The Lepiditia Ruins

A short article today, as I'm in the midst of house moving stress, but hopefully I'll have more regular updates coming soon!

We have ventured into the jungles of Veridia, and have now arrived at the ruins of the capital, Lepiditia. Once a grand city of druids, it was destroyed in the magical blast that caused the continent to be overrun by forest. It is now a haunted ruin, the fallout from the druidic energies bringing life to all manner of monstrosities.

Some of the creatures here can be represented by the skeleton stat blocks in the Daggerheart core rulebook, but I wanted some creatures that fit the druidic theme of the place. One landmark in the city the party visited was an ancient breeding centre, where the druids made creatures to help them in the war they faced, so I thought a suitable monster could be one of their experiments that had been reanimated by the magic afflicting the city. Thus, the Lupine Wraith was born!

Edit (01/12/25): Now available on Heart Of Daggers!

The Lupine Wraith is designed as a single mini-boss monster. Its Lingering Crunch can be used to give players a brief debuff (and the random element of the countdown leads to a fun dynamic - is it worth the risk to just take the hit and hope for a short Curse, or do they need to keep their distance?). This is compounded by the Fearful Visage ability, which means attacking the creature can come at a cost if you fail... It then rounds out its ability list with the usually required abilities to make sure it can get some actions going even when facing a party of 5.

Let me know how you find the Lupine Wraith! Coming soon we'll have some different types of creatures - I've been mainly homebrewing solos so far so it'll be fun to try some different styles of combat soon!

(Also, if you're still interested in the world that these creatures inhabit, I'll also be writing some articles about that eventually too - starting with the jungles of Veridia!)