Oni

Oni
Depiction of an oni from D&D Monster Manual, 5th ed. (2014), p. 239.
Biological Information
Type	Giant
Alignment	Lawful Evil
Vision	Darkvision 60 ft.
Movement	30 ft., fly 30 ft.
Abilities	Innate Spellcasting Regeneration Change Shape
Physical Characteristics
Size	Large
Skin color	Blue Green
Hair color	Dark
Eye color	Dark
Sociocultural Information
Planes	Material Plane (Exandria)
Environment	Forest, Urban
Language	Common, Giant
Notable members	Lorenzo

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. Their eyes are dark with strikingly white pupils, and their teeth and claws are jet black.

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

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, Darkness
  • Once per day: Cone of Cold, 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. Oni were banished by highborn giants from the giant caste system.

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.

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.

Lorenzo and the Iron Shepherds

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

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.

References

Art: