Adventures In Faerun is full of all sorts of monstrous new enemies, including these five that will cap off your campaigns.
The new Adventures in Faerun book is chock-full of adventures. You can find a short adventure set in every region of the Forgotten Realms mentioned in it. But what really gets the ol’ DM juices flowing are the new enemies included in its bestiary. This catalogue of cretins introduces new threats, big and small, to the Realms. Though, today I want to talk about the kinds of villains your PCs don’t face until the end of the campaign. When the dust settles in for one last memorable fight.
With that in mind, here are five villains from Adventures in Faerun worth the endgame fight.
Valindra Shadowmantle
One thing you’ll find plenty of in this list are evil Wizards and/or liches. And I’m for it, frankly. I love an evil Wizard who has sacrificed their humanity in pursuit of power as a villain. Makes for a fun time, plus you get to do all the spooky lich stuff. And Valindra Shadowmantle is a lich who was once a High Elf that loves to pose as a lesser Wizard and/or magical “specialist” that works for other organizations.
And she has some unique abilities, in that she’s a little more magical than most. Sure, she has the standard Lich-like abilities, but on top of those, she can damage and restrain enemies in an area, and has the ability to cast a powerful spell as part of her multiattack. That, plus some extremely offense-forward Legendary Reactions make her a thrilling villain to face down.
Dead Three Scion
Of course, it’s not all evil Wizards. It’s evil cultists, too. A Dead Three Scion is a cult mastermind and devotee/chosen/recipient of unholy power from Bane, Bhaal, Myrkul, or perhaps all three at once. As you might imagine, this makes them quite deadly.
For one, they have a deadly aura that prevents bloodied creatures from regaining hit points. For two, they have a lot of necromantic abilities – including both Circle of Death and Create Undead so they can bring undead reinforcements with them wherever they go. Add to that some Legendary Actions that let them keep the pressure up between turns, and you’ve got an excellent campaign villain.
Zlan
Dive into the creepy side of eldritch wizard abominations, we have Zlan. Zlan is part of seven Liches, actually – they once came together to create the artifact known as the Crytal Shard. When the crystal was shattered (creating the material known as Chardalyn), the liches remains were drawn into a hideous amalgamation of undead spellcasters. And one personality claaimed dominance over the gestalt entity.
As an enemy, Zlan fights like both a bruiser construct AND a lich. Meaning Zlan has a lot of hitpoints, and hit like a freight train, but is ALSO a spellcaster capable of casting spells like Disintegrate or charming enemies into betraying their allies.
Deep Dragon
Deep Dragons are back in the new book! These are dragons of the Underdark, suffused with the power of that deep realm. They are covered in spores or other sorts of Underdark fungi – and to make things worse, they literally breathe the stuff of nightmares at you. A deep dragon specializes in afflicting its opponents with conditions like Poisoned and Frightened, so if your party can resist those, you might want to beef them up a little. But otherwise, an Ancient Deep Dragon can haunt the dark places of your campaign.
Sammaster
You might not want to walk on every body of water you come across, though.
Finally, there’s Sammaster. In Faerun, he helped start the Cult of the Dragon, and is forever tied with the essence of fell draconic power. In game terms, this means you find him in one of two different forms – either as a Lich or a Dracolich. As a fun bonus, whenever you kill him in one form, he appears in the other 1d10 days later. And until you can find and destroy his soul gem, the hits will just keep coming.
Happy adventuring!
