The howls came first, high and long in the night, cutting through the gloom. Filgrin pulled his cloak tight around himself, trying to warm by the fire.
“Damn, that’s eerie”, Damadius said softly.
The noises got closer and closer, seeming to come from all directions, rolling over the plains, as dark shapes seemed to slip and dart across the rolling fields.
Damadius doused the flames, his blade drawn, as the first of the howls broke out of the dark, teeth bared and eyes wild, sinking their jaws onto his legs, as Filgrin spins around, magic flame burning in his hand, as another leaps out of the darkness into his back, knocking him over.
Another leapt at Damadius, this time into his arm, a gash of blood lost in the dark night, and more and more bright eyes slowly padded towards the duo, teeth wide and hungry….
Time for some non-humanoid lackeys in our Minion Masterclass, and what could be more simple than a pack of hunting dogs?
Ans I understand, we all love dogs, no-one wants to fight dogs, but these aren’t good dogs, they are bad dogs, bent to the will of an evil-doer. And if you players want to kill the evil and rehabilitate these dogs, please do, but until then, they’re gonna try to kill you.
As you’ll see, I’ve given you two stat blocks for this week, mostly depending on how much you want to run individual dogs. I’ll take them in the order I posted them.
Firstly, the single Pack Hound. I wanted to shy away from simply reusing Pack Tactics for the hound, as wanted to give them a bit more flavour. I wanted the sense of a ‘pack’ to mean more than just being better at biting, so I added in The Pack ability, meaning that the pack moves and operates better together, they are quicker off the mark, they are tougher, they bite harder and talk amongst themselves. They should be more of a threat when they are a group, but not just in combat.
This stat block is aimed at when you want to run a count of individual dogs, a smaller pack, or to bring a lot more flavor to it than just a whole mass of dogs. Or maybe the concept of running swarms seems alien to you. Speaking of…
The Pack itself is a swarm stat block for when the actual count of dogs doesn’t matter, more the overwhelm of many many dogs. The block here is in many ways a lot simpler, just an ungodly mass of canine bites and attacks. I wanted the feeling that the players might be swallowed whole by this swarm. So the So. Many. Dogs. ability is designed to simulate that, that sheer force of numbers will knock almost anyone down to be devoured.
Either way, I hope you find a place for these good bad doggos at your table