Critical Role Wiki

This wiki contains spoilers for the entirety of Critical Role and The Legend of Vox Machina. Proceed at your own risk!

READ MORE

Critical Role Wiki
Critical Role Wiki

Oni, sometimes misleadingly called ogre mages, are a type of giantkin with magical abilities.

Appearance[]

In their true form, oni are large and muscular yet blubbery demonic ogres; their heads have two ivory horns, and their blue or green hairless skin is a tough and rhino-like hide.[1] Their eyes are dark with strikingly white pupils, and their teeth and claws are jet black.[2]

Oni can shapechange into any other Large giant or any Medium or Small humanoid, though they keep their original statistics[2] and even in humanoid form they have noticeably heavy footsteps.[3]

Abilities[]

The following is taken from the Monster Manual, 5th Edition (2014), p. 239, but some abilities have been demonstrated on-stream.

  • Saving throw proficiencies: DEX, CON, WIS, CHA
  • Skill proficiencies: Arcana, Deception, Perception
  • Regeneration: Regains 10 hit points at start of its turn if it has at least 1 hit point.
  • Magic Weapons: An oni's weapon attacks are magical.
  • Innate Spellcasting
    • At will: Invisibility,[4] Darkness
    • Once per day: Cone of Cold,[5] Sleep, Charm Person, Gaseous Form
  • Actions
    • Shapechange
    • Multiattack: two attacks, either with claws or with glaive

History[]

Lowborn giants—ogres, cyclopes, and hill giants—who turn to corrupting magic can be warped into trolls or oni, gaining power at the expense of any compassion they had. They generally try to turn groups of other lowborn giants into their personal armies.[6] Oni were banished by highborn giants from the giant caste system.[7]

Children's nursery rhymes in Wildemount include cautionary stories in which oni steal away children at night, as a means of scaring children into staying home.[8]

In the adventure hook The Stuff of Nightmares, set around Westruun, an oni is to blame not only for a number of children going missing, but also for a plague of nightmares affecting people of all ages.[9][10]

Lorenzo and the Iron Shepherds[]

Episode 144-Kerri Airken-Beau-Lorenzo

Fan art of Beauregard Lionett attempting a Stunning Strike on Lorenzo, by Kerri Aitken.[art 2]

One of the Mighty Nein's most dangerous early enemies was an oni. As part of a job for the Gentleman, the Mighty Nein were traveling up to the Shadycreek Run area to meet up with the Gentleman's business associate, Ophelia Mardoon, when the Iron Shepherds, a band of slavers operating out of Shadycreek Run, kidnapped Yasha, Fjord, and Jester. When the rest of the Mighty Nein and Keg attempted to ambush the Shepherds on the road before the slavers could return to their stronghold, the slavers' leader Lorenzo killed Mollymauk Tealeaf. The surviving free members of the Nein and Keg added Nila to their group and continued on into the Shadycreek Run area. There, they met with Ophelia Mardoon, who turned out to be a rival of the Iron Shepherds. Mardoon asked them to discreetly eliminate the Shepherds and suggested that they ask for the help of local priest Caduceus Clay, who joined the party. They infiltrated the Iron Shepherds' base, the Sour Nest, discovered that Lorenzo was a disguised oni, and killed him and the other Shepherds.

Trivia[]

Lord Eshteross wore an oni mask to a masquerade ball.[11]

References[]

  1. See "The Stalking Nightmare" (2x29) at 2:30:39.  See also 3:27:56.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Oni on D&D Beyond
  3. See "The Path to Whitestone" (1x27) at 3:40:51.
  4. See "The Stalking Nightmare" (2x29) at 2:29:29.
  5. See "Found & Lost" (2x26) at 4:12:14.
  6. See Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, p. 220.
  7. See Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, p. 124.
  8. See "The Stalking Nightmare" (2x29) at 3:41:07.
  9. This adventure can be set in 812 PD. See Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, p. 61.
  10. It can also be set in 836 PD. See Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, p. 93.
  11. See "A Dance of Deception" (3x13) at 34:16.

Art:

  1. Depiction of an oni from D&D Monster Manual, 5th ed. (2014), p. 239. This page contains unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Wizards of the Coast Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.
  2. Fan art of Beauregard Lionett attempting a Stunning Strike on Lorenzo, by Kerri Aitken (source). Used with permission.