AC 20 (natural armor)
HP 264 (23d8+161;
bloodied
132)
Speed 25 ft.
Initiative Dex –1 (9), Insight –1 (9), Perception –1 (9)
Proficiency +5; Maneuver DC 18
Saving Throws Str +5, Dex –1, Con +7, Int –2, Wis –1, Cha –3
Skills Intimidation +2 (+1d8), Survival +4 (+1d8)
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passivePerception 9
Languages Goblin, Primordial
Equipment fish-guttin’ knife, Borenbog’s gourd
Lucky Hands (2/day). After your attack, the Borenbog spits in anger and rips free one of the severed hands tacked to its belt. That seems to help it recover from the injury. The Borenbog begins combat with two severed hands tacked to its belt. It might add more if it succeeds with Take Hand, to a maximum of six. When it fails a saving throw or ability check, the Borenbog can rip one of the hands free (this requires no action) to reroll.
Magic Resistance. The Borenbog has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Redundant Defense. Any attack made against the Borenbog has no effect if the same type of weapon, energy type, or specific spell affected it in the past 24 hours. For example, only one attack with a longsword can harm it per day, even if one is steel and one is silver. The Narrator should use their best judgment to adjudicate attacks that don’t use weapons or deal energy damage. When the Borenbog takes ongoing damage, once that ongoing damage ends it cannot suffer that same type of ongoing damage for 24 hours.
Stupefying Aura. The mere sight of the glowering fey makes life seem dull and uninteresting. Hostile creatures entering or starting their turn within a 40-foot radius of the Borenbog must make a DC 20 Intelligence
saving throw
or be stupefied for one round. A stupefied creature can only use an action or bonus action each round (not both) and can only move at half speed. In addition, the only actions it can take are very uncreative like walking, making basic attacks, or casting cantrips. A creature that succeeds on its saving throw against this aura becomes immune to its effects for 24 hours.
When the Borenbog is bloodied for the first time in a day, the aura surges with power. Creatures previously immune to the aura are subject to its effects again until they successfully save a second time.
Take Hand. It grabs your hand, then hacks it off at the wrist with two inept, brutal chops. He laughs. “At least yer good for sum’n.” If the Borenbog hits a stupefied creature twice in the same turn with its fish-guttin’ knife, the Borenbog also cuts off one of the target’s hands, impaling it onto a nail on the Borenbog’s belt and increasing the uses of the Lucky Hands trait. A creature that loses its hand becomes immune to the Borenbog’s Stupefying Aura, even after the trait surges. The victim bleeds, taking ongoing damage equal to its level or challenge rating. The bleeding ends if the victim receives magical healing or if someone makes a DC 15 Medicine check as an action to stanch the wound.
Multiattack. The Borenbog attacks four times: three times with FishGuttin’ Knife and once with either Slam or Entangling Spit.
Fish-Guttin’ Knife. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit; reach 5 ft.; one target. Hit: 12 (2d6+5) slashing damage.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit; reach 5 ft.; one target. Hit: 8 (1d6+5) bludgeoning damage and the target is grappled (escape DC 18).
Alcohol Sense. The Borenbog senses the direction to the nearest source of alcohol within 1 mile.
Entangling Spit. The Borenbog spits a glob of black saliva at a creature it can see within 150 feet. The target makes a DC 18 Dexterity
saving throw
or takes 17 (5d6) acid damage and is restrained (escape DC 18). At the start of its turn, a creature restrained by Entangling Spit takes 17 (5d6) acid damage.
BONUS ACTIONS
Quick Swig (2/short rest). The Borenbog drinks from its magical gourd. The gourd (AC 18, 50 HP, resistance to bludgeoning damage) is attached to a knotty leather cord around the Borenbog’s neck. If the gourd is taken, the Borenbog cannot use this bonus action and does everything in its power to both get the gourd back and kill the bastard who took it.
When it drinks, the Borenbog gains one of the following benefits of its choice:
* Giant’s Draught: The Borenbog becomes Huge size and deals an extra 7 (2d6) damage with all melee weapon attacks, and if it makes a successful melee attack, it can choose to push its target 15 feet away.
* Bayou Brew: All ground within the area of the Borenbog’s Stupefying Aura becomes swampy, transforming from hard surfaces into waterlogged spiderwebs and tangled roots suffused with negative energies. All creatures other than the Borenbog treat the area as difficult terrain, taking 17 (5d6) necrotic damage at the end of their turn if they are in contact with the swampy ground.
Hunched like a dwarf with a hangover, this squat, wart-skinned goblinlike creature has a vindictive disdain in his red eyes, and he slowly licks his lips with thirst. One of the creature’s hands tightly clenches a large sloshing gourd, while the other errantly twirls a long blade meant for gutting fish. The blade is rusted and blood-stained, perhaps from the severed hands hanging at the creature’s belt. The creature meets your eyes and sneers, and the world begins to turn dull and hazy.
The Borenbog is an obscure folk terror from the High Bayou, which can steal men’s will, passion, and creativity, which it stores in a gourd at its hip. Though only the size of a dwarf, its stupefying presence affects a vast area. None have managed to kill it, for it is said that no given weapon can ever harm it twice, and most challengers run out of ideas of how to attack it before it will die. It drinks more than a horse, belches, farts, and is all around an unpleasant boor.
Matching his dull demeanor, the Borenbog has the ability to strip men of their passion and creativity. Those who drink are particularly vulnerable, and over the centuries many a drunken poet has been warned to watch out for the Borenbog on his walk home after a long night of seeking his muse. Tales say that the stolen ideas are trapped in the creature’s gourd, and that by drinking from the gourd another creature can take those ideas for himself.
Some say that the Borenbog and his rotting swamp first held the secret of fermentation, which was stolen by dwarves, men, elves, or whoever is telling the tale. It is for this reason that the Borenbog hates civilization and terrorizes anyone he comes across who has alcohol.
The legend of the Borenbog tells of a group of anglers who brought beer to drink when they rowed out into a swamp to fish. The Borenbog, smelling the delicious alcohol, used his magic to daze the anglers, then climbed aboard the boat and drank himself into a stupor. Finally, the only drink left on the boat was a gourd of beer one of the anglers was holding, but when the Borenbog tried to take it, the man was too stubborn to let go, so the Borenbog took his knife and chopped off his hand. The pain snapped him out of his confusion, and he managed to swim away, but his companions were never found.
(The Borenbog could have been a Legendary monster, but it is too lazy to act on another creature’s turn. It will just blow a raspberry in boredom as its foes waste their time trying to hurt it.)