New Monster: Wolfen
Art Credit: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lVO3z
Art Credit: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/yk8q98
As Halloween draws closer, we’re bringing you another spooky offering to boost the seasonal scare in your D&D campaign: a terrifying fairy tale monster called the “Wolfen.” Wolfen are modeled on the classic “big bad wolf” from folk and fairy tales, crafted to resemble a gigantic monstrous werewolf. Just like that big bad wolf, wolfen can howl with terrible fury, huff and puff and blow a house down, disguise themselves as grandmothers, and swallow their prey whole. When a werewolf just isn’t big enough or fey enough, the wolfen is what you need.
In addition to the “big bad wolf” fairy tale themes, the wolfen fills an important niche standing opposite to D&D’s hags. Hags draw on classic fairytale themes, but even in 5th edition they are all evil and all women. The wolfen provided us with an opportunity to balance that out to a degree, presenting a male side to the hag’s “hungry evil trickster fey” schtick while also giving the wolfen an in-lore connection to hags that justifies the wolfen’s “Little Red Riding Hood” themes very well: the wolfen devours hags and poses as them, just as the big bad wolf devoured the little girl’s grandma. Just like the grandma in many depictions, you can even retrieve your fellow PCs that were swallowed by the wolfen — if you slay it fast enough! The connection with hags also helps explain the wolfen’s ability to shapeshift at-will and natural skill at deception, as well as its malicious hunger for humanoid meals. It also adds another way to bring hags and the Feywild into your campaign! To help you envision their potential, here are some example encounters using wolfen at different levels. Remember that higher-level characters with access to magic weapons have an easier time facing wolfen:
1 Wolfen, 7200 XP, deadly encounter for five PCs at level 6
1 Wolfen & 1 Green Hag, 11850 XP, deadly encounter for five PCs at level 8
1 Wolfen & 4 Dire Wolves, 16000 XP, deadly encounter for five PCs at level 10
1 Wolfen & 4 Werewolves, 20000 XP, hard encounter for five PCs at level 13
2 Wolfen, 21600 XP, hard encounter for five PCs at level 15
2 Wolfen & 1 Green Hag (coven), 32400 XP, deadly encounter for five PCs at level 15
3 Wolfen, 43200 XP, hard encounter for five PCs at level 17
Because the wolfen is CR 11, you can even adapt it for use as a druid’s primal spirit avatar for the new 9th-level spell summon primal spirit using rules found in The Elements & Beyond. You might use the wolfen as a primal spirit of lycanthropy or the full moon, depending on the setting you run your game in!
