Friends and Foes

Even as the Five Nations slowly recover from the Last War, rumors spread of the alien daelkyr, the Emerald Claw, the Lord of Blades, and other threats growing in power across the world. This chapter provides stat blocks for many of the creatures that can play a role in an Eberron campaign, including enemies that might overrun a town, powerful entities threatening all Khorvaire, and NPCs that can serve as either friends or foes.

The chapter’s monsters appear first in a bestiary. They’re followed by a collection of generic NPCs—various people who can populate your Eberron adventures.

Remember that few intelligent creatures in Eberron are inherently evil. Even dragons, which on other worlds are associated with certain alignments, choose their own paths. The adventure ideas and encounter tables in chapter 4 offer abundant examples of monsters behaving in ways that aren’t traditionally monstrous.

• Belashyrra
• Bone Knight
• Changeling
• Clawfoot
• Dolgaunt
• Dolgrim
• Dusk Hag
• Dyrrn
• Expeditious Messenger
• Fastieth
• Hashalaq Quori
• Inspired
• Iron Defender
• Kalaraq Quori
• Kalashtar
• Karrnathi Undead Soldier
• Lady Illmarrow
• Living Burning Hands
• Living Cloudkill
• Living Lightning Bolt
• Magewright
• Mordakhesh
• Radiant Idol
• Rak Tulkhesh
• Shifter
• Steel Defender
• Sul Khatesh
• Tarkanan Assassin
• The Lord of Blades
• Tsucora Quori
• Undying Councilor
• Undying Soldier
• Valenar Hawk
• Valenar Hound
• Valenar Steed
• Warforged Colossus
• Warforged Soldier
• Warforged Titan
• Zakya Rakshasa

Daelkyr

The daelkyr are the lords of madness and the emissaries of Xoriat, who invaded Eberron with a host of mind flayers, beholders, and other foul aberrations. Wherever they walked, the daelkyr reshaped the world in their image, sowing madness and creating monsters. They fused goblins together to create the gibbering dolgrims and crafted the blind dolgaunts from hobgoblin stock.

The goblinoid champions of Dhakaan fought fiercely. But in the end, it was the orc Gatekeeper druids who closed the portals to Xoriat and drove the daelkyr into Khyber. The Gatekeepers crafted seals to hold both the power of Xoriat and the daelkyr at bay, and as long as those seals remain intact, the lords of madness can’t rise from the depths. Today, those seals are thousands of years old and the Gatekeepers are all but forgotten. Mind flayers scheme in the sewers of Sharn, and cultists beseech beholder priests for the blessings of Belashyrra, the Lord of Eyes. And in the shadows of Khyber, the daelkyr are waiting.

The Six Daelkyr

Six daelkyr are known on Eberron through their cults and legends: Belashyrra and Dyrrn, who are detailed in this chapter, and the four described below. Other daelkyr surely lurk in the depths of Khyber.

Avassh: The Twister of Roots devotes its attentions to plants. Avassh is said to be the source of sham bling mounds and myconids, but any unnatural and deadly vegetation might be its work.

Kyrzin: The cults of the Prince of Slime are based in the Shadow Marches and are infamous for cultivating gibbering beasts. Kyrzin creates sentient slimes that can enter humanoid bodies. In some tales, these creatures control their hosts, while in others, they are parasites that burn their way out of the body when it’s time to strike.

Orlassk: The Master of Stone is said to have created basilisks, medusas, gorgons, cockatrices, and other monstrosities and aberrations with the power of petrification. Orlassk’s citadel is carved into the body of a gargantuan gargoyle that roams the chasms of Khyber.

Valaara: The Crawling Queen works its will on insects, arachnids, and other vermin. Swarms with malign sentience, worms that consume victims from within, cultists that slowly become insects—all of these delight Valaara.

Held Loosely in Space

The daelkyr have lairs within Khyber, but these are no mere caverns. Each daelkyr’s domain is a demiplane reflecting the twisted vision of its master. These realms are connected to the surface by tunnels and chasms, but they defy conventional geography. Passages to Belashyrra’s domain can be found in the Shadow Marches, but tunnels also connect its realm to Xen’drik. Adventurers can potentially cross great distances quickly by passing through a daelkyr’s domain.

Unfathomable Evil

The daelkyr are utterly alien, and their physical forms can’t be fully perceived by mortals. Viewers perceive the same general impression of a daelkyr, but the details vary in ways that can’t be controlled. For example, Belashyrra might appear as a female humanoid surrounded by floating eyes to some viewers, while other viewers see a haggard male elf.

Characters with Ties to the Daelkyr

Player characters might manifest connections to the daelkyr in many ways. The Great Old One warlock patron is an excellent match to Belashyrra or Dyrrn, but other classes can just as easily reflect a connection to this darkness. For example, a barbarian’s rage might be seen as a form of daelkyr-induced madness, or a sorcerer’s Sorcerous Origin could be the result of a daelkyr experiment.

When a character has a tie to a daelkyr, consider whether that tie was chosen or thrust upon them. Is the character a cultist who embraces their dark path, believing that a world transformed by the daelkyr will be a better place? Or is the character a victim of the daelkyr, consumed by the fear of what they might become?

The touch of the daelkyr might be purely mental, or it might be accompanied by a physical transformation. A barbarian touched by Belashyrra might serve as an eye of the All-Seer but remain physically unchanged, even as a barbarian tied to Dyrrn takes on aberrant features while raging. When a warlock character gains the Devil’s Sight invocation, they might literally gain the fiery red eyes of a devil.

Spawn of the Daelkyr

Most of the aberrations on Eberron are the creations of the daelkyr. The daelkyr are masters of flesh-shaping, and they altered existing life forms—often beyond recognition—to create soldiers for their wars against the peoples of Khorvaire.

When a character faces a creature twisted by the daelkyr—an aberration or another creature bearing a daelkyr’s corruption—consider rolling on the Daelkyr Modifications table to add strange cosmetic details to the creature.

Daelkyr Modifications

Beholders

Beholders served as the living artillery of the daelkyr forces, shattering hobgoblin armies with their deadly eye rays. When the Gatekeepers drove back and imprisoned the daelkyr, most of the beholders were driven into Khyber along with their creators.

Today, beholders are solitary, egocentric creatures. Some have remained among the daelkyr and dolgaunts (presented later in this chapter), while others have accumulated their own followings among the Cults of the Dragon Below. A few have abandoned the path of aggression in favor of solitary philosophy and reflection. A beholder philosopher might manipulate events in a humanoid city not to gain power or wealth, but to stimulate and then study a particular social or economic situation.

Doppelgangers

The daelkyr Dyrrn the Corruptor enhanced the latent psychic abilities of changelings to develop doppelgangers, while implanting a desire to cause chaos in the communities around them.—even when there’s no benefit in it for the doppelganger. Some doppelgangers, driven by visions from the daelkyr, can be found working with the Cults of the Dragon Below or fighting alongside aberrations in Khyber. Others operate alone.

Lycanthropes

Many people believe that shifters are descended from lycanthropes, but shifter druids often assert the opposite—that the abilities of the shifters are a gift from Eberron or Lamannia, but the gift was corrupted by the daelkyr to create the curse of lycanthropy.

Whatever the origin of lycanthropy, in the ninth century YK, the power of the curse surged dramatically, and all lycanthropes were drawn toward evil. The Church of the Silver Flame engaged in a long crusade to defend civilization from this brutal scourge, eventually all but eradicating lycanthropy from the Five Nations. The lycanthropes that survived hid in dark places, deep within the woods of the Eldeen Reaches and Droaam.

The common people of Khorvaire still see lycanthropes as a dire threat. Most folks don’t understand that good-aligned lycanthropes exist.

Mind Flayers

The illithids of Eberron are the creations of the daelkyr Dyrrn the Corruptor. Most mind flayers on Eberron dwell in Khyber with their daelkyr masters, commanding cities of dolgaunts and dolgrims. A few can be found on the surface, working with the Cults of the Dragon Below or pursuing their own enigmatic goals. The mind flayers often seem to pursue reopening the gates to Xoriat with more urgency than the daelkyr themselves do. The immortal daelkyr can afford to wait for another ten thousand years; the illithids aren’t so patient.

Living Spells

Of all the anomalies that emerged from the magical cataclysm that created the Mournland, the appearance of living spells might be the most mysterious. In some unknown fashion, the magical energy unleashed during the Last War caused spell effects to take on sentience. A living spell appears much like a normal spell effect, except that its magical energy endures indefinitely.

Living spells haunt the Mournland and other areas blasted by the Last War, somehow subsisting on ambient magical energy as they writhe and across the landscape. Though they have no need for sustenance, they attack any creatures they come into contact with, lashing out indiscriminately with their corrupted magic.

Customizing a Living Spell

Living spells come in many varieties; the stat blocks here are three examples. Living spells most often manifest from evocation and conjuration spells. To make a living spell from a different spell, choose a damage-dealing evocation or conjuration spell from the wizard spell list of up to 5th level. Then consult the Living Spell Customization table to see which stat block to customize, based on the chosen spell’s level.

Living Spell Customization

Now make the following changes to that stat block:

Damage Immunity. Replace the living spell’s damage immunity with immunity to the type (or types) of damage dealt by the chosen spell.

Magical Strike. Replace the damage that Magical Strike deals with one type of damage dealt by the chosen spell.

Spell Mimicry. Replace the effect of Spell Mimicry with the effect of the chosen spell. If that spell requires a saving throw, use spell save DC from the replaced spell, and if the spell involves an attack roll, use the attack bonus from the living spell’s Magical Strike.

For example, if you turn fireball (a 3rd-level spell) into a living spell, customize the living lightning bolt. The living fireball has immunity to fire damage, instead of lightning damage; deals fire damage with its Magical Strike; and replicates fireball with Spell Mimicry.