In the course of the Monarch of the Monsters 5 contest, we had a huge number of entries from many monster designers out there. Now you, the voting public, can pick which one you want to see win the Monarch of the Monsters 5 contest!
Please familiarize yourself (possibly again) with the sixfinalists, then proceed to the poll.
Living Wicks by Ben Wertz
Fext by Dave Olson
Chronalmental by David Gibson
Xanka by Jeremy Hochhalter
Skein Witch by Sersa Victory
Spire Walker by James L. Crawford
[poll id=”7″]
So many thanks go to those who submitted such interesting and creative monsters, plus our intrepid judges — Wolfgang Baur, Rich Howard, and Steve Winter — were amazingly awesome for spending time with each of these creatures and evaluating them. So, please take a moment to thank them, too. Now, it’s your turn to make this contest a fun and wonderful thing: Vote! And thanks in advance for doing so!
Xanka! The most creative of those chosen! Putting it in my new campaign!
Thanks Svantev!
And good look to all of the finalists! :D
i really liked the living wicks – especially the idea they can be carved or altered into fantastic shapes; just the kind of colorful idea that makes a fantasy world really come alive and seem magical.
they don’t seem very monstrous at first blush but i could imagine them being formed into pleasure slaves and used to fulfill all kinds of repressed desires by the debauched upper classes… nice, creepy world-building color.
I love the spire walkers, but I appreciate the idea to build a new undead uber-monster using one of the classes we didn’t have back in AD&D times, so my vote went to the Fext.
The Skein Witch is my top pick. It has the best background and flavor, AND they impact the actions the SW can do. “Sealed Destiny” is my favorite, engaging players in a fresh and evocative way.
It’s hard to pick… there are some great ones. However, there can be only one!
I think the finalists are all excellent monsters. It’s tough to pick just one! The living wick is an awesome low-level construct, and those are rare to see. The chronalmental fits a niche which is really popular — I can remember a version of these iconic monsters in 1st edition — and this one has some great abilities. The fext is an interesting and tough undead foe which, as Dracomilan pointed out, uses one of the new core classes to good effect, both in abilities and flavor. The skein witch is a great tool for the DM to challenge players to come up with creative tactics and push their comfort zone — I think when I use it there will be normal NPCs nearby the PCs need to protect! the xanka is a really interesting monster very different from a lot of others; I can’t think of a similar monster. My vote ended up going to the spire walker, just because they’re interesting fey, and I always need more varied fey creatures; however, my vote could easily have gone another way!
Congratulations to all the finalists!
Chronalmentals deserve their own blockbuster film.
What a fun thing to participate in from start to finish. A nice community building contest with the added benefit of bringing the Skein Witch to my life – among all the others of course ;)
Whatever the outcome, the big winners are the readers here in my opinion. Oh and the actual winner I guess…
Well done all.
I liked all of them but many of them had abilities well out of scope for 5E as “regular” monsters, though could be interesting in a specific campaign.
The Fext missed out on my vote because I felt that they had contradictory fluff (all their purpose was from the patron but they conspire against each, huh?). So I voted Spire Walkers because I like fey. :)