The D&D Creature You’ll Never Remember - Obliviax - Monster of the Week - Dungeons & Dragons [D&D]

[@WallyDM]

You nailed this. Does my heart good to see one of my all-time favorite monsters get some quality screen time. Well done!

[@DungeonDad]

Wally D.M. Shout out to Wally for being dope and also for recommending this monster on Twitter!

[@AncientRylanor69]

@@DungeonDad Would a led helmet protect me from this monster?

[@tentacle7690]

The Hands Down best use of this creature is that of a spawner for an evil mastermind. Everyday, he gets his friendly neighborhood Obliviax to make mossy copies of his imprisoned, and restrained, spellcasters. He forces them to prepare the spells he needs for that day and then sends the mossy clones out to do his bidding. Perhaps, he captures more spellcasters or just steals regular things. The possibilities of a villain using this creature to raise an army are amazing.

[@DungeonDad]

I LOVE this idea.

[@torazely]

Imagine a lich who has made himself immune to the obliviax and has made it his phylactory.

[@GringatTheRepugnant]

I could see a druid circle using this moss deliberately in some kind of ritual or rite of passage. Perhaps a prospective druid would have to willingly expose themselves to one, so that when they face the trial they agreed to, they don't remember and are suddenly just at the centre of a twisting maze or something and have have to rely on their wits to figure out the way out.

[@fullelement4886]

Man... I could just imagine the party walking into a forest in spring to catch a "rare monster" for the mayor of a town, and then just as they're approaching somewhere that just feels like combat, they wake up in their camp with that box saying "do not open." It's late fall now, and they are ragged with no rations, only a bit of game left over on last night's roast spit. When they get back to the town, they learn that they really have been gone months rather than days. Each day, ever since the day they captured the Obliviax, one of them had fallen to temptation and opened the box. This restarted the cycle, and as far as both the players and PCs alike know, they simply walked into a forest and then woke up months later.

[@joeytravis8595]

oooh thats so creeepy

[@GrimBrotherIV]

Such a cool and versatile encounter. I would definitely throw in some extra memories from other creatures whenever a player eats it.

[@animefan3794]

Note to self: steal that mind scour ability for a 5e version of Fate’s Assassin class Jack the Ripper. Information erasure removing specific details about the assassin class servant you just fought once they’re out of sight is basically one-for-one with what this creature does in a way.

[@coltonholder4649]

As someone who is planning a campaign with the new ravnica setting, this is amazing for the dimir spy guild, great work as always!

[@DungeonDad]

Oh of course! This is right up their alley.

[@dontyodelsohard2456]

I like to imagine an old hermit that stumbled into a cave somewhere getting his mind wiped by the moss and in doing so becoming unable to leave; the only food around is this moss so he eats it, not the one that wiped his memory but another patch. More creatures come to this cave for stories of lost treasure only to have their memories wiped and to wander out of the cave. But the old hermit, still lost and even before going a bit senile, keeps getting his memories wiped and only upon eating a moss that ate an adventurer's memories does he remember anything since he entered the cave. He keeps doing this, going more and more mad as alien memories pollute his mind until he devolves into a Gollum like character with a symbiotic relationship with the moss. Feeding it memories so he can eat and remember something once again.

[@sharondornhoff7563]

Ever read the 1e module "When A Star Falls"? It was one of the TSR-UK adventures, and it uses a creature (memory web) with similar powers to the obliviax as its opening plot hook. The PCs find the corpses of a group of scholars who'd been killed and drained of memories by the web. In killing the creature, they get swamped with fragmentary memories of the scholars' origin, their mission, and hints at things to be encountered along the way.

[@damiengarner6548]

So I don't know if you'll see this Dungeon Dad but imagine mixing an encounter with this and "fetch of the lake" encounter. So say your players come across a fetch in a tarnished swamp lake and some of these live around it from long ago when fey inhabited the swamp. It causes the party to forget that they encountered the fetch and therefore leads to so interesting/ horrifying rp situations where they try to figure out what is hunting them down.

[@brianzmek7272]

It is a minor annoyance that Josiah forgets to mention that the memory moss can feed a mind flayers need for psionic power without killing a sapiant being.

[@ConstantChaos1]

Intriguing

[@brianzmek7272]

@@ConstantChaos1 yep but it needs to be infused with memories and is only one day of a flayers need for psychic energy per day of memories the moss has absorbed also flayers are just as vulnerable to the moss being toxic so for long term use a flayer needs to become immune to poison. Lastly a flayer subsisting on memory moss still needs to eat a largeish raw preferably live Mammal bran one every 3 months at minimum and once a month for ideal health but a cow pig or wolf will do. Also a flayer needs to eat meat comparable to any large obligate carnivore of there activity level and with about three times as calorically costly a brain as a human

[@brianzmek7272]

Canonically the brain and meat are also covered by a ring of sustenance the lore is unclear if the psychic energy can come from that

[@ConstantChaos1]

@@brianzmek7272 I think for ease of lore the meat and brain must be seasoned with mossling, this gives them their fill of semi-sentient intent along with memory and flesh, I think it rounds out the lore nicely. The flesh is from the animal, the obliviax provides the memories and energy but they use their mosslings are how they interact with the world ao that's where their force of will is. I'd love to see a group of reformed ilithid who potentially even work with the gith (Obviously the monks) to search out other colonies for eradication. Maybe they realised that the reason the empire fell was the whole slave thing "so like let's not do that again" Everyone wears a lead lined helmet when hunting them besides one guy who's using his psionics to search and to be the canary in the coal mine

[@OooXxx-ol4vi]

That's brilliant, I don't play dnd, but I love to write stories, I think I'd love to use this

[@whoadude30]

I have the second monster manual and have been seeking to use it in my campaign, but my past conversions from AD&D to 5th edition have been rather shoddy. Your rendition of it is very well done and I thank you for converting it,

[@dylanbrewer8605]

Alright guys, you heard him. If you randomly find yourself in a Forest unsure of how you got there, snatch up the closest lump of moss and swallow it, you'll receive all of your memories back!

[@honorsprenvg1091]

At the end of last session, my players settled in for a long rest. At the beginning of this session, I drew out a very close quarters map, dropped 3 moss and 6 mosslings on the map and said "roll initiative!... AND I need everyone's spell lists. Except for the sorc." We have a wiz, an artificer, a druid, a pally, a cleric, and a sorc. They were all like: "WTF!" Keep in mind, this is an over-geared party of lvl 5s. One fell unconscious, one more was down to less than 5 hp at one point. Mosslings vs. prepared casters are really quite vicious.This session was a BLAST! They finally figured out they needed to eat the moss with the help of another MOTW, whom they will OFFICIALLY meet next session when we play thru the events of earlier that day. Thanks for these. They bring some freshness back to the game for players who TRY REALLY HARD not to metagame.

[@thegreatdreamer8377]

I am running a mindflayer campaign, and I was daunted by the conversion process. You just saved my butt, I can't thank you enough.

[@RayAkuma]

0:14 Legends, telling of the Hidden Ones, later called the Assassins. I've heard many tales of them.

[@WiseBagus]

Welcome back! You were sorely missed!

[@DungeonDad]

Thank you! It feels good to be back.

[@thepopemichael]

I can imagine a situation where a king is unconscious and near death, and the players are set out to catch one of these in order to see what happened to the king in order to heal him.

[@EXChaosFlameEX]

What a funsized surprise!

[@shamanspointofview8083]

Also a very cool and quick way to introduce a new player without needing to rush figuring out how to mix them into the story, and gives that power to the players themselves, planning on this with my new player joining to table

[@maninthesand3979]

It's the second time you covered a tiny creature, the first was the wortling. Senserly: man in the sand.

[@SpringsPimpin]

Im planning on running my players thru the Eye of Myrkul from Dungeon Mag #73 and you are my hero right now. Thank you soooo much.

[@Randomcause]

Just stumbled upon you. great work! I was hoping you had done Oblivion moss. My very first oneshot, The moss was the boss. I had mutated the monster a lil bit. But when my players ate the moss. Instead of gaining the last persons memories. I made it so it was possible to remember their own memory or anothers. So my fighter gained our elf wizards memory. It was a nice lil spice I think for the storytelling aspect and what not.

[@LordSephleon]

Ye have returned! Welcome back, good sir! :) I gotta see if I can figure out a great way to use them in my Curse of Strahd game. ;) Also, I dunno why I feel like you've done a video on these creatures before thanks to the name... Damn... gotta stop snorting that memory moss, I guess.

[@DungeonDad]

Thank you sir! And yes, that stuff is killer on the hippocampus ;P

[@johntheherbalistg8756]

Never seen this before, but I'm DEFINITELY gonna use one. In my next session, my gnome druid is gonna be meeting the hag that lives near town. One of these is going to be... around. You see, Nana has a soft spot for the local children. This would be a great last resort, in case one of the children see her in her monster form. Thanks for more good ideas 😁😁

[@2445elijah]

Ok this idea might be a pain in the ass to plan and play, but I can imagine a campaign with the party heading out to some magic forest before ending for the night, then the next session they're back at the tavern or whatever, already having leveled up and gotten loot but having no memory of the quest and essentially got to retrace their steps to find out what the hell they did and then deal with that now memory gorged obliviax

[@jaksilver3656]

I love the retrieval /campsite idea! They get back to town to find out they've been gone more than a week...

[@joshc.2707]

If only I had a real one to make my players forget my crappy game session.

[@asmolska2479]

I love the idea of eating the moss and gainig a memory of a someone, who lived a century ago

[@Andrew-vq2zr]

Oh man are you a mind reader? I was actually working on a side objective for my party involved that involves a former adventurer who is also a noble that seeked out some very powerful artifacts so he could hide them away so they couldn't be used for evil But I was trying to figure out a good way to explain how he could make sure the people he had hide them wouldn't be able to just go back and get them Then you posted this video and it's PERFECT, he can have the person hid the item then use the memory moss to wipe their memory and lock it away, but keep the moss so if the items ever needed to be recovered he could just let someone eat the moss

[@duddledeedo]

I'll be using this in my campaign set in the Shadowfell where memories are currency, and the party is slowly losing their memories the longer they remain there.

[@kylemorin3945]

Speaking of potential shenanigans with the Obliviax, the idea that it gives a prepared spellcaster back their spell slots got me thinking. What if you had a spellcaster who could grow these. He prepares a list of powerful and useful spells, then activates one to steal his memories and those prepared spells, at which point he has a note telling him to freeze it again. Repeat this process however many times you want, and voila! Infinite spell slots. Whenever the spellcaster needs to refill, he just pulls out one of the frozen Obliviaxes and eats it. Bonus points if he prepares specific loadouts of spells, like a utility loadout or a pure combat loadout. I think this would be an awesome way to make an evil spellcaster WAY stronger than normal, and allowing players to maybe get one such Obliviax for their own uses could also be super interesting.

[@aleyoakenshield5384]

If he freezes them they die, and if they're dead he won't recieve memories or spell slots. And as a DM I wouldn't allow this to exceed their maximum spellbslots per day, but it could be used to refill them, which is still very neat

[@kylemorin3945]

@@aleyoakenshield5384 A fair point. That's why I said it would be good for a big enemy spellcaster. I've often found it difficult to make evil wizards and the like threatening enough without giving them insanely strong spells, so this provides a middle ground by giving them access to essentially unlimited but lower-level spells. It would be a good early-campaign BBEG.

[@GiblixStudio]

This really comes in handy. In 2 sessions my players are heading into a foggy mangrove that leads to an old abbey. One that has been taken over by a green hag. On the upper floors towards the bell fry the Obliviax resides, because the hag transplanted it there. High and dry, protecting the bell since it is part of a puzzle to progress into the hag's lair. Can't wait to wipe the spells of the cleric. However instead of the mossling taking the shape of the cleric I'll give it the shape of one of the memories. A memory of a trauma from the cleric and the individual involved. Hopefully shaking him up even more then just taking away his spells. Since the Obliviax is placed so high up in the building. With a lot of broken walls, planks, floors.... Using Scramble Purpose means I can make some of them fall 3 floors down :D Also curious how my players would handle the fact of either the cleric or bard losing their memories/spells while the Obliviax is still 1 floor further up.

[@DungeonDad]

That is so evil and I love everything about it!

[@GiblixStudio]

@@DungeonDad This entire bit is dark and really making the environment feel threatening. Even when wading through the swampy mangrove they'll have to do skill challenges. In order to deal with slippery roots making it hard for them. Groups of leeches/snakes swimming about poisoning/diseasing them. Illusory Hag standing among the mangrove trees watching silently with a Yeth Hound by her side. Besides the Obliviax there is also a Shambling Mound with 2 Stone Cursed statues of the previous inhabitants. And a Meazel is lurking in the shadows waiting to jump on them at the most opportune time. It is one of my most atmospherically interesting bits made thusfar :D

[@2g33ksgamingttv3]

Should note, the obliviax only hits prepared spellcasters so the bard will be safe because bards are spells known casters. Aside from that that sounds like an evil encounter and I love it

[@tenchraven]

These are the moss to put in a labrynth made of the living wall. And the confustion of everyone gotten slimed by this thing- you wouldn't be sure to recover YOUR memories, but those of one of your buddy's. That would be excessively weird. Particularly if you have two spell casters and they got the wrong one...

[@jondw]

I love the "do not open" box idea

[@kdavidsmith1]

This monster seems like something a wizard would use to spare people the gory memory of some massacre.

[@nyxborne1786]

You could even say that a simple tinderbox would work perfectly for transport, which is almost in every pack.

[@richardproper8682]

I'm so going to have a noble line his safe with this stuff. I'll roll a series of encounters for the party to "have gone through" where they're being blackmailed or someone has taken an important NPC hostage or something like that, forcing the party to plan a quick and impromptu heist to steal an item from a nobles house. Plan an unrelated combat encounter to be happening at sunset the day before, and mid-battle jump to the rogue (or whoever the party's lockpicker is) opening the safe at sunset the next day, the noble and his bodyguards are dead at their feet, their blood on some of the party membes' weapons, they can see out a second or third story window a servant desperately running to the estates entrance, intent of summon the guards after the recent scuffle. They need to get out, lay low, and the rest of the adventure is Hangover-esque trying put together what had happened in the lost day and save the hostage/eliminate the blackmailer.

[@FlutesLoot]

The Octopath Traveler music is LIT

[@reywilson4337]

My first thought with this was just starting off a session or campaign with the characters and players a little ways from a town they've never been to with no memory of how they got there and having to piece together what happened the day before a la The Hangover, maybe they head into town and find out they already have a room at the inn and some NPC is mad at them for something they don't remember doing. You'd have to have a good idea of what the players would have done during the missing time though.

[@mementomori771]

Chia golem covered in this stuff that a druid has learned how to absorb the magic from 😅

[@MarvelX42]

Clicked this video and my boss is calling me. He says I have missed three days of work. WTF is going on?!?!

[@DungeonDad]

Does having your memory stolen for three days in a row count as an unexcused absence? I would take that to HR if I were you.

[@MarvelX42]

@@DungeonDad ....when did I reply to this video.....

[@morrigankasa570]

So a Mountain Dwarf Battlerager Barbarian would be one of the best options to fight it, especially if their background grants them a Frost/Ice Cantrip.

[@TesseraCraft]

Village highest party to restore memory, but not knowing what moss took who's memory the whole village makes a big pot of soup out of the moss, and everyone's secrates are revealed.

[@stevennewlin8640]

A druid cult sacrificed spell casters to a massive patch of memory moss and smoked the memory and spell infused dried moss. One of my favorite 2e monsters.

[@thepopemichael]

I can think of 420 reasons what that's a fantastic idea!

[@Dyneamaeus]

Wait, as a tiny creature doesn't that mean only one effected player can get their memories back?

[@eldinoor7072]

It could be the case that a piece of the moss will suffice. That way you can share the morsel. He didn't say you have to eat the whole thing and in a plot hook, he did say something about using a chunk of it as an interrogation tool to consume the memories and know what the captive knew in the past 24 hours.

[@snarkback]

I'm using this creature for a pc with memory loss from being enslaved by mind flayers. This will be an ingredient for the potion to remember what happened giving the player a reason to want to destroy utterly it's former masters

[@bobloerakker7010]

What a cool creature!

[@KrakenSlayer47]

This would be really cool as a Pact of the Chain familiar for an Archfey warlock (probably need some tweaking and toning down)

[@Buffaloguy1991]

My DM has us in a game in the feywild right now.....I have a very bad feeling right now.

[@johntheherbalistg8756]

You fought with it last session 😂😂😂

[@jeffafa1730]

Bedlam with memory moss in a psych facility. Bedlam could mess with the players, could try to make the players think they have different mental disorders individually and try to make the players think what the hell is going on with their characters

[@HowtoRPG]

What a cool monster.

[@cylver3593]

Need to find somewhere to use this. The campaign I’m currently running had a grand forest magically come back to life after centuries of being dead, thanks to certain events. Might throw this in there as a random encounter.

[@Tuskbumper]

KEEP IT UP

[@wraithreaper22]

My campaign is forest themed, this is definitely going in lol

[@omnishangout747]

so my players are part of a fighters guild and their motto is "if you dont pay, you get slayed" My Idea is there is a Sargent in the military that is willing to pay big money for one of these slugs, but a specific one from a specific place. Around the room I give hints about his happy family back home. the quest ensues and the sarg eventually gets the slug then admits that he cannot pay them and is willing to suffer the consequence but that slug holds the memory of the last day of his families lives before the ongoing war killed them. If the players let him experience it afterwards he will let himself be killed. My hope is this quest will help the PC's take their role as heroes more seriously

[@HeadHunter-mv2ht]

If your looking for suggestions then how about old Pathfinders Murska, the Beetle monsters of Pandora that eat's there victim then wear's there victim's skin to lure in more prey.

[@DungeonDad]

It's funny you mention that. I have had Murska on my potential list since the first week I started doing this. Maybe the time has finally come.

[@HeadHunter-mv2ht]

@@DungeonDad Maybe it is ;), also Happy Thanksgiving.

[@Dread2012death]

Truly as I came back for a second watch only to see the like.

[@aleyoakenshield5384]

Makes me want to use them as a False-False-Hydra, so when my players realise their memories were erased, they'll assume there's a false hydra, but it's these guys instead

[@LlamaJordan]

I'm just glad these things probably won't be in the nine hells. :)

[@DungeonDad]

"probably"

[@o.k.productions5202]

Maybe the city guard uses these as a way of getting alibis/evidence.

[@spencersalerno6354]

A treant/earth elemental/wickerman/or zombie with some of this moss on it, wheeeeee...

[@Sir_Tentacle]

Wait! What were you talking about?

[@tedgalacci8428]

The moss could be the hook itself. There could be a market for it in some magic circles or one particular NPC may require some.

[@tedgalacci8428]

I needed something for a frontier town to export to a large metropolis to the south. :)

[@StygTac]

I honestly thought he was gonna repeat the opening card to tie it up in one big joke

[@Dr_Dorian]

Lets misuse a quote for "The Mask" : Can't make the scene if you don't have the green!

[@Taylor1989s]

This is the third or fourth time I have said thisand you have always told me to wait but dammit give a paper back book I will purchase all your editions of your monster manuals take my money.

[@DungeonDad]

I am in the process of getting some artists together to work on something like this right now. I think it'll be a while but I am looking forward to it.

[@27armageddon]

Akhlut, please I played pathfinder and my dm gave us a group of these for a coastal area we were at

[@DungeonDad]

I'll check them out!

[@elimartin4103]

Forget me moss 😆

[@KimBaack]

What if you dumped it in the middle of the city well and it makes something that looks like a time loop but isn't

[@zbyszkoklockiewicz2149]

What do you think about a template to converting dragons from previous editions? I really think 5e could use more gem, lung and norse dragons, don't you? :D

[@phattadontungtrongsit4137]

Hear me out… make the warforged eat the moss…. Law mower.

[@starcrafter13terran]

I can't remember if this was ever used against me.

[@msf2399]

Dude, the last time I handed my players a box labeled “DO NOT OPEN!” it got opened in under 10min and nearly ended in a TPK.

[@osmium6832]

Maybe they learned something from the experience and have at least slightly more respect for warnings written in their own handwriting.

[@msf2399]

@@osmium6832 You have more faith in them than I do, my friend. Some of them, yes, would know better… but others do not learn & have no impulse control. And somehow, they always get to the traps first.

[@ssouth1447]

So like the slience from doctor who?

[@torazely]

Would be good for a new game startup. Have the party wake up in the forest with no memory of where they are or how they got there. Have it be a puzzle to try and figure out what they're doing there and how to get out.

[@Trivial_Whim]

I kinda want to see the neogi or the meanlock.

[@differentting4215]

I’m very late but can it be used like a spell slot in a bottle? Like spend several days making memory mosses and you have extra spell slots?

[@funkkymonkey6924]

As much as I like this, I feel like the mage wouldn’t accept the fact that I chose this to not target them specifically.

[@ConstantChaos1]

Lead lined helmet

[@randallbaumgardt3424]

A very greedy druid could harvest some of this moss have them steal interesting memories from say adventurers then sell the moss decadent nobility Strange Days style. I could see mind flayers using them.

[@the_dark_soul_of_man]

If a character had their memories stolen and are exposed to another Obliviax, will they have their next 24 hour of memories stolen? Can it go further and further back in time?

[@matthewbunting9890]

Hmm strangely I've no memory of this monster before.. lol :)

[@shamanspointofview8083]

What does the pic above Rick say? And is that a broken sword of cloud strife?

[@DungeonDad]

This was in my old office! That is a cross-stitch a friend made for me of Tirion Fordring's sword that says "Don't Test me Child". I was big into Hearthstone at the time.

[@shamanspointofview8083]

@@DungeonDad awesome had to ask 🙂

[@TheMightyBattleSquid]

Imagine doing a false hydra fakeout on your players with this thing 😂

[@AncientRylanor69]

Would a led helmet protect me from this monster?

[@Americanbadashh]

Pair this with a False Hydra

[@Dunstan9]

This thing kinda feels less like a monster in and of itself, so much as half environmental hazard, and half natural magic-tech just waiting to be put to use.

[@Spencisms]

So if a memory moss consumes the memories of more than one spellcaster during combat, is there only the chance of one of them to get their slots back? In other words, is there a way for multiple people to eat one moss, or no?

[@lexibyday9504]

I was going to comment something... But I cant remember what... What was this video even about again?

[@andresmarrero8666]

Shouldn't the memory moss be changed by the memories?

[@evanthiss256]

Bruh, think how bad it would be if it learned wish... Nightmare fuel. high level campaign this would suck for something so weak turned into basically a god.

[@joshuazane3210]

With some creativity, this could have some interesting applications for... "enhanced interrogation techniques".

[@zarathossenrab9152]

Xill

[@zomgt3hpoison]

In a similar vein, the False Hydra: goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/09/false-hydra.html Not sure if you've covered it or not (binge watching your videos now), but it's more or less this guy's big bad brother.

[@AncientRylanor69]

👱‍♂👱🤝