Wizards of the Coast has revealed the official D&D statblock for its version of the Lovecraftian cosmic horror god Cthulhu, the most pop-culture relevant creation of New England’s premier racist author. The squid-faced monster is one of the ‘Darklords’ in upcoming D&D book Ravenloft: The Horrors Within and according to the designers, he’s more than just a kraken with brain powers.
Cthulhu has a CR of 25, putting him slightly above an Ancient Red or Ancient Gold dragon in terms of power level, and as you’d expect for a big boss monster, he’s got plenty of legendary actions and resistances. But in a State of the Game livestream on May 29, senior game designer Makenzie de Armas explained that Wizards “really wanted to lean into the cosmic horror aspect” of Cthulhu and make this Darklord more than just a big, stompy beast.
“Cosmic horror entities exist outside of the reality… that we can perceive and they cause it to become unstable and weird.” So while this version of Cthulhu can still give you a right tentacling, it also has an ’emanation’ ability called Impossible Geometry that turns everything around him into difficult (and highly damaging) terrain. “They can fold space itself like it is papier-mâché”, teleporting everyone around the battlefield.
De Armas adds that many different versions of Cthulhu’s abilities were created in the design process, to try and land on something that feels otherworldly while still being convenient for a DM at the table to run.
Cthulhu has more abilities than what’s on his stats as well. Apparently all the darklords in The Horrors Within have effects you can feel in their domains of dread. Thanks to Cthulhu’s influence, wherever you are in Innsmouth, you have disadvantage to saving throws against the frightened condition.
It was quite the surprise to learn that a fictional Boston town would now be part of a D&D setting, but apparently Wizards has put its own fantasy-magical spin on the Innsmouth locale. There are a grand total of 16 domains detailed in the new book, and 17 darklords, meaning at least two of them are going to have to share.
Source: Wargamer
