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| A harengon, doing harengon things |
To be entirely honest I'm not a fan of the animal people in D&D. Something about them rubs me the wrong way, they feel a little too generic fantasy. They're also obviously pretty silly when combined with certain common fantasy tropes, like, the concept of a tabaxi werewolf makes my skin crawl, for one thing. That being said there are cases where I don't totally hate their implementation. Say a game or setting has one or two types of animal people? I can get behind that, a roster of dwarves, elves, humans, and some variety of beastfolk, it keeps things familiar but a bit fresh. D&D 5e does not have just one or two types of animal people though. Currently as of June 2025, when I make my character, I get the thrilling task of deciding if I want to play as an aarakocra, a giff, a grung, a hadozee, a harengon, a kenku, a leonin, a lizardfolk, a locathah, a loxodon, a minotaur, an owlin, a tabaxi, a thri-keen, a tortle, or a yuan ti. When choosing foes for my party of anthropomorphic heroes to fight, I have such riveting options as bullywugs, crab folk, dire corbies, ettercaps, gnolls, grippli, kuo-toa, pterrans, tlincalli, troglodytes, and yakfolk, as well as several statblocks for all of our previously mentioned furry friends. That's 25 discreet types of animal person. That's too much. That's entirely too much. It's ridiculous. I hate it. And yet unfortunately, because I am, at the moment, mostly playing 5e, this is the mess I've got to put up with. Double unfortunately, beastmen are rather entrenched in my current setting, considering one of my players is playing a loxodon (not a knock on you or the character, Mr. Slime) so I don't think I'll be disposing of them anytime soon, unless I can think of a very creative way to retcon the whole island of furries my party saved from a demonic apocalypse.
Creative Overlap
So, animal people in isolation are fine, but the problem with those lists is, in my opinion somewhat self evident. They overlap way too much, and not just with themselves. For example, consider the humble bullywug. Frog men are pretty silly, conceptually, but whatever, it's fine. Then we add grungs to the mix, who are also frog men, though technically different, because they're like poison dart frogs. But then we have to also add in the grippli, who are, as far as I can tell just frog men again. You've also got the multiple different bird people in a very similar situation (owlin, at least, are from a MTG setting book, which saves them a little bit). What do yakfolk do better than minotaurs? How do they better serve your adventure? Do they serve it so much better that they deserve to be a discreet category of being from minotaurs? I don't think they do!
Note: This is, I guess, a little bit of human-centric chauvinism on display. The mainstay fantay peoples all pretty much look like people with a few minor variations, which I have little problem with for the most part. Three separate frog people isn't especially egregious in concept but it does feel silly doesn't it? I don't think this is a bias that needs interrogating, other than to say, if someone wants to make a fantasy setting where every sentient species is a different type of frog, that'd be pretty kickass. In D&D it's just silly.
Anyways, we can see that there's a lot of ground here that's been tread and re-tread by WotC, but I also think beastfolk feel a little derivative in their own right. Consider that in addition to these monsters, there are also lots and lots of creatures in D&D from mythology like centaurs, satyrs, harpies, and the aforementioned werewolves (don't even get me started on all the dumb were-creatures like the tigers and rats). The point I'm trying to make here is that animal + human = monster is a formula that we've been using to invent monsters since the dawn of time, and it gets stale with nothing new to back it up. Even if bullywugs were the only frog folk in D&D, I don't think I'd consider them worth my time. The formula of animal plus man equals manimal is sort of tired, it doesn't really evoke terror or wonder or excitement. I don't look at lionfolk and think "woah, I wanna play one of those guys," or "oh that guy's gonna be real scary to fight." I don't think much of anything other than, huh, I guess we're doing lion people now. It doesn't help that beastfolk typically get treated in the most boring way possible while playing. RPG players often default to stereotypical one dimensional characters (this isn't necessarily a problem, mind, be as one dimensional as you want) but it gets especially egregious with beastfolk, who in the hands of lore writers, players, and DMs, are in my experience, typically incredibly by the numbers, relying on only a handful of animalistic stereotypes for a given variety of beastfolk. Tabaxi are cats, so they are played like cats. They're overly curious, they're mercurial, blah blah blah. This is a trend I feel like one sees a lot with beastfolk, the animal aspect is sort of the only dimension they have to them.
Getting your Animals Fixed
All this is to say, I find beastfolk distasteful and I want to come up with some alternatives. These probably won't be very geared towards being PCs, I think there are enough options to go around in that department. So, monsters. I'm going to posit a theory that will influence where I go with the concepts I throw out here, I think beastfolk need a bit more going on conceptually, or they need to not be beastfolk. As in, no more basic animal men, if you want a group of cat people, I think it should be either a group of weird cat people with extra arms who dreamwalk, or normal humans (or dwarves or orcs or whatever) with cat abilities because they worship the god of cats. This lets us keep some of the useful shorthand of animal people while still getting weird with them. We can quickly describe the appearance of our beastmen but throw on some weird wrinkles that imply they're not just basic cat people, and our human worshippers of the cat god are easy to explain because people understand what cats are like, more or less. At the same time, both these things have the potential to feel more novel because the beastfolk aren't just cat people, and you typically don't expect humans to start acting like cats, while the same can't be said of a group of people who are literally just giant cats, fur and all. I think the yuan ti prove my point here, they're really close to just being human, but they also have weird snake-y traits, and the yuan ti kick total ass. Okay, basic details set up, let's get into it.
The Abhaki
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| Umvuthi the Sunbird from Mowzie's Mobs. This guy and his friends were obviously a pretty major inspiration for my birds |
Abhaki are the most hostile "children" of Amora, goddess of the sun. It is unclear where they first originated or how they initially came to be, but their connection to the goddess is well established in myth and legend. They are humanoids that somewhat resemble birds, tending to be very skinny, with feathers that are typically a bright crimson. Instead of heads, they sport rough carved wooden masks, which rest over glimmering, radiant balls of light. They're smart, about as smart as a really intelligent bird, which is unfortunate, since they're also incredibly murderous. Each abhaki is an artist, their preferred medium, viscera. They join together in packs with similar artistic passions, hunting for their living canvases together. You can tell where a given pack resides by the grisly paintings and sculptures left in their wake, the remnants of some poor animal that caught the pack's eye, slowly picked apart by vultures. Where there are abhaki, there tend to be plenty of vultures as well, some of the only creatures spared from their violence, along with other birds. In the presence of an abhaki pack, vultures tend to grow plentiful and aggressive, the two hunting together in a twisted sort of symbiosis.
To create an abhaki, it is necessary to create one of their wooden masks and a body for them to inhabit, though this is only possible for artists who have glimpsed what they should not have seen. There are tales of particularly cruel mystery cults of Amora who have been able to provoke such talents through heinous acts of torture, supplying themselves with armies of these strange monsters. Priests of Amora can control them, if only temporarily, though they are dangerous allies, growing more unstable the longer they are barred from violence. Still, they are fierce fighters, and it is customary for the Speaker of Amora to travel with a pack of abhaki as their bodyguards, and in times of war, their personal executioners.
Devotee of Chezan
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| Heracles from Hades 2. Imagine this guy but he's a hobgoblin and you're pretty much there. |
Among the goblin cultures that live within the Ceracan Steppe, worship of Chezan is not uncommon. He is one of the Predator Gods of goblin myth, which some have identified with certain Elder Evils in Athic culture. Worship of the Predator Gods tends less towards reverence and more towards practicality, like all things, the demon lords of old have power that can be borrowed with little consequence if one is cautious and gives the right offerings. Animal sacrifices are common, since the Predator Gods are said to always hunger, and the best way to avoid their ire is to offer up a beast to sate their appetite. You give, and they will give in return. The bigger the offering, the more power one gets in return.
Chezan, the Bloody Lion, is particularly popular amongst warriors. When clans go to war, you will see them standing around several sacrificed chickens (or if the tribe has had time to prepare, perhaps a Ceracan lion), murmuring to one another, their whispers blending together with the rustling of the tall grass. When it comes time for battle, they will stalk through the grass like a pride of lions, picking off their enemies with an unspoken and ferocious precision. They will be celebrated by their clan, and feared. In rare cases one may go to bed, the feeling of flesh tearing effortlessly with his claws still fresh in his mind. He may wake up with some of the beast still in his heart, in his mind. He may have had some of the beast in him for a long time now, simply waiting to be awakened by the sight of another's blood on his blade. He may grow violent, his bloodlust growing by the day. In time, he will leave, whether at spear point or of his own volition. He will find others like him, with some of the beast stuck in their bodies. They will study the ways of the lion together, dive deeper into his lore and terrible power. The next time they make a sacrifice it will not be a beast. The next time they hunt, it will not be to make war, but to feed their god.
Meyasoa
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| Crab Folk from Mordenkainen's Fiendish Folio. |
They are travelers from a distant land and perhaps a distant time. They are not seen often, seldom coming above the water's surface to do anything other than trade with frightened merchants or ward off those who get too close to their settlements. When they speak they do so without spoken word, in voices that vibrates like tin in your mind. They call themselves meyasoa, the clever folk, in their tongue. They resemble giant crab people, towering over most humans at eight or nine feet tall. Their arms terminate in large claws, perfect for crushing, though they have two long, retractable tentacles that emerge just below their arms which they rely on to manipulate their environment more dexterously. They are strange creatures, what little is known about them has been learned gradually, over the course of several decades. They seem to be able to survive out of the water quite well, but they are amphibious, they need to return to the water every few days to properly respire. They are omnivorous, feeding primarily on sea life and vegetation. Typically one can tell where a settlement has established itself due to strange glowing lights coming from beneath the ocean. It has been said that sometimes they will colonize costal caves, taking advantage of the open air to smith, though what they are making is uncertain. Interviews with them can be difficult, the meyasoa who are most available to be contacted tend to be somewhat terse. Mind reading is difficult as well, many are psionic, and are well protected from such invasive powers.
What has been gleaned from such encounters is that the meyasoa are under attack. They have come to our world fleeing some great calamity. They speak of a terrible plague that forced them to leave their home, or perhaps an empire, maybe both. The flayer virus, the illithid. A calamity that robs people of their hearts and minds. Our world is no escape, the virus has followed them here, and so they plan to leave. They say there is no fighting this foe, only fleeing. If they are to be believed, the threat that this "disease" poses to the world cannot be understated. It is possible we have encountered it already. One of the few known settlements of meyasoa met its end under strange circumstances, the glow from beneath the sea disappearing over the course of several hours one evening. During the night, many of their bodies washed up on the shore, dead, with no visible wounds but sporting great discoloration upon their shells, once dull red, blue, or brown, now chalky white. Then the rest of their colony came above shore, strange weapons in hand, attacking a nearby village. A survivor of the encounter reports that these hostile meyasoa's faces were destroyed by strange tentacles pushing their way outwards, revealing strange, cold eyes and squidlike features. The other survivors went missing in the night, seemingly wandering off of their own volition. Their fate is uncertain.
Children of Yan Tiamat
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| The Yuan Ti have some killer art too, this guy's arms are sweet. |
These guys probably deserve a post of their own at some point because the context surrounding them is pretty broad and important, there's lots of capital L Lore in my setting that I've been developing around dragons. This is my best attempt at a summary for what you need to know about my version of the yuan ti.
The Children of Yan Tiamat are one of several cults dedicated to Tiamat, the Crucible Mother, progenitor of monsters, and most importantly, dragons. The group was originally a draconic blood cult, granted revelations of the true chaotic power of Tiamat's children when the cult slew and ate the dragon Meyath, the object of their worship. When any part of a dragon is consumed, it mutates the consumer, for to be a dragon is to change. The mutations granted by the blood and heart tend to be the most stable, tempered by the magic of the Primordials that subdues the chaotic nature of the draconic body. These mutations tend towards the sorcerous, granting arcane knowledge and often some of the more desirable draconic traits, scales, wings, breath. The flesh is particularly unstable, however, and its mutations tend toward the strange and uncanny, sometimes even the fatal. The Children of Yan Tiamat have had plenty of time to figure out how to nudge these results into a more stable state, and so they hunt dragons of all varieties, from the cunning true dragons to the wild drakes that follow in their wake. Those among their number who have partaken of dragon flesh are noticeable for their strange bodies which reject symmetry at every turn. They are referred to as serpent-touched, as many of their mutations cause them to resemble snakes in some way.
They are known and renowned as great dragon slayers, but they are also met with much suspicion. They have been known to serve dragons as well, and it is said that the highest ranking members of their cult nowadays are dragons who would deign to commit the sin of cannibalism, eating their kin and growing strange and warped like the humanoids that serve them. The cult is also historically quite violent, serving as mercenaries or resorting to banditry just as often as they chase away draconic beasts. The Children of Yan Tiamat are not altruistic. They seek power, and hunt dragons only because they grant it. If power is to be found in pillaging your town, they will do it without a second thought, cold and calculating as they are.
Final Notes
This was mostly an excuse to make up some weird, animal adjacent guys. I may stat these fellows up at some point, the world could always use more weird monsters. They are fairly obvious in their inspirations, I think. Might come back with some more eventually, I want to see if I can make frog folk a scary idea somehow. Maybe give them something to do with slaads? Part 2 of Seven Ways to Die in Uraza out next week, hopefully.
