Attack of the Drones

Soon to be released product, from the Boss Stats line, The Omnihedron Swarm. This release was… tricky.

Primarily because the creature that this is the “boss” for is a creature that is not part of WOTC’s SRD (Wizards of the Coast’s System Reference Document – I used the abbreviations to save time). WOTC allows us Indy publishers to create material for their flagship game system, however, certain intellectual properties are for their use only. Mind Flayers, Demonlords, both varieties of Gith… Of course we are allowed to use the common stuff. Orc, Troll, Halfling – because if they tried to claim ownership of those the Tolkien-estate would tear them a new one.

So what is the Omnihedron Swarm? It is a massive multi-polyhedral hive mind from a certain plane of Law where everything operates and exists in clockwork precision. Without naming names, there may be a few pages in the 5E Core Monster book that describe beings from this plane. It’s under “M…”

I’ll wait….

Why are we Boss-Statting this? I like to use things in my games that I’ve never used. For example, until this past year when I ran a new 5E campaign I had never played or run a game that had a Lamia in it (and I’m pretty sure there has been a Lamia in every version of the Monster Manual since 1st ed. So I made a Lamia a central NPC in the story. As of today, right now, I’ve never had Modrons in my game. So it was something I wanted to explore.

Back in 3rd edition I was working on stats for a “Cog Swarm” which was a terrifying thing in that edition when you combined all the immunities for swarms with those of constructs. And as a DM, I like terrifying. So I thought, let’s run with this: The Omnihedron Swarm is an intelligent(-ish), extraplanar, swarm of constructs with an army of Modrons to serve it. That sounds like something worth throwing into your campaign. Hopefully, you’ll agree when it’s published. Also, be advised, that the word Modron will never appear in the published product. So if I tell you that the Omnihedron Swarm summons a Rank 3 DRONE… you’ll be able to figure out what I mean and look it up in your Monster Manual, right?