Roll20 Review – Dragonix’s Deadly Denizens

A review copy of the module was provided. Read more Roll20 Reviews and watch the video reviews on my YouTube channel.

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Designed by: Dragonix Books

From the creator of the excellent Monster Manual Expanded series comes an all-new monster book outside the DM’s Guild (and the D&D IP). Dragonix’s Deadly Denizens features over 300 statblocks and over 100 unique monsters for Fifth Edition.

The following is included in the Dragonix’s Deadly Denizens bundle on Roll20 ($34.99):

• • Compendium Expansion
    • Over 300 monsters with tokens, linked sheets, and artwork. (around 100 unique monsters).
  • Token Pack with over 300 tokens (two token colors for each unique monster art).

Dragonix’s Deadly Denizens is also available on DriveThruRPG!

The Monster Manual Expanded series is beloved for taking base creatures from the 5e Monster Manual, such as the harpy, beholder, and bulette, and creating variant version of those creatures at different power levels.

Dragonix does the same thing for all the new creatures in Deadly Denizens. With nearly every new creature having two more powerful versions, the roster of around 100 monsters is expanded into over 300 new statblocks (conversely, you could look at it as only 1/3 of the advertised 300+ are completely new entries).

For example, the Tarasca is a large, fearsome cross between a snapping turtle and a bear, with a scorpion-like tail (because why not?). The CR 6 creature has around 100 hit points, a multiattack with bite and sting, and a poison breath weapon. It also grapples anyone it bites, causing them to have disadvantage on the ensuing poison breath — ha!

Then there’s the Elder Tarasca. This fella is Huge, has nearly twice the hit points, and gains the Swallow action to chow down on anyone it grapples (CR 11).

Finally there’s the Ancient Tarasca, which has grown to Gargantuan size. At CR 19 it has nearly three times the hit points of the original CR 6 version. It can now employ its claws as part of its multiattack, and gains legendary resistance, legendary actions (including being able to swallow summon it just chomped on), and optional lair actions.

Almost every creature is set up like this, with an upgraded, more powerful version, and an uber boss-version with legendary actions and lair actions, giving DMs a lot of flexibility in how to use these creatures.

An idea with the many new drakes (smaller, wingless, more feral dragons) is to use an adult or two with a mix of several young to build a suitable encounter.

I particularly like the desert drake with its sandy camouflage, club-like tail, and blinding, corrosive sand breath.

Aside from the tarasca and desert drake, my other favorite monsters include the kumiho (based on the popular nintetail fox spirit), the demonic krampus (captures and imprisons victims in a cage on his back!), frightening jack-o-lantern, and creepy haghead, a froglike creature which forms from the dead body of a hag.

Oh, and the cover monster, the Teju Jagua, which is what happens when you give a hydra a bunch of elemental laser eyes.

The compendium also includes several templates to transform existing monsters into a different type: inferno, abyssal, half-dragon, and vampiric, along with several examples, such as a vampiric roper, abyssal ogre, or half-white dragon triceratops, which is as hilariously awesome as it sounds.

Templates uniformly adjust each statblock, adding appropriate new abilities, traits, and power boosts, cranking out even more varied statblocks from original 5e Monster Manual (or other sources).

And a special mention to the many new NPC statblocks (which are also given the triplicate treatment). They’re not the most exciting, yet are just as commonly used, if not more so, than more exotic monsters.

Deadly Denizens includes nearly 20 unique NPCs (so over 50 total), many inspired by player character classes, such as the beast master, sniper, frost mage, and pestilence druid.

My only complaint unfortunately lies with the primary adaption to Roll20 — the token art. While the art is nice, too much of it is often crammed into the tokens, making the image messy and hard to see, particularly for medium-size creatures.

Roll20 has improved their official token art over the years, with modern adventures featuring only the head for NPCs, and maybe the upper half of a monster, and it looks great.

Conversely, shoving an entire creature or person body into a token (as is often with Deadly Denizens) is a big step backward in quality, and the wrong approach for token design (in my humble opinion).

Thankfully the larger, high-quality images are available in Roll20 (both in the compendium and in-game via the Bio & Info tab), allowing DMs to create handouts of the images and/or create their own tokens — though you really shouldn’t have to! It also makes the bundled token art pack a lot less useful.

Even with that admittedly big complaint, this is still an excellent product with fantastic monster designs from one of the best monster-crafters in 5e.

Pros:

• Over 100 unique creatures and over 300 total statblocks.
• Almost every new creature has multiple statblock variants (base, greater, and legendary).
• 19 unique NPC statblocks, many inspired by player classes (each with three variants)
• Templates for creating Infernal, fiendish, vampiric, and half-dragon monsters.
• Appendices organize monsters by CR and environment.

Cons:

• Some token art is way too tiny, cramming too much image into each token.

The Verdict: With Deadly Denizens, Dragonix has crafted yet another must-have monster book, expanding onto original creations while maintaining the successful templates, versions, and variants format.

A review copy of the module was provided. Read more Roll20 Reviews and watch the video reviews on my YouTube channel.

Support my video work via Patreon.