It seems unlikely that the official Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual can match the sheer horrific creativity of the DnD fan community. The new Swarm-that-Walks template, by creator D’Artagnan Homebrew, lets you transfer the consciousness and powers of any dead monster into a writhing swarm of spiders, worms, or vermin.
D’Artagnan admits on their Patreon that they were inspired directly by the Swarm that Walks from the CRPG Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, which sent them down a rabbit hole researching swarms for DnD.
The result is a new template that allows a DM to modify a DnD monster after its “physical, spiritual, and psychic remains” are “eaten by decomposers”. The main monster’s sentience imprints on the swarm itself, granting the original monster an unholy afterlife and the swarm the ability to adopt a terrifying new form. You can find the full rules for free on D’Artagnan’s Patreon.
With the powered up DnD classes in the new Player’s Handbook, you may well want to give your players something truly evil to face off against. We can’t comment on the balance of the Swarm-That-Walks this template, but it is gruesomely inventive, with lots of rules that should make it really feel like the players are fighting a massive living tide of vermin.
For a start, any innate projectiles or area-of-effect attacks – like a dragon’s breath weapon – are now composed of the swarm. The Swarm that Walks is also able to move into the same space as another creature, forcing them to pass a Dexterity saving throw or become engulfed within the swarm.
Not only will the swarm gnaw continually on anyone trapped inside it, but half of any attack damage that would hit the swarm is instead transferred to the unfortunate soul trapped within.
The Swarm that Walks can disassemble back into a swarm again, dropping everything it was carrying – deeply unnerving if a dragon-sized swarm of rats suddenly starts pouring through gaps in the floorboards. And if the players want to kill the creature permanently, they need to annihilate every single part of the swarm. A single surviving beetle, centipede, or fly will allow the whole swarm to reform in just d10 days.
To show how the template might be implemented, D’Artagnan provides an example creature, the ‘Cluster that Devours’. Writing on Patreon, D’Artagnan says they “revised that famous spider dragon concept, but instead of an eight-legged dragon that spits spiders at you, it’s a bajillion spiders in the shape of a dragon that spits spiders at you”.
With the Monster Manual the next big book on the DnD release schedule for the year, 2025 is shaping up to be a good time for monster lovers. Maybe there’ll be some sneaky player options in there that will let you pick a monster for your character’s DnD race choice? Though if you do want to play as spiderfolk, there’s already a free supplement from Kobold Press.
Source: Wargamer
