As I prepare my Monte Cook "Lifebane" campaign, I see certain monsters in Monte's modules being used over and over again. I assume these creatures are some of Monte's favorites. These are some of them:
As I read through the Monte Cook adventures, I realized that there is another one: the bodak.
Bodaks kill you just by looking at you.
The Essential Information
I decided I should dig up all the information I could find on the bodak
to help me run them well in my 5e campaign. Here's a quick run-down of
some of the most relevant lore.
- Mortals Transformed: They were mortals who have been transformed in bodaks.
- Summoning Danger: If summoned by a spellcaster, they can sometimes take psychic control of that spellcaster.
- Death Gaze: They can kill you just by looking at you. Those who make their saving throw might have a vision of their own death.
- Sunlight: Sunlight harms them. Apparently if they die from it, they are destroyed forever.
- Demogorgon: Bodaks once served Demogorgon and fought against Orcus.
- Wanderers: Many bodaks wander the Abyss without purpose.
- Benign Bodaks: Some bodaks actually retain their mortal personality and memories.
- Dim Memories: Most bodaks retain a dim memory of their mortal life, and sometimes pause in battle when they recognize something from their time as a mortal.
- Bodak Giants: There are bodak giants in at least one layer of the Abyss.
- Nightwalkers: Entities from the Shadowfell known as nightwalkers can create bodaks.
- Variants: There are a few bodak variants: reavers, skulks, and death drinkers.
- Orcus: In 4e and 5e, bodaks are strongly linked to Orcus.
- The Hierophants of Annihilation: These are the first 7 bodaks to exist. They serve Orcus and are each as powerful as a balor.
- Annihilation: Bodaks may be immune to the effects of a sphere of annihilation.
The story of the bodaks evolved and changed over the years. At various times, they've served Demogorgon, Nightwalkers, and Orcus. They've been linked to the Abyss and the Shadowfell. They can be created in a variety of ways.
It's hard to combine the lore into one cohesive story. 5th edition has fully embraced the idea that they are very closely linked to Orcus, to the point where Orcus an see and speak through them.
The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
In this adventure, we get both an encounter and a stat block.
Bodaks are:
- Evil humans transformed into monsters by Abyssal energy.
- Sexless, have gray skin, eyes are milky white ovals.
- Speak "all demonic languages."
- Usually remain in the Abyss except when called to serve a "foolish and evil magic user."
- Death Gaze: Range 30 ft, save vs. death!
- Direct sunlight does 1 HP of dmg per round to them.
- Has "ultravision" which lets it see ultraviolet light.
- When summoned, it has a chance to break free of a spellcaster's command and actually control the mind of the spellcaster.
Cavern of Corpses: In this adventure, a bodak is encountered in a chamber... "The walls of this vaulted chamber are lined with limed-over corpses."
A bodak lives in a small cave here. All of the dead are adventurers that the bodak has slain. The bodak stands immobile among the corpses.
There are some troglodytes here that revere the bodak as a demigod.
AD&D Monster Manual II
Same info as in Tsojcanth.
Tales of the Outer Planes - The Sea of Screams
This old book has a ton of adventures, many of which focus on a single monster or plane.
We are told that a cleric named Gustofsen Eller believes that the evil goddess Kali has died. The group is being hired to go to the Abyss with Eller to find her dead body, and confirm that she was actually slain! Eller has a scepter of passage...
Scepter of Passage: An amber scepter studded with star sapphires that can teleport up to seven characters at a time an unlimited distance to any location they can see. The characters must be within 5 feet of the scepter.
It turns out Eller is wrong, Kali is alive.
What really happened is that she has been sleeping in a black crypt in the middle of an ocean of blood for 2 months. Her followers are sustaining her by offering souls as sacrifices.
The group goes to two layers: Layer 99 and layer 500 (the layer ruled by Kali).
Layer 99 is made up of a number of mini-realms that the heroes will have to traverse:
- The Gray Realm
- The Lightning Realm
- The Swirling Realm
- The Yellow Realm
- The Fog Realm
- The Silver Realm
- The Star Realm (contains a portal to layer 500.
The Lightning Realm: The group comes across a battlefield. "Ripped bodies of dinosaurs and giant snakes bleed into the white earth..."
This realm is a battlefield for the demon princes Orcus and Demogorgon. Currently, the forces of Orcus are in control.
Slugs: The group encounters a bodak that is beating two giant slugs with a silver whip. The bodak and the slugs are agents of Demogorgon. Their mission: To destroy the bone shacks containing agents of Orcus in this realm.
The bodak is having trouble herding the slugs, and wants to force the group to help. The group is meant to actually get the slugs to a shack, where the slugs spew acid on a shack. Wights, ghasts, and a babau emerge from the hut and attack.
The bodak fights the babau, and the group can escape if they so desire.
AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium - Outer Planes Appendix
"Bodaks serve no purpose in an already purposeless Abyss. They wander the terrain there in abhorrent hatred of their inhuman endurance granted them during transformation from dying mortal to bodak."
The rest of the info is the same as in the Planescape Monstrous Appendix below.
AD&D Planescape Monstrous Appendix
The grim bodaks are formed from hapless mortals who ventured into parts of the Abyss too deadly for them.
The Bodak Who Walked Home: A Sigil legend. A swordsman agrees to go to the Abyss to fetch soil in exchange for the return of his wife. The swordsman returned years later as a bodak, handing over the soil (which turned into blood, then snakes). The bodak killed the king and was then destroyed by sunlight.
Sometimes a bodak retains a small feature from their mortal form - a nervous twitch, combat style, etc.
"There is a base 5% chance, rolled once per encounter, that the creature sees something in an enemy that reminds it of its mortal life. The bodak pauses and make no attacks for one melee round."
"Any person or creature that meets a bodak's death gaze must save vs. petrification or die. The gaze is effective to 30 feet. A victim who dies in the Abyss transforms into a bodak in one day."
There are some places in the Abyss that are so loathsome and secretive that mortals are simply not allowed to enter. A mortal foolish enough to visit these and die is painfully transformed into a bodak.
Benign Bodak: Sometimes, a good-aligned mortal's mind survives the transition from mortal to bodak. It retains its memory and consciousness, but it cannot cast spells.
Faces of Evil: The Fiends
This book devotes a few pages to bodaks, written by an NPC named Michil Kedell.
"Bodak" is actually a word in the Abyssal language, meaning "the unfinished dead."
In 1e they were sexless, but in this book, it's different. "...any mortal who takes a wrong turn in the Abyss can become a bodak. That means any gender is possible among the creatures. I myself have read "documented" cases of bodaks mating with mortals..."
Bodaks don't eat, but they do rest in order to heal."Perhaps they survive on the life forces they drain with their gazes."
Sunlight: A bodak that finds itself in the sunlight slowly withers and dies for good.
Bodaks hate each other as much as they hate all other life.
A bodak that fully recalls its former life will usually do whatever it can to help mortals who find themselves trapped in the Abyss. But even these bodaks can speak in only halting, nearly incomprehensible words.
In the city of Sigil, there is a bookshop called The Parted Veil run by a gnome named Kesto Brighteyes. Kesto has an assistant - a bodak named Sir Cleve. Cleve is described as "silent, mouse-gray, and spindly..." He was once a paladin from the world of Krynn. He was slain in the Abyss while attempting to rescue a kidnapped lord from "the watery caves of Demogorgon."
He retained his mortal memories and was repulsed that he'd become a bodak. He went to Sigil in search of a spellcaster who could cure him. Kesto Brighteyes has put him to work in the meantime.
He has made peace with his "condition," and has the ability to control his death gaze. He only used it once, to kill a night hag who tried to burn down the shop.
D&D 3.5 Monster Manual
"Bodaks are the undead remnants of humanoids who have been destroyed by the touch of absolute evil."
They still have the death gaze, and vulnerability to sunlight.
Libris Mortis
This book has a section on undead grafts. One of the items:
Bodak's Eye: "This white, empty eye fits into a humanoid creature's empty eye socket and allows the grafted creature to make a death gaze attack once per day." A target that dies from this attack does not rise up as a bodak 24 hours later.
Dungeon Magazine #94 - The Spiral of Manzessine
This adventure is about a prison in the underdark run by mind flayers. The prison contains "criminals too valuable to kill but too dangerous to live free."
One room houses two bodaks, charged by a high-level mind flayer cleric with guarding the prison cells against unauthorized entry - or exit.
"Two bodaks have guarded this room for untold years, averting their gaze for authorized passersby."
Dungeon Magazine #149 - The Wells of Darkness
This adventure is about a layer of the Abyss that contains wells which act as prisons. Imprisoned here are many powerful entities, many of which are D&D creatures from old products, such as Shami-Amourae.
The Custodians: This realm is guarded by giant bodaks known as the Custodians. Some think they were once members of a cult devoted to Ahazu the Seizer (the demon who rules this layer), but were slain by Orcus.They immediately attack and off-plane intruders.
As far as stat goes, they are essentially large, more powerful versions of regular bodaks.
4e Monster Manual
"Bodaks are heartless creatures that kill for the sake of killing, serving their own desires or the desires of an even crueler master."
Linked to the Shadowfell: Undead humanoids with strong ties to the Shadowfell.
"When a nightwalker slays a humanoid, that nightwalker can ritually transform the slain creature's body and spirit into a bodak. The bodak then acts at the nightwalker's behest, serving whomever its master dictates."
What the heck is a nightwalker? I don't remember. Let's look in the 4e MM.
Nightwalkers: "Nightwalkers are hateful beings of pure shadow that spread death and suffering."
- They are shades of evil mortals who died and refused to pass from the Shadowfell to their eternal reward.
- Finger of Death: Nightwalkers can reduce you to 0 HP with their touch.
- Void Chill: they have an aura that does cold and necrotic damage.
- Void Gaze: They can knock you back 20 feet and do necrotic damage with their gaze.
Creating a Bodak: "A nightwalker can turn a humanoid it has killed into a bodak by using an arcane ritual that works only when cast in the Shadowfell, and only when cast by a nightwalker. Nightwalkers alone can warp the void energies of the Shadowfell to create such horrors.
There are two types of bodaks in the Monster Manual:
Bodak Skulk: It has a gaze aura (which does 5 necrotic dmg) and a death gaze attack (which drops you to 0 HP). It can also turn invisible/insubstantial as an action. The bodak actually speaks Common.
Bodak Reaver: Same gaze powers as the skulk, but this one gains temp HP and a bonus to hit when it reduces an enemy to 0 HP.
4e Open Grave
There are some notes on the Bodak's gaze. "When a bodak's gaze fails to slay a creature, the creature instead causes an adversary to witness an unsettling vision of his or her own death."
Debilitating Gaze: An alternate gaze aura. This one gives enemies within 10 feet -2 to FORT saves (aka CON saves in 5e).
The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond
There is an NPC in this adventure, a nightwalker named Lord Nill. He has two "bodak deathdrinkers" with him.
Bodak Death Drinkers: These bodaks are a bit different:
- Their gaze does 10 necrotic damage to people who make radiant energy attacks.
- When a living enemy drops to 0 HP they gain 10 temporary HP.
- They have a ranged attack that stuns and drains a healing surge (which is like stealing a hit die from a character).
- Death Touch: The bodak does necrotic damage and immobilizes/slows enemies with their touch.
E1 Death's Reach
In this adventure, there are bodaks that work as flunkies of Orcus in two different encounters. In one encounter they're led by a "Flameharrow Lord" (an eye of fear and flame) and in the other, they are led by a naga.
Volo's Guide to Monsters
In 5th edition, bodaks have become linked to Orcus in a major way.
Becoming a Bodak: "A bodak is the undead remains of someone who revered Orcus." Worshipers of Orcus can use a ritual of Orcus to become a bodak.
The Hierophants of Annihilation: The first bodaks in the Abyss! There were seven of them
- These figures, as mighty as balors, have free will but serve the Prince of Undeath directly.
- They can turn a slain mortal into a bodak with their gaze.
- They bear the mark of Orcus as a chest wound, where a mortal humanoid's heart would be.
Linked to Orcus: Orcus can recall anything that a bodak sees or hears. He can speak through a bodak if he so chooses. "Bodaks are extensions of Orcus's will outside the Abyss..."
Only a wish can return a bodak to its former life.
Tomb of Annihilation
Way down in the 4th level of the tomb, there is a room that features bodaks.
Room 49. The Maze of Death: There is a green devil face in here containing a sphere of annihilation.
If the group removes a crown from a pedestal, 2 bodaks magically emerge from the sphere of annihilation, seemingly unaffected by it. "Any creature killed by the bodaks is dragged back to the sphere and tossed into it. The bodaks crawl back into the sphere only if they're satisfied that there's nothing left in the maze to kill."
Sphere of Annihilation & Bodaks: The sphere doesn't kill them? In some 2e Planescape products, it is said that a sphere of annihilation doesn't exactly destroy things - it teleport them to the plane of Acheron, where the people and objects slowly become metal pieces of the cubes that hover in the plane. Maybe the bodaks can use the spheres to travel to and from Acheron?
Links
Forgotten Realms Wiki: Bodak
The Monsters Know What They're Doing - Bodak Tactics
Bodaks & Not Being a Jerk to Players
Mythic Monday: The Bodak
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