TEXT: EN World EN5IDER | Allies & Adversaries: Dungeon Denizens
  EN World EN5IDER | Allies & Adversaries: Dungeon Denizens
   
  writing Khaldoun Khelil
  color art Indi Martin
   
  editing James J. Haeck
   
  layout Eric Life-Putnam
  N
  ot everythiNg iN a
  dungeon wants to 
  kill the PCs. In fact, 
  some dungeon denizens are quite 
  nice. Use these five strange and 
  surprising NPCs to fill your 
  random encounter tables or 
  methodically insert them into 
  your favorite dungeons. These 
  folk see the adventurers as an 
  opportunity to satisfy some need 
  of their own, and they are willing 
  to help the PCs in exchange for 
  gold, favors, or the occasional 
  goblin skull. While some of them 
  may have unsavory appetites and 
  devious minds, these denizens 
  are more than willing to strike a 
  deal—if it’s mutually beneficial.
  ALLIES & ADVERSARIES
  DUNGEON
  DENIZENS
  
  Allies & Adversaries: Dungeon Denizens | EN World EN5IDER
  Allies & Adversaries: Dungeon Denizens | EN World EN5IDER
  Ruby
  A petite woman leans against a nearby wall, hanging 
  from her belt a strange collection of monstrous scalps. 
  Her unnatural orange eyes glow faintly in the darkness, 
  and she acknowledges your presence with a wink and a 
  pout. Her slit-like pupils dart up and down, examining 
  you—until she raises her long-nailed hand in greeting 
  and you see her skin glint ruby-red in the dim light. 
  She smirks as you begin to realize she’s not entirely 
  human.
   Ruby is a cambion, a half-demon born on the 
  Material Plane to an elven mother who had fallen 
  in love with a deposed demon prince. Although 
  shunned by other elves of her age, her mother 
  showered her with love and embraced her dual 
  nature. When Ruby came of age, her demonic 
  father captured her mother and demanded that 
  Ruby return with him to the Abyss and live 
  out her days as a princess in his kingdom of 
  chaos. She refused and now evades her fathers’ 
  divinations with powerful spells of her own. 
  Ruby hopes to one day rescue her mother as 
  well, but for now is only just able to evade the 
  watchful gaze of her Abyssal father. Ruby is witty 
  and flirtatious and has a particular fondness for 
  dwarves.
   Profit from Parts. Ruby’s protective 
  enchantments require rare components. She 
  travels the planes looking for the lairs of strange 
  monsters and enlists adventurers to carve up the 
  beasts for her. In exchange, she trades information, 
  rare spell components, and occasionally a one-
  way trip to the Abyss for those interested in 
  such a passage. Ruby has collected a wealth of 
  information over the years, including the true 
  names of several powerful demons that work in 
  her father’s service. Ruby can cast plane shift on 
  up to 8 willing targets once a day, and although it 
  transports them to an Abyssal layer of her choice, 
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  Ruby remains behind and unable to recall those 
  she sends into the Abyss. Additionally, given an 
  hour and ingredients harvested from a Type 3 or 
  greater demon—horns, wings, claws, tongues—
  Ruby can create any one uncommon or rare 
  potion of the PCs’ choice.
  Black Bones
  At your feet, a bone-thin black cat purrs quietly, its 
  small paw resting upon the bones of a long dead mouse. 
  Its green eyes look up at you with a pitiful hunger. Its 
  fur is nearly unblemished coal black, with only a single 
  white diamond of fur resting on the center of its brow. 
  It meows gently and its green eyes look to your pack as 
  it sniffs the air.
   Black Bones, a scrawny black cat, was formerly 
  the familiar of a powerful witch who was 
  destroyed over a century ago while exploring the 
  depths of the earth. Perhaps the strange energies 
  of the dungeon realms or the magical prowess of 
  her master have allowed Black Bones to survive 
  so unnaturally long. Whatever the reason, she 
  now travels the passages of the deep and hunts 
  for scraps within the dungeons and tombs she 
  inhabits. She has a special interest in adventurers, 
  because they remind her of her master and they 
  often have cheese, which Black Bones devours 
  with a passion.
   Follow Me, I Live Here. Black Bones is an 
  unerring guide and an incredibly stealthy scout. A 
  party that befriends the cat with playful behavior 
  and plentiful offerings of food (especially cheese) 
  will find her to be a constant companion who 
  can show them safe routes to treasure and safety. 
  Adventurers who befriend and follow Black Bones 
  ignore the first hostile random encounter they 
  have in a day. Black Bones herself is constantly 
  under the effects of a find the path spell. She 
  
  EN World EN5IDER | Allies & Adversaries: Dungeon Denizens
  EN World EN5IDER | Allies & Adversaries: Dungeon Denizens
  usually uses this 
  ability to help 
  adventurers find 
  their way to a 
  dungeon’s exit, but 
  sometimes she can be 
  persuaded or bribed to 
  help them find its greatest 
  treasures or secrets.
   Don’t Cross a Black Cat. 
  Adventurers that treat the 
  cat unkindly, however, 
  find themselves in dire 
  straits. Black Bones is a master 
  of subtle revenge. No member of 
  a party that has offended the cat can 
  successfully complete a long rest, as their sleep 
  is troubled by a distant caterwauling. Wounded 
  groups will find that Black Bones is as adept at 
  leading monsters to them as it is at leading them 
  to monsters, doubling the chances of the PCs 
  encountering wandering monsters as long as they 
  remain in her territory without making amends.
  Prince Velm Ducroix
  A corpulent human wearing a short cape and ill-fitting 
  leather armor appears suddenly from the mists. His 
  chubby fingers are decorated with gaudy rings and 
  he presses a chalice to his lips as he approaches you. 
  Wiping his mouth with a frilled bracer, he lets the 
  chalice drop to the ground at his feet. A smear of blood 
  still showing on his teeth, he smiles and performs a 
  curt but practiced bow.
   Prince Velm Ducroix is a vampire and makes 
  no attempt to hide it. He once ruled a large city, 
  but his increasingly disturbed behavior enraged 
  his fellow vampires, and they turned upon him. 
  He barely survived and now wanders tombs to 
  slake his strange thirst. If the adventurers attack 
  him without allowing him to speak, he simply 
  escapes as a cloud of mist and never approaches 
  them again. Thereafter he will bad-mouth them 
  and describe their whereabouts to any intelligent 
  undead in the dungeon he happens upon.
   A Taste Today. Ducroix is an unusual vampire 
  in that humanoid blood no longer interests him. 
  He has developed instead a taste for the life 
  essence of other supernatural creatures, even 
  entirely bloodless monsters. In fact, his most 
  recent quest to taste a mummy almost ended 
  in his true death, a story he loves to regale 
  adventurers with. To this end he has gossiped 
  with liches and ghouls across the world and 
  knows the strengths and weaknesses of countless 
  tombs and their guardians—not to mention where 
  they keep all the best treasure in such places. In 
  exchange for helping him feed his hunger, Prince 
  Ducroix will help the PCs as best he can, short of 
  wading into combat himself.
   I’m Your Thirstiest Fan! Ducroix is languid 
  and fragile, but cheers on battles with gusto. 
  Despite his useless demeanor, the vampire 
  has a mesmerizing voice and an encyclopedic 
  knowledge of ancient tombs. During battle, on 
  his turn, Ducroix’s encouragement grants Bardic 
  Inspiration (1d8) to a creature of his choice. 
  Additionally, his wealth of gossip on ancient 
  tombs grants him the ability to cast legend lore 
  once per day as a spell-like ability, though he 
  refuses to use this power on an empty stomach.
  Satuiel
  A small, hirsute man walks on all fours down the 
  passageway, an immense pack strapped to his back 
  swarming with small black rats. Upon spotting you he 
  straightens up and wriggles out of his pack as the rats 
  on his back scramble over the straps; a pillow-shaped 
  mass of the creatures then carry the pack and set it 
  down by his side. Within the pack you glimpse a wide 
  assortment of odds and ends. The small man twirls a 
  whisker as he beckons you over to sample his wares.
   Satuiel is a wererat who travels the hidden 
  passages of the world with his family of diseased 
  but very well behaved rats. Satuiel’s lycanthropy 
  is a family curse that has been in place for several 
  generations; the rats that travel with him are his 
  extended family that have succumbed to the 
  curse completely and can no longer return to any 
  
  Allies & Adversaries: Dungeon Denizens | EN World EN5IDER
  Allies & Adversaries: Dungeon Denizens | EN World EN5IDER
  kind of humanoid form. They serve him out of a 
  remembered sense of kinship, but otherwise seem 
  to be normal rats.
   Rat Pack. Satuiel’s large satchel contains more 
  lucre than its size might suggest. Any mundane 
  item that can be found in a small city can be 
  found amongst Satuiel’s wares, at the GM’s 
  discretion. The wererat is a simple man; gold 
  and gems are all he asks for in exchange for his 
  items. Satuiel has another store of items that 
  he only sells to adventurers that treat his rats 
  with respect and trade with him honestly. For 
  these special customers Satuiel unpacks a roll of 
  silvered +1 weapons, including a greataxe, a pair 
  of longswords, 3 daggers, and a three bundles of 
  20 arrows. For these items the wererat will only 
  accept other magical gear in trade.
   Satuiel’s pack is a bag of holding of his own 
  design. The bag allows Small-size or smaller 
  creatures to enter and breathe normally inside 
  it: when closed, it contains enough air for up to 
  ten Small creatures to breathe for up to one week. 
  Even if Satuiel should part with it, his rats have 
  made their home in some secret extradimensional 
  corner of the bag, and it is impossible to remove 
  them without destroying the bag.
   Wherever He Smells Profit. Satuiel often 
  appears near dungeon features requiring specific 
  tools to traverse, such as pitons or a rowboat. The 
  wererat is mischievously fond of keeping ahead of 
  an adventuring group through secret tunnels and 
  appearing before them multiple times whenever 
  they encounter such a difficult dungeon feature.
  Adrian Alexa
  A lightly armored woman with blue-green skin 
  and sleek aquatic fins kneels by a pool of still water.
  The ancient breastplate she wears allows for her to 
  move with grace despite the undersea features that 
  adorn her physiology. A kraken with a gold crown 
  is all that remains of the faded crest on her chest. 
  White nictitating membranes blink sideways across 
  her pure black eyes as she watches you approach. 
  Her muscles do not tense as she stands and she has a 
  noticeably regal bearing.
   Adrian Alexa is the last living mortal daughter 
  of an ancient sea goddess. While she appears to 
  be and often claims to be a merfolk, in actuality 
  she is a demigod on a quest to awaken her own 
  divine nature. She seeks out artifacts and tablets 
  of knowledge dedicated to her mother’s worship. 
  In the past, she relied on a coven of sea hags to 
  collect her mother’s treasures, but they betrayed 
  her to a sahuagin tribe dedicated to Abyssal 
  powers. Now Adrian turns to mortal adventurers 
  for help, as many items in her birthright are 
  dangerous to mortals—some are cursed objects 
  that transform humans into deformed aquatic 
  hybrids, some are ancient writings capable of 
  spreading a plague of madness, and others are 
  weirder and more dangerous still.
   The Favor of the Sea. Adrian Alexa has only 
  one thing to offer those who encounter her: the 
  favor of the sea. With a touch she can grant 
  anyone the ability to breathe underwater, survive 
  the crushing depths and cold of the sea, and 
  ignore damage or harm from wave or storm. 
  Also, while the characters have the favor of the 
  sea, any sea creatures or aquatic monsters they 
  encounter that wish to attack them or impede 
  their travels must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving 
  throw. Creatures that fail this save do not attack or 
  otherwise prevent the characters from traveling.
   Both of these effects last for seven days, and 
  Adrian Alexa will gladly grant them to PCs who 
  present her with one of her mother’s lost treasures 
  or who convince her they have need of such 
  protection to acquire one of her lost heirlooms. 
  Characters who choose to betray Adrian and 
  either steal the artifacts or refuse to turn them 
  over to her will find her strangely calm. Instead 
  of raging, the demigod will simply dismiss the 
  characters and find other adventurers willing to 
  steal the objects back for her collection. Beyond 
  the favor of the sea, some ambitious adventurers 
  may see the potential value of helping a demigod 
  become a god in her own right. e
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Dungeons & Dragons [multi]/5th Edition (5e)/3rd Party/EN World EN5ider/EN5ider 152 - Dungeon Denizens.pdf