Clockwork Reaper-Portrait

Back in September, I had the idea to run a short spooky campaign for my gaming group. I had in mind to run a variation of Ravenloft, and I whiled away my time at the gym thinking about what monsters they would face. I've never actually run or played Ravenloft so I just started thinking up my own layout of the castle and what monsters to put where, with a heavy dose of Castlevania as my inspiration.

Sadly, we weren't able to fit my game into the schedule, as we're already playing two other campaigns. Ah well.

But one thing was still on my mind, the boss monster I thought up for a possible confrontation in the castle's looming Clocktower. I know in the Vania games that Death is often fought in the clocktower, so I decided to put a little spin on that and voila, the Clockwork Reaper was born.

Gameplaywise, I would've primarily used the stat block of a Kolyarut adapted for 5e, then give it various necromantic and time related spells. It would float around the arena shooting death rays, cast Haste on itself, cast Slow on the party, teleport, hurl its huge scythe and use Toll the Dead a lot. I imagined its scythe causing time related effects on the targets it hits, making them age rapidly and suffer debilitating effects.

Would have been a cool fight. Maybe I'll get to use it in a future campaign.