The book of many things for Dungeons and Dragons 5e adds a lot of utility and lore to the much-loved magic item Deck of Many Things. For decades, players have been able to draw a card from the deck for a random and sometimes game-changing effect. The newest version has been expanded in a way that will ensure that players and DMs have resources of all kinds for almost any type of game they want to run.
The new 5e version features dozens of new cards that characters can draw and interact with. Besides that, The book of many things has nearly three dozen new monsters and NPCs for players to encounter, all related to the Deck’s story. These include creatures summoned by the magic that created the Deck in the first place, new factions working to find and protect or destroy the Deck, and even chaotic creatures simply inspired by some of the more interesting effects found on the cards.
10 witch of destiny
Punish players with disadvantage and forced damage
The Fate Hag is tied to the very powerful card, The Fates. The card allows any character who draws it to change or avoid an event from the past. Witches of destiny “They carry shining magical scissors that they use to cut the threads of destiny. These scissors are gruesome weapons that cut the enemy’s destiny as well as his flesh..” They have a powerful legendary action called Destiny Curse that not only imposes disadvantage on a character’s skill checks, attack rolls, and saving throws to make them more likely to fail, but when that character fails one of those rolls, takes 2d6 force damage that is unlikely to be resisted.
9 Harrow Hound
An undead dog that tracks prey through airplanes
Harrow Hound is part of Grim Harrow, a group of souls that have been slain by the avatar of death, which in turn is summoned by the Skull card in the Deck of Many Things. If the hound detects the scent of a creature in the Deck’s possession, he can follow it across planes until he locates his prey. If a party of adventurers crosses the deck and sees a Harrow Hound nearby, it may already be too late.
8 Corruptor from another world
An Amorphous, Shape-Shifting Doppleganger Alien
The Otherworld Defiler might be too much for most groups. With a challenge rating of 17, only the most enthusiastic and prepared adventurers stand a chance. He has an innate Spider Climb for mobility, the Alien Mind. The trait stuns anyone who tries to delve into its thoughts and a legendary action that allows the monster to transform into “a shifting mass of flesh, tentacles, eyes, claws and mouths.“The Otherworld Defiler is truly a creature straight out of a fever dream of cosmic, Lovecraftian horror.
7 living omen
Living light that helps prophecies come true
Living portents are Celestials that are sent to the Material Plane in the form of shooting stars to help fulfill different prophecies. They look for people and things involved in the prophecy and push them towards the destiny they believe must happen. They hit the ground, leaving an impact crater when it appears, but without injuring anyone in that vicinitysince most of the time they have a useful mission from a god. The book of many things It also includes living omen variants that could also come from an evil deity, such as Elder Evil Hadar, who has multiple 5e spells named after him.
6 Knight of the Solar Bastion
Protect the multiverse from the chaos of the deck
The Solar Bastion, as an organization, monitors and protects the DND multiverse of chaos caused by the Cover of Many Things. The Knights of Solar Basion, representing the Sun card of the deck, are often at odds with Grim Harrow and other Evil-aligned groups and cards. Wielding spears made of radiant energy called Sunspears, the Knights of Solar Basion are creatures Basic CR 9 that can easily demolish Demons and Undead, making them excellent additions to the Good side in campaigns such as Baldur’s Gate: descent into Avernus and Curse of Strahd.
5 Comet Hierophant
Powerful sorcerers that represent the cards in the deck
Each world has 22 hierophants, members of the cult known as The Comet Heralds. Each of these warlocks represents a card from the original Deck of Many Things. They draw power from the All-Consuming Star, a strange alien mind that helps them understand the Void and attempt to bring about the end of the multiverse and return everything to the Void itself.
4 breath drinker
Living Void of the Far Realm
Breath Drinkers come from the Far Realm, the home plane of mind flayers, beholders, and Elder Evils. They can extract the soul of a creature and even consume the personality of their victim. In game terms, the breath drinker can reduce a character’s charisma by 1d6 until it reaches zero, at which point the character dies. Fortunately for players, the breath drinker is so evil that when exposed to necrotic damage, his abilities are amplified and he even begins to consume himself from the inside out.
3 vulture man
Greedy werewolves hungry for meat
The werevultures take the full moon shift of other werewolves and combine it with the greed of the vrocks and the scavenging of the vultures. They can polymorph into the normal humanoid they were before the curse, as well as into a hybrid form with added bird features, or as a full vulture. Vulturemen are a grotesque addition to any campaign, and could easily replace wereravens or wererats for a slightly more twisted narrative.
2 Riffler
Fey created by the first deck of the deck
Obsessed with The Deck of Many Things, rifflers are small gnome-like sprites who desperately want to alter fate. When visible to mortals, there is likely a Deck somewhere nearby, and if engaged, the riffler can attack by spraying spectral cards at his enemies to keep them at bay. DMs can add chaos to their sessions by introducing players to a riffler and its unconventional damage. On an odd damage roll, the riffler will deal necrotic damage, and on an even damage roll, the damage will be radiant.
1 Malaxxix the shackle
Demon of cunning, anger and bloodlust
Perhaps best used as the main antagonist of a campaign, Malaxxix the Shackler is a CR 18 demon that can summon an entire vortex of lesser demons. called mezzoloths. Malaxxix crafts cursed items and leaves them for unsuspecting adventurers to find and obtain. curse of malaxxix after tuning in to it. Instead of giving the attuned character negative attributes or effects, the curse allows Malaxxis to divine it from any plane of the world. Dungeons and Dragons multiverse at any time, and the Daemon can teleport within 60 feet of the cursed creature any time he wants, meaning there’s really no escape from his machinations.