The Skinless Horror - NUCKELAVEE - Dungeons & Dragons [D&D] - Monster of the Week

[@joshuafrizzell626]

Give it an enchanted blue great sword and…. “Aah, you were at my side all along. My true mentor... My guiding moonlight...”

[@user-gj7lp5iz6k]

Props for using "bucking" the correct way. Many people confuse rearing with bucking. I grew up raising horses. Horses can be trained not to buck, but you do not want to be behind one anyway -- bucking is natural behavior, and even a trained horse can buck , so you never walk behind a horse. Now, despite Hollywood showing horses rearing-up as this majestic display, you never want a horse rearing-up on you when you're riding it. Trust me, it's actually terrifying! -- the horse could drop you from a height suitable to break bones or cause internal bleeding, or even worse it may drop down right on top of you or hurt itself to the point of needing to be euthanized.

[@DungeonDad]

Josh H. Man that’s really crazy! I guess I never really thought of it but they’re huge animals.

[@sanguiniusonvacation1803]

Beware mortal man , who pass at night by the sea , Or else you face the dreaded Nucklavee.

[@lechking941]

but fear not for waters clear as crystels are but its worse of foes but thoes of ill taste are but its friend and more you should fear. for freash springs are the salvation

[@Parodox306]

Something I noticed missing from the video and prior comments is the fact that, according to many recounts of this myth, the Nuckelavee can't tolerate fresh water. It might come off as anticlimactic for players to end the encounter by jumping into a river, but it's a great way to set the Nucklavee up as a recurring enemy. And then you just throw any number of the myriad of monsters from folklore that drown people in said river, especially if you're doing a Feywild campaign.

[@catsforchaos5834]

The nuckelavee knights serving a fae lord immediately made me think of the Nazgûl from Tolkien. Obviously they are entirely different creatures, the nukelavee being fae beings and the nazgûl being corrupted men, but the way someone could play the nuckelavee knights and the fae lord could be like the nazgûl and sauron. Limited speech, disguising as riders but nature is inherently clear, most people try to avoid them in general, etc, etc. There are so many ways to play around with this and I'm already getting ideas.

[@knightghaleon]

Grossest Warlock Patron ever.

[@bobandbilleatingsmothies]

Naa home brew pact of the toilet

[@benthomason3307]

@@bobandbilleatingsmothies talk about a shitpost

[@Mad_Oph]

I'm so glad you got to the Nuckelavee. It's easily one of my favorite mythical creatures, and certain one of the most disturbing.

[@quynlanvuorensyrja5484]

The horse is actually only supposed to have one big eye in the middle of its forehead. The creature also doesn’t traditionally have a weapon, but its arms and fingers are really stretched and lanky, its long, clawed fingers dragging on the ground as it walks. It uses this to grab the poor people it comes across and drag them kicking and screaming into the sea.

[@thecrazyastrogirl]

Four horseman of the apocalypse and their leader. I think I’m gonna go write that campaign idea tomorrow.

[@GrimBrotherIV]

Amazing. I have a perfect spot for this in my campaign!

[@edwardtapia4898]

So apparently there are no sea serpents in the monster manual so it would be awesome if you did Cirein-Cròin from Gaelic folklore

[@lechking941]

kelpy of the norse as well

[@Fromaginator]

4 Nuckelavee of the Apocalypse

[@retwerd]

I’m planning on using this as an eerie encounter in Curse of Strahd. They’re going to hear tell of something that roams the land, that assails travelers

[@marydeyoung7501]

A Slavic variation of the nuckelavee is the todorac, though these monsters have different abilities. Similar in appearance, the todorac isn't skinless and doesn't have the disease spreading ability, but they're wholly evil and destructive in their own manner.

[@LordSephleon]

"Nuckelavee! Oh Nuckelavee You're big and evil and heinous Who could it be who set you free? He really must be an anus." -Tale of the Nuckelavee, Bard's Tale '04 Yeah, I never learned of this bastard until the Bard's Tale's fun little spin on its origin. I actually wouldn't mind stealing that exact same origin - a cursed circle or grove, an ornery horse that refuses to leave it, and a grumpy old farmer - for a game. It'd be especially fun if the grumpy old farmer is a semi-regular NPC that the party has to deal with for whatever reason... :) If you haven't heard the music from that game, definitely check it out. Great stuff, although some of the context will be lost on you without playing through the game.

[@glasheaknight1677]

Have you had fun fact there's an SCP based on this thing that appears during horrific Wars!

[@vaulthunterfromterra4053]

9:42 I was going to mention how it looks like one of the Grimm from RWBY, but I guess you already found it.

[@edwardg8912]

I actually used this recently, building my own. I did not discover this! Pretty cool, for sure. I did not use the hooves as much, and gave him withering claws and a noxious breath that wilted everything (similar to yours). The result was that the creature could enter dreams. I also made it a fiend instead of a fae. I also added a cool thing that he couldn’t be in the sunlight, and couldn’t cross running water.

[@crookedsaint9544]

Something I would love to see is a creature that uses the sanity ability score not something lot of people know about but I'm starting a campaign using it and it's so hard I need redo so many monster vto include sanity attack and ability saves.

[@DragonheartDominion]

9:42 Big appreciation for the RWBY version being represented in the art. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw you were doing a video on it.

[@mpeterll]

I've used these a couple of times in the past (2nd-edition and earlier). I converted it from the original D&D game before TSR incorporated it into AD&D. Originally, it was described as looking like a hideously deformed centaur rather than a skinless horse & rider. It's claw attacks also caused instant death if the saving throw failed. Since the original description also mentioned that it was "friendly with all forms of undead", I used one as a mount for a lich.

[@jkonvikt8083]

Thank you for providing a stat block for my Orcadian Horseman in my foundation campaign

[@michaelpro7092]

Nice end of campaign fight. One Nightwalker, two Nucklavee, and five Bodaks. They descend upon the countryside the players have made as their home. Describe how this force of shadow and death moves silently through causing all the plant life to wither. Herds of farm animals simply fall over and begin rotting. Peasants and NPC's crouch silently in houses and barns clutching religious symbols as the silent troop move through killing everyone and everything. The guard on the watch tower steps off falling to his doom to avoid the coming horror. Keep in mind most NPCs will dies just by being near the group without being attacked. The bodaks are a low enough cr to be quick kill minions but their abilities still make them dangerous each round they are around. Nightwalker is a nice beefy boy and brings that titanic unstoppable force feel. The Nucklavee make it feel like a coherent force rather then just some encounter.

[@davidhaught7408]

Perfect I was wanting to make a campaign around this creature so you have any advice on how I could bump him to a cr 14 creature? The party is going to be like 4-6 people. Still relatively new to dming but I like this creature.

[@davidhaught7408]

I’m hoping to make this thing the bbeg btw idea behind it being people went fucking around with the ocean and this creature is now indescribably attacking anything on land or sea

[@treejerk1]

The worst part is when it hits its second phase and pulls out that damn moon sword

[@lbrett7054]

I've got two things to say: 1. I know its one creature but say if you put an arrow right between the eyes on the human head than the human part will die and go limp but the horse part will keep going or if you put a spear through the horse part's neck it will die with the human part helplessly trying to attack you but unable to move because of the weight of the dead horse part. 2. In folklore the nuckelavee, for an unknown reason is terrified of fresh water so it never comes out when it's raining and if your being chased by one all you need to do is run across a shallow river and your safe because it is unable to follow.

[@jlickley1118]

if I remember correctly the nuckelavee of legend was averse to fresh water. which would be a useful weakness for it.

[@primusavenged]

i have an scp-esque GURPS campaign I'm running where they're remnants of a lost civilization driven mad by mankind's impact on the world and subsequent efforts to contain them at their "spawning grounds" (which is really the ruins of their capital city)

[@terrenceprice6504]

An added note: most fae have an iron bane. These instead have a gold bane.

[@janedoe885]

I've been watching through your monster of the week videos in no particular order, saw the tikbalang video a bit before this one. I don't come across horse monsters very often, let alone acknowledgement that the default animal can be dangerous. When you got to talking about the horror of it I started IRL laughing. Because imagine running a campaign where there is no ostensible theme, but then it's just equine trauma after equine trauma across encounters. Did one of them anger a horse god? Is it a cult? Are the mounts plotting something? Smile and shrug, then throw a kelpie at them. You don't know. Maybe horses are just evil.

[@boabplz4107]

My dude, you were recording about the MFing nuckalavee - you're lucky all it did was crash your PC... *SPOOKY BAGPIPES AND HORNS*

[@MySerpentine]

Dark fae are scary.

[@johnnycovenant2286]

Things of my literal nightmares

[@johnnye87]

Could be a cool twist for an NPC Green Knight to turn out to be one of these disguised by full plate armour.

[@acorns-r-us]

Great quote. Very spooky

[@lucastagna7062]

The Nuckelavee is one of my favorite monsters from worldwide folklore, probably second only to the Wendigo I am planning a campaign pretty much based on real world folklore so I’ll definitely use this, but it’s going to take a long time to homebrew all the stuff I need, so it’ll be in a few years maybe

[@Fnordathoth]

Mortasheen, also known as Glanders is a real disease and left untreated is fatal most of the time. Info on the disease is readily available online.

[@zenotekdev9540]

now have a way to punish my player's in character for setting the woods on fire "for the reference to the song"

[@spacewarsfight281]

THIS MONSTOSITY IS A FAE I hope I or my friends never get stuck in the feywild like ever because fuck that shit

[@wightmamba8085]

"Nucklavee, Nucklavee, so big and evil and hienous. Who would be to set you free they really must be a dumb@$$." That was one of the best songs ftom bards tale aside from beer song.

[@alexplaysgames_2]

This would be a perfect monster for my Irish/Scotland campaign setting analog. Also this monster is cannon in SCP lore.

[@justingridley371]

The islands it's myth comes from its their equivalent of Satan and is terrifying 😳

[@relicking9207]

I feel like the Nuckelavee should be a higher CR and bigger, I don't know it just feels like it should be towering over houses and such and a terror even at ~10th Lv

[@commanderblackheart5856]

Thank god these arn't the SCP versions, that would have just been unfair!

[@ImmortalLemon]

I’ll use the stat block but change the lance attacks into claw attacks to make it more like the terrifying deranged version that was seen in RWBY which I feel was more terrifying than anything because of how twitchy and painfully unstable and unpredictable it was

[@timberwolf8182]

Sorry, not on dichord, but what do you think of a black dog? The mysterious hounds that make you go blind or drop a sack of gold when you hit them and disappear in thin air

[@17joren]

Won’t getting a long rest each mitigate the exhaustion? Like potentially you’d stay at one level until cured.

[@callmepoki]

Nah that’s a Grimm from RWBY

[@nightmarex735]

I read it as "knuckle-laev"

[@lordwoods8631]

As someone who’s played Skyrim, I know the terror of horses. Horses have their eyes placed on their heads so the can see around them to avoid predators. The horses in Skyrim, have their eyes placed looking FORWARDS, which means they are predators. The question we have to ask, is what is the prey?

[@Not_Ciel]

I just wanna say that the audio isn't even that bad.

[@nicolaezenoaga9756]

Thanks

[@Iceburgh6901]

A solid pick for a song for this would be Chemical Worker's Song. I rather like the Colm McGuinness version, myself.

[@iPharaoh54]

Who here is here because the also thought this thing came from RWBY? I did. Lol

[@GothicForest]

man that echo audio

[@HappyAspid]

8:59 - wouldn't it be funny if Elves had no idea wtf this thing is, since the pointy eared pieces of (redacted) haven't disrespected nature?

[@Qsalis]

So that's an SCP also

[@KisameOwnsYouAll]

spicy centaur

[@peng1luver259]

Clay Golems Vs. Nucklavee, Clay Golem eventually wins due to immunity to disease and most melee attacks

[@randallbaumgardt3424]

Why are the grossest nastiest d&d monsters from folklore. Makes me wonder what was going on with our ancestors.

[@menotyou8209]

yay fae godzilla

[@leroyjason3217]

SCP MIGHT HAVE STOLEN THIS......

[@leroyjason3217]

SCP 3456

[@skyguy713]

Half the SCPs are just folklore adaptations, written from modern science jargon instead of the fables we know them as.

[@abigailmahoney1226]

you are not the first person to do an episode on the Nuckelavee, only to have the episode audio mysteriously disappear. Spirits Podcast also had this happen- idk what this means but its freaking me out.

[@RexTenomous]

Has anyone ever told you that your outro music is TOO cool? Stop it, before the police come for you!