Video Transcript

Critical Role minis are hard for me to review.  I am super sensitive to spoilers.  I don’t watch movie trailers, I don’t read the backs of books before I start reading them, I don’t even watch those “Next we on…” trailers after tv shows.  And these Critical Role mini sets are kind of mostly spoilers. So what I’m going to do is focus on what this monster here can do, and less about who they are and how they came to be.  So aside from the name of the mini, I think you’ll be spoiler safe in this video. All that being said, allow me to introduce you to Cree Vessel of the Pattern!

Before we jump in, if you want to add some beautiful chaos to your 5e games, consider picking up the deck of animated things from Hit Point Press.  This is a real world deck that represents the magic item you can find in the Dungeon Masters Guide. If your players find it and decide to draw cards from it, well… to quote a friend of a friend, a couple of things are gonna happen. You might get insanely rich. You might lose most of your intelligence.  You might gain possessions of a rare and powerful item or a vigilant fighter who swears an oath to you. Or you might just die.  It is the ultimate D&D item, and now you can have a beautiful version of it to use right at your table. Pick up the Deck of Many Animated Things today at Animated Spells.com (https://hitpointpress.com/animated-spells/?aff=24)!

So the two things I’m not going to discuss are Cree and the Pattern. We’re going to talk about this grotesque mass of flesh and eyes that could represent any number of creatures from the far realm or the Dark Tapestry if we’re bringing this into Pathfinder.

As far as I can tell, there’s no published statblock for this creature, so we made you one. You can find it linked in the doohickey below or on our website. It’s inspired by its demonstrated abilities on Critical Role, but it’s not attempting to recreate the original stat block.

As we look at it compared to some other similarly sized minis, let me give you some other ideas for using this in your games.  There’s a number of existing statblocks that will work.  The first one to come to mind is the Cosmic Horrow from Spelljammer, a savage CR 18 far realm abomination.  If the PCs are in the shadowfell, this could be a balhannoth, an aberration that can alter reality inside its own lair. Its CR 11 stat block is in the Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes.  Or it could be a Dream Eater from Dragonlance, available in the official free supplement Monstrous Compendium Volume 2: Dragonlance Creatures (https://www.dndbeyond.com/claim/source/mcv2).

If you want a really big fight, make it a CR 21 Greater Star Spawn Emissary from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft.  Aberrations are, by definition, strange creatures who don’t conform to reality.  Their physical form often mutates and changes, so unlike your common orc, goblin, or fire giant, you can feel free to change up which stat block you use for this creature every time, and even come up with your own fun monster.  Again, check out the doohickey down below for our take on Cree, Vessel of the Pattern, and go watch Critical Role Campaign 2 for its story. I did watch and enjoy the entirety of that campaign and was entertained all the way through.

Cree, Vessel of the Pattern is currently scheduled for July 2023 and will run you between 35 and 40 bucks.  Let me know what you think of it in the comments section down below. Now we have a little announcement for you. We’re gearing up to launch our second Kickstarter, Kobold Dice! Plush Monsters Attack! You’ll be able to pick up affordable resin dice sets that match our existing kobolds, so if you have Rory the red wizard or Coda the purple bard here, they’ll have their own dice set in a matching color with their signature icon on the highest digit of the dice.  And we’ll have a brand new Treasure Hunter kobold, and dice eating plushie monsters that can double as dice bags. It’s going to be great, and we’ll have early bird rewards for backing early. You can sign up now at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thegallantgoblin/kobold-dice-plush-monsters-attack.  And don’t forget to pick up the Deck of Animated Things and other animated card goodness at animatedspells.com (https://hitpointpress.com/animated-spells/?aff=24)!

If you enjoyed the video today, you can leave us a like to make sure other people can find us. And you can track us down at all these sites over here.  For now, stay safe, have fun, love each other, and I’ll see you next time at the Gallant Goblin!

Custom Cree Stat Block