their modus operandi has a lot in common. However, when push came to shove, the vyctobol’s possessed body would stomp a mudhole on the dybbuk’s and find a way to Stunner the jellyfish. But, a weird, fiendish jellyfish is not a haunted copy of Volo’s Guide to Ghosts.

This is a really interesting and diverse range of creatures that most certainly succeed in the mission statement regarding making ghosties and undead that will put the fear of the grave back into higher level heroes! There are some truly nasty and powerful creatures that will lead to some epic combats and fascinating encounters.

On the other hand, there are also a few kindly and thoughtful creatures that have wonderful potential to act as guides when things are taking too long and the party are lost beyond the point of fun and those able to bolster their ranks or being characters back to life.

All have a wonderful depth of lore that will inspire all sorts of antics and adventures, as well as giving DMs a new range of creatures to play with. There are potential questgivers and allies with utilities to bosses and nasty things to come up against.

The stylish art from Syrene fits the creatures and the dark, ethereal tone of this supplement superbly.

I like the way Bayens mind works and thoroughly look forward to future compendiums!

Credits Designer: Kayla Bayens (@JustThinkingKay) Artist: Vall Syrene (@Valldoesdnd) Layout: Scott Gladstein

My Affiliate Link: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/330446/Dalliances-Monster-Compendium-Ghosts?affiliate_id=1507682