Banderhobb

Description

(from Volo's Guide to Monsters - 2016):

A banderhobb is a hybrid of shadow and flesh. Through dark magic, these components take on an enormous and vile humanoid shape, resembling a bipedal toad. In this form, a banderhobb temporarily serves its creator as a thug, a thief, and a kidnapper.

Birthed by Hags. In the earliest days of the world, a coven of night hags devised a ritual that led to the creation of the first banderhobb. A hag that knows the ritual might be willing to teach it for the right price. Some other dark fey and powerful fiends also know of the process, as do a few mortal mages. Instructions might also be found in a tome devoted to debased wizardry.

Silent and Deadly. When the ritual to create a banderhobb is complete, flesh, spirit, and shadow combine to produce a creature as big as an ogre. The newly formed monstrosity has spindly limbs that belie great strength. Its broad maw holds a long tongue and rows of fangs, both of which it uses to grab and swallow a creature or perhaps an object the banderhobb intends to steal. Despite its size, a banderhobb makes little noise, moving as silently as the shadows that infuse it. A banderhobb isn’t capable of speech, but it can understand orders given to it by its creator and communicates with nearby banderhobbs in a psychic manner.

Agents of Evil. During its brief existence, a banderhobb attempts to carry out the bidding of the one who birthed it. It accomplishes its mission with no concern for the harm it suffers or creates. Its only desire is to serve and succeed. A banderhobb that is assigned to track down a target is particularly dangerous when it is provided with a lock of hair, a personal belonging, or other object connected to the target. Possession of such an item allows it to sense the creature’s location from as far as a mile away.

A banderhobb fulfills its duties until its existence ends. When it expires, usually several days after its birth, it leaves behind only tarry goo and wisps of shadow. Legends tell of a dark tower in the Shadowfell where the shadows sometimes reform, and banderhobbs roam.

(from 4th Edition Monster Manual III - 2010):

As the day recedes, shadows lengthen over the world like grasping claws. That's when the banderhobbs come. Beneath the stars, in the dead ofmoonless nights, they march in ones and twos from the land ofdeath and darkness. A banderhobb's snaking tongue ensnares its victim, drawing it into the creature's distended maw before it is swallowed into the banderhobb's cavernous stomach. Then the creature departs to where its master waits for it to regurgitate its stili-living cargo. For what purpose? A banderhobb never tells. 

LORE:

Arcana DC 25: Parents tell children that if they misbehave, banderhobbs will come to take them away. According to stories. the torsos ofbanderhobbs are carved with ritual markings that allow them to pass between worlds at places where the veil is thin and shadows are thick. Their home is the Shadowfell, where their ancient master dwells in a dark tower. People speculate that the banderhobbs' captives work as slaves in the Shadowfell until they eventually transform into banderhobbs. Fragments oflore tell ofvast feeding pits where banderhobbs feast. In the dark reaches of this place, no god watches.

Encounters:

Even the other fell creatures ofthe Shadow fell shun banderhobbs. When banderhobbs do ally with other creatures, they are most often seen in the company of shadow wolves and howlers.

Banderhobb Warder:

Lurking in shadow, such as the dark of the cellar and the black abyss beneath the bed, are the banderhobb warders. No place in the world is safe from warders, for it is in the brightest light that the darkest shadows are cast. No matter how far a person flees, a warder finds its prey.

Banderhobb Filch:

Like a lizard, a shadowy thing scuttles down chimneys, through windows in walls and holes in thatch to the bedsides ofsleepers. Something is dragged across the floor. A shadow is hunched, hefting an awkward sack stretched from its shoulder to the earth. Something is dragged through the woods. The creature moves over stones, through brambles. The sack whimpers, and the thing draws it tight, draws it silent. Someone is dragged away.

Banderhobb Abductor:

They find the places where shadows are thick. On flat 0 feet, banderhobb abductors silently slip into the world ~ to steal and feed. They lurk in the seams between this w world and the shadow realm. looking into this world, waiting for the right opportunity.