Monster Monday: The Oculus

RPG monsters

The Oculus lives in desert environments, typically preying on relatively small and fast animals like rabbits and small deer. At about the size of a pony, they shouldn't be able to catch these prey, except for their powerful, fifth back leg. They typically crawl towards their prey, crouch, then use their back leg to leap incredibly fast to knock their prey out. The Oculus then smears a numbing secretion from their eye over their prey, and consumes it through their eye.

An Oculus's eye can also build up a charge of energy, which it can discharge at enemies. Oddly, in the mating season, it also uses this lightning charge during mating rituals.

Art

Long-time D&D fans may realize that this monster bears some similarity to the bulette, and sure enough, I'm going to use those stats as a starting point. Indeed, I'll keep it basically the same, except I'll swap out the bite attack for a ranged lightning strike, lower its HP a bit, and I'll skip its burrowing and tremorsense abilities.

Let's do this!

Stat block

Homebrewery stat block:

Oculus

Large monstrosity, unaligned

  • Armor Class 17 (natural armor)
  • Hit Points 90 (9d10 + 41)
  • Speed 40 ft.
    STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
    19 (+4) 11 (+0) 21 (+5) 2 (-4) 10 (+0) 5 (-3)
  • Skills Perception +6
  • Senses passive Perception 16
  • Languages --
  • Challenge 5 (1,800 XP)

    Standing Leap. The oculus's long jump is up to 30 feet and its high jump is up to 15 feet, with or without a running start.

    Actions

    Lightning Strike. Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, 20 ft., one target. Hit 30 (4d12 + 4) lightning damage.

Forceful Leap. If the oculus jumps at least 15 feet as part of its movement, it can then use this action to land on its feet in a space that contains one or more other creatures. Each of those creatures must succeed on a DC 16 Strength or Dexterity saving throw (target's choice) or be knocked prone and take 14 (3d6 + 4) bludgeoning damage plus 14 (3d6 + 4) slashing damage. On a successful save, the creature takes only half the damage, isn't knocked prone, and is pushed 5 feet out of the oculus's space into an unoccupied space of the creature's choice. If no unoccupied space is within range, the creature instead falls prone in the oculus's space.

View the art for this monster here.

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