Using the Balhannoth
I skipped over this creature, many a time, while browsing 3.5 Monster Manuals. It seemed to be yet another Eldritch Horror. If I am going to throw a creature at my party, I’d go for the more iconic over obscure because the players can high five each other over slaying an Aboleth or Beholder over some indescrible horror. Picking a particular monster must serve a specific function. Do they serve the theme well? Are they a capstone to an arc that makes sense? There’s a reason why so many different variants of the Monster Manual get printed and that’s because the Game Master wants something specific when they’re browsing. Sometimes you don’t even know what you’re looking for until it slaps you across the face. What piqued my interest was when I stumbled across Esper the Bard’s video on the Balhannoth.
A simple statement to the video, “This Monster Caused a TPK Every Time I Ran It” is a bold statement that doesn’t reek of click bait. I immediately had to see what creature, one I hadn’t heard of, would be capable of the dreaded Total Party Kill. I filed it away as a deadly creature for when I wanted to evoke death and doom. I didn’t have to wait too long, as I was looking for a Lieutenant for a Steinhardt’s Guide to the Eldritch Hunt. As the setting is inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and the Bloodborne video games, the Balhannoth seemed to have the requisite amount of tentacles.
Shhh… It’s a Secret!
“Oh no, they got me!”
Most of the time, and this one is a big secret that I’m letting you in on, the Dungeon Master wants the players to win. At any point, they can state “Rocks fall, everybody dies” despite how incredulous the party might find that, they would not be able to argue against the results. When players begin their needling, that’s in the space where hare-brained schemes come to fruition and the Storyteller lets the party have their out. The players can go back to high fiving each other, hurling insults at the GM depending on their temperment and feeling like they won — because the game turned out exactly the way the GM wanted it to.
This means that a creature that comes with a TPK warning label would be something you’d want to avoid, normally.
Everyone Gets to Play in a Sandbox
Sandboxes shift and get shaped by all participants who jumped in. This means I can do things you should never do. If the players want to break the economy with their Bastions, I can put a Deck of Many Things. If they want to wantonly slay leaders, they can deal with the poison pill that the leader sat on. For every careless action of smashing the sandcastles their fellow players or I made, I can put bigger, badder critters into the sandbox for my amusement.
That is often the forgotten part of playing in Dungeons and Dragons and other RPGs. The Director of these tales is a player as well. Because there is no overarching plot that could be destroyed because of character death, you can flirt with different boundaries than normal. So when I needed a nasty sidekick to a boss, Esper the Bard’s cautionary tale of the Balhannoth became enticing.
The Balhannoth Was a Blast
Was is the operative word, as the party did not die to the Balhannoth! However, it was much better than that, it appeared like a close thing. Also, my preference for Theatre of the Mind was definitely a strike against the aberration. I like Theatre because it is quick and sloppy; but precision for the Balhannoth would work for it. As it can make an illusion, it should make a hole for it to toss its fiestier meals. Having a hole that the party cannot work with nor see on a grid is why I didn’t add a pit. If you want to put the screws to your party, place a 100 ft. pit it could teleport above and toss its meal down.
The Balhannoth can Teleport around, with a Grappled, Restrained target, making the aberration the height of ambush predators. If you’re looking for a realistic use of the Underdark predator, have it grab one player’s character and then leave. Having a Bite as a Legendary Action means it could chomp and crush a squishy target quickly.
The Balhannoth had dropped half of the party by the end of the second round but that’s when the chain of heals kept the party on their feet. It even wasn’t that strong of a showing as the updated Surprise rules in D&D 2024 lowers lethality of the game on the players; surprise is just Disadvantage on Initiative. It is kind of embarassing when the ambush predator ended up in the lower middle of the pack in my run with it.
I can definitely see how this beastie could cripple or kill a party. If they’re in the right level range, it is definitely a way to end a campaign if you want something better than “rocks fall, everybody dies”.
