Marionettes is the popular name to describe a type of malevolent spirit that magically animates objects to turn them into weapons. Living dolls are a well-known type of marionette.[1]
Description[]
Appearance[]
When they possess something, the marionettes can pass as an inanimate object as long as they remain still, although the illusion is broken as soon as they begin to move, or if they use elements such as manic laughter or faces on their physical bodies to scare people.
The marionettes encountered by the Re-Slayer's Take in Issylra acted through shiny vines coming out of the ground, causing their physical bodies to emit a green glow in the place where the stem was located.[2]
Abilities[]
When possessing dolls, marionettes display these abilities:
- False Appearance: If the doll is motionless, a creature must succeed on a DC 18 Investigation check to discern that the doll is animate, and at the start of combat the doll has advantage on its initiative roll.[3]
- Regeneration: Regains 5 hit points at the start of each of its turns unless it takes fire or psychic damage. The doll is destroyed only if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn't regenerate.[1][4]
- Grabby Hands: Grapples one opponent, dealing psychic damage at the start of each of its turns.[1]
- Cackle: Each creature who can hear the doll's laughter must make a DC 13[5] Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, a target takes psychic damage and is incapacitated by a fit of laughter. On a successful save, the target takes half as much damage and is immune to the effect for the next 24 hours. A laughing creature can repeat the save at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success.[1]
As vines, marionettes have access to the Withering Touch attack.[6]
History[]
Fan art of the "snowmen", by Elaine Tipping.[art 1]
During her career as a monster hunter Farah Vallari encountered these spirits, which she called marionettes, and learned that while their physical bodies could be attacked, the undead entities could only be harmed through magic, either with spells or magical weapons. Around 839 PD,[7] while the old half-elf was adventuring with the Re-Slayer's Take in Issylra, they encountered marionettes that were using strange glowing vines to control four snowmen. Both Farah and Timpani Guff (a firbolg who had been studying the local monsters for a while) identified the threat and adviced the other adventurers, managing to defeat three of the marionettes, after which the last one retreated underground, causing its body of snow and ice to collapse. Timpani believed that these spirit vines were part of a series of phenomena connected with Putridius Festerkin, a dark druid who used to be a member of the Slayer's Take.[8] That same night the adventurers fought eight particularly strong marionettes controlling the skeleton of the white dragon Rimefang, but they managed to defeat it, after which they destroyed a strange carnivorous-looking bulb that seemed to be the source of their power. Later, during a meeting with two members of the Slayer's Take, one of them stated he didn't know anything about marionette ghosts, and Farah was disappointed.[9] A few days later an army of skeletons controlled by marionettes attacked the goblin settlement the Re-Slayers were visiting, and they used their knowledge to neutralize them and destroy their three core bulbs.[10]
When the Timberblight returned to life (having been defeated by the Re-Slayers) he used his powers again to bring back the magma landshark defeated by his former guild in 784 PD, animating it with marionettes and terrorizing the miners of the Spectrum Gorge with it.[11] Using the monster, the marionettes had taken Sasha, a half-orc bodyguard, and had kept her inside the creature for days, in a constant stage of rage while they drained her emotions and energy, while also leaving her under the effects of the Contagion spell. However, when they fought the Re-Slayers, the adventurers destroyed the two bulbs attached to the landshark, destroying both the monster and the vines controlling it.[12] There were ghosts manifesting as marionettes in the dungeon below Grimm Heldwell's mansion.[13]
In the Twilight Mirror Museum in 843 PD Bells Hells encountered and defeated five doll marionettes who guarded a room with one of the exhibits of the museum — the Mask of the Mountain from the house of Ovorag in Othanzia.[14]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 See D&D: The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, 5th ed., p. 238.
- ↑ See "The Bog House" (RTx02).
- ↑ See "Breaking and Entering..." (3x20) at 2:17:03.
- ↑ See "Breaking and Entering..." (3x20) at 2:34:12.
- ↑ See "Breaking and Entering..." (3x20) at 2:35:07.
- ↑ See "The Monstrous Mine" (RT2x04).
- ↑ George Primavera confirmed the date on Discord. See a photo of his answer.
- ↑ See "The Bog House" (RTx02).
- ↑ See "The Frozen Puppet" (RTx03).
- ↑ See "The Rotten Soldiers" (RTx11).
- ↑ See "The Dire Descent" (RT2x03).
- ↑ See "The Monstrous Mine" (RT2x04).
- ↑ See "The Hopeless Hostages" (RT2x14).
- ↑ See "Breaking and Entering..." (3x20) at 2:44:46.
Art:
- ↑ Fan art of the "snowmen", by Elaine Tipping (source). Used with permission.
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