The five weirdest Spelljammer creatures to spice up your D&D campaign

You can flip through the pages of a Monster Manual is one of the great joys of preparing to run a game of Dungeons & Dragons, with every page offering potential friends and foes for your players to encounter. Spelljammer: Adventures in Space revives Dungeons & Dragons’ bizarre pulp science fiction setting after more than 30 years with a box set featuring an adventure taking place on the Astral Plane and a campaign guide filled with new character options and rules for spaceships. The real jewel is Boo’s Astral MenagerieA bestiary that includes more than 60 creatures who live in wildspace, an ocean filled with magical animals.

This book contains many of the same creatures as in the Spelljammer original, including the magic items dealers, the merchante, and Lovecraftian horrors, such as the brain-collecting Neh-thalggu. But if you’re really looking to make the most of the space opera setting, these are the five weirdest creatures you should include in your game.

[Ed. note: Definitely some clowns in here. Don’t say we didn’t tell you.]

Dohwar

Image by Brynn Metherney/Wizards of the Coast

Dohwars are known also as cartels. 3-foot-tall brightly colored penguin people like to cultivate an air of mystery by wearing cloaks and meeting in dark alleys, even when they’re just conducting mundane business. They’re tough negotiators since they can detect thoughts and often are mentally linked with each other, a process known as merging. They also worship every god of wealth and business in the D&D cosmos from the Forgotten Realms’ Waukeen to Greyhawk’s Zilchus in hopes of gaining their favor and becoming the multiverse’s top merchants.

Dohwars are also known for breeding space swine, small flying boars and beasts of burden. These animals can be trained to fight and covered in armour, which earns them the title Death Squealer.

Image by Jessica Nguyen/Wizards of the Coast

Kindori

You can base your adventure on this Doctor Who episode “The Beast Below” or Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, SpelljammerThis space whale is 80 feet in length. They’re mostly chill, swimming through wildspace and feeding on sunlight while communicating with each other through blinding flashes from their eye beams. But they provide plenty of adventure hooks, since they’re hunted by dragons and are so big they have their own gravity and air bubbles where smaller creatures can live.

A kindori might be followed by a cavver. This is a type of space shark which eats parasites trying to colonize whales. Scavengers can eat the flesh of a kindori if it dies from illness, old age or other reasons, although its bones are extremely resilient. The great beast’s skeleton can even be turned into a particularly creepy spelljamming ship.

Space Clowns

WizKids image

WizKids image

Inspiration by Killer Klowns From Outer SpaceClownspace clowns refer to the fiendish inhabitants that inhabit a system called clownspace. These space clowns travel in giant, pie-flinging ships equipped with spelljamming technology and massive klaxon trumpets. Three-ringed worlds had citizens who worshiped a god that revelry but they were corrupted and made to drink Thrill Joy, an elixir made from the bozo plant and demon ichor. They were eventually transformed into a creepy clown-like creature by this potion.

They eat humanoids by attacking them at sea and luring them into carnivals offering them fun. They’re skilled performers and acrobats who can always pull a trick out of their pocket, like shocking with a touch or firing a raygun that acts like the Joker’s gas and afflicts the victim with uncontrollable laughter. They’re also masters of illusion — in a nod to It, Spatial clowns could make themselves appear floating by pretending to be spacemen.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Space Hamsters

There are a lot of animals in this book with the word “space” tossed in front of them, but few have the rich history of the space hamster. Although they are larger than grizzly bears, giant space hamsters can be as cute and friendly as any rodent. This makes them an ideal companion to druids and rangers. Gnomes have tried to power spelljamming ships with giant hamster wheels, but so far haven’t had any luck.

The book’s namesake, Boo, is supposedly a miniature giant space hamster, a species created by wizard experiments on their giant kin that made them tiny, smart, and telepathic. Boo, Minsc’s companion animal in the original novella is Boo. Baldur’s Gate video game, and despite Minsc’s many claims to the contrary he seems to just be a normal hamster. He, like all other hamsters of the Material Plane are just keeping his psychic powers secret from his closest friend and, in truth, everyone else. As a tribute to Minsc’s most memorable line, space hamsters have the power “Go for the Eyes,” which lets them blind and damage their target.

Vampirates

You don’t need a ghost ship to be clever. The vampirates, pirates that have lost their lives but still travel the wild space stealing life essence and plundering other people’s property are called vampirates. Instead of drinking blood, they leach life via touch and a ranged attack. They don’t need to eat or drink but they like to do it, particularly enjoying swigging rum while singing dark sea shanties.

Vampires usually require a lot of work to kill, but these versions explode in a cloud of damaging necrotic dust as soon as they’re dropped to zero hit points. You don’t always have to fight them, though. The adventure Light of XaryxisThe vampirate captain Grimzod Gargenhale is likely to be allied with players. He’s accompanied by Lefty, his own hand that he lost in a swordfight and animated as a crawling claw. It’s like a parrot except it can play musical instruments and communicate by making gestures. It’s likely Lefty likes ruder people.

Spelljammer Space Adventures The books will be available on August 16. Wizards of the Coast provided a preview copy of the book to be used as a sample. Vox Media also has affiliate relationships. Although these partnerships do not impact editorial content, Vox Media could earn commissions for products sold via affiliate links. Find out more. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.