<p><em>The party have braved the jungles, the cenotes, and the ruins of Lepiditia. Now, with all the pieces of the vault key they need, they have entered to pursue the goal of their quest. However, they are unaware that the vault's final guardian remains to test them - an echo of the one who locked the vault all those years ago, and whose mantle one of the party now hope to obtain...</em></p><p>Apologies everyone for the long delay in posts - in order to keep this boss monster a surprise from my party I wanted to hold off on publishing until they had seen it in all its glory! </p><p>Today's post features a special stat block, in that it is not one stat block but two! The Echo Of The Brightwing Empress was the final boss in our current story arc, a spectral guardian left behind by the last ruler of Veridia to guard her civilisations most important treasures - most notably her own winged cloak, symbol of her station, that one member of the party was honour-bound to recover. The Echo was left behind both as a guardian, but also as a test for anyone who managed to enter the vault to ensure they were worthy of taking the items within. In order to make it a particularly notable battle I went with a strategy that I've seen floating about in several places within the Daggerheart community, which is to split the stat block into phases that allow the battle to evolve and keep the players on their toes!</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://tome.merithayan.com/content/images/2026/02/echo-of-the-brightwing-empress-subdued-daggerheart-homebrew-heart-of-daggers.png" class="kg-image" alt="A stat block for the subdued version of the Echo Of The Brightwing Empress. The full accessible version can be found at the Heart Of Daggers link at the end of the article." loading="lazy" width="878" height="1196" srcset="https://tome.merithayan.com/content/images/size/w600/2026/02/echo-of-the-brightwing-empress-subdued-daggerheart-homebrew-heart-of-daggers.png 600w, https://tome.merithayan.com/content/images/2026/02/echo-of-the-brightwing-empress-subdued-daggerheart-homebrew-heart-of-daggers.png 878w" /></figure><p>The Subdued stage of the fight was mainly focussed around raising a group of minions to protect the Echo, and allowing the players to discover the Crystal Chrysalis/Scintillating Swarm mechanic. In the version of this stat block I used in the real combat, Crystal Chrysalis was a reaction on being damaged - however this did become quite frustrating for the players as the higher difficulty led them to use up the session's tag teams early, which left them few resources for the more powerful version later, so in this published version I've updated it to be an Action (which combined with Relentless should be a more balanced change).</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://tome.merithayan.com/content/images/2026/02/echo-of-the-brightwing-empress-resplendant-daggerheart-homebrew-heart-of-daggers.png" class="kg-image" alt="A stat block for the resplendent version of the Echo Of The Brightwing Empress. The full accessible version can be found at the Heart Of Daggers link at the end of the article." loading="lazy" width="878" height="1322" srcset="https://tome.merithayan.com/content/images/size/w600/2026/02/echo-of-the-brightwing-empress-resplendant-daggerheart-homebrew-heart-of-daggers.png 600w, https://tome.merithayan.com/content/images/2026/02/echo-of-the-brightwing-empress-resplendant-daggerheart-homebrew-heart-of-daggers.png 878w" /></figure><p>Once the Subdued version is defeated, you can narrate a suitable epic boss fight power-up moment as it transforms into the Resplendent version - here's an example you can use or modify to fit your scene:</p><blockquote><em>As your final attack punches a gaping wound in the spectral creature, you hear a piercing cry as the lights in the room dim. You see the energy that permeates the ruins drawn down through the roots in the walls and gather into the creature, as it begins to emit a multicoloured iridescent glow. The energy courses to its shoulders and back, forming into beautiful patterned wings that spread out as if unfurling from a chrysalis, its feet hovering off the ground as it takes flight above you...</em></blockquote><p>The tactics with the Resplendent Echo change dramatically - it is now significantly more mobile, so swoop around the field picking different targets and marking as many with the Aura condition as possible, so the Wrath Of A Thousand Eyes can pack a suitably terrifying punch. A caution to go along with this stat block, it proved a tough challenge - two members of the party went down to it, one suffering a wound as a result (although in fairness it made for a good story moment!). I think this is probably OK balance for a boss fight, but its definitely not something to throw casually at players, and make sure to telegraph the different abilities so they have a chance to counter them (especially the way to destroy the Chrysalis, I probably didn't do this enough!).</p><p>I was really happy with how this turned out on the whole - a few lessons learned to balance for next time, but a fun encounter to run and I hope a satisfying victory to culminate our first story arc. If you want to find out more about the setting this was part of, I plan to do a post on Veridia next - and include some items and other things you can use either in that setting or your own game! </p><p>This all forms just one part of my overall Eonalon/Merithaya setting, with much more to come, so subscribe to see the next location that the party venture to and the foes they face there!</p><p>Find the stat blocks from this article on Heart Of Daggers here - <a href="https://heartofdaggers.com/homebrew/adversaries/echo-of-the-brightwing-empress-subdued/?magic_link=nqH1sjIq" rel="noreferrer">the Subdued version</a> and <a href="https://heartofdaggers.com/homebrew/adversaries/echo-of-the-brightwing-empress-resplendant/?magic_link=nqH1sjIq" rel="noreferrer">the Resplendent version</a>!</p><div class="kg-card kg-signup-card kg-width-wide " style="background-color:#F0F0F0;display:none"> <div class="kg-signup-card-content"> <div class="kg-signup-card-text "> <h2 class="kg-signup-card-heading" style="color:#000000"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Sign up for The Merithayan's Tome</span></h2> <p class="kg-signup-card-subheading" style="color:#000000"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Worldbuilding, homebrew, and tips for Daggerheart campaigns - with no AI!</span></p> <div class="kg-signup-card-fields"> <input class="kg-signup-card-input" id="email" type="email" required="true" placeholder="Your email" /> <button class="kg-signup-card-button kg-style-accent" style="color:#FFFFFF" type="submit"> <span class="kg-signup-card-button-default">Subscribe</span> <span class="kg-signup-card-button-loading"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" height="24" width="24" viewbox="0 0 24 24"> <circle cx="4" cy="12" r="3"></circle> <circle cx="12" cy="12" r="3"></circle> <circle cx="20" cy="12" r="3"></circle> </svg></span> </button> </div> <div class="kg-signup-card-success" style="color:#000000"> Email sent! 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Today’s post is a bit different - no new stat block, instead I wanted to share a way of making levelling up in Daggerheart a bit more exciting. This is hopefully the first of a new series of posts that will be interspersed with the homebrew creations, with stories of successes and learnings from GMing an ongoing Daggerheart campaign. Warning: Very mild spoilers for the mechanics (not story) of the Critical Role campaign 4. Today's topic was heavily inspired by a technique Brennan Lee Mulligan uses in the latest campaign of Critical Role, where when players level up they are allowed to choose a narratively exciting time (even mid-combat) to mechanically gain the advantages of their new level. I thought it might be fun to do something similar in our current campaign, so when the time came to go from level 1 to 2 I started to plan! After some consideration I realised that this wouldn’t work so well in its current form, particularly across a level up involving a Tier change, as the disparity between the levels would just mean everyone would choose to level up together. Huh, but maybe that’s ok? A great cinematic moment when everyone powers up in the face of a mighty adversary sounds pretty epic to be honest! **Making It Happen** It was also surprising straightforward to make happen. The first step is to make a suitable encounter - in my case, this would be a mini-boss at the end of a dungeon, so I created a leader stat block (see the Terror Eel from the last blog post!) with a large number of minions and hordes. I weighted it at mid-Tier 2 to make it difficult for players at Tier 1, scaled down slightly using an encounter builder to make it at least plausible. This was after a couple of other encounters in the same adventuring day to make sure it had the suitable level of peril! The next step depends on how you are organising the sessions - for me it worked out to have a cliffhanger mid-combat at the point of level up, so I didn’t need to prewarn my group that the level up was coming, but if you want to do this mid-session you might want to give your players a heads up in advance to give them a chance to consider their levelling choices beforehand, so it doesn’t cause an awkward break in the middle of a critical scene. Finally, choose a suitable moment to level up - perhaps when the tide turns against the players, or a pivotal moment happens. In my case, I went with when the Terror Eel summoned reinforcements: > The Terror Eel rears back and produces a grating screech that echos around the chamber. In response, swarms of eels and fangfish pour from the surrounding caverns, threatening to overwhelm you. However, you take a moment as a group to focus your will, feeling a rising determination to face the overwhelming odds and emerge triumphant - that’s where we’ll leave it for tonight, and when we return next week you will all be level 2! Of course, you don’t need to do this with just combat encounters - perhaps a social encounter with a tense negotiaton leads to renewed focus and skills emerging! The main thing is to create that cinematic moment where the protagonists reach for new skills in a moment of need, without having to balance for different tiers at once. I think this is much more exciting than simply levelling up after a rest - but what do you think? Let me know if you give this a try, and don't forget to subscribe for the latest tips and homebrew! (Also, let me know if you like this new type of post, and I will consider making it a series of its own!) ## Sign up for The Merithayan's Tome Worldbuilding, homebrew, and tips for D&D and Daggerheart Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

A 120-page supplement for Daggerheart. Five campaign frames, each with a location (factions, NPCs, environments, advers. , loot, etc.).

Introducing the Terror Eel, a new Leader adversary to use in your Daggerheart games, along with thoughts on using it in combats.

Just a quick one today to say I recently discovered a new website for Daggerheart homebrew content called Heart Of Daggers! It fills a gap I've been feeling since moving over from D&D left by D&D Beyond's encounter builder, by providing not only an excellent encounter builder for Daggerheart, but also a great homebrew repository full of awesome content too (I'm impressed. I'll be adding my homebrew to that site over the coming days, starting with the Leafcloak Panther. I'll go back and add links to old posts so they are all accessible from there too. I'm going to keep writing on this blog primarily, as here I can expand on descriptions and worldbuilding, but hopefully having the stat blocks in both places will make them easier to discover and use! _Let me know if there's any other cool websites like this for Daggerheart! Also, back to the normal homebrew next time!_

The party managed to traverse the ruins of Lepiditia, and now they emerge back into the jungles of Veridia, returning to Monarch Camp to continue their quest. However, while sheltering under a tree to escape the rains of a tropical storm a horde of poisonous frogs started to appear - one or two at first, then gradually more and more until the tree is totally surrounded... Today's creature is the Poison Frog Horde! These little critters make the jungles of Veridia their home. They may look cute, with their large eyes and multicoloured bodies, but they are surprisingly aggressive, perhaps driven by the overwhelming magic that fills this region. _Disclaimer for this week's stat block - my players cleverly avoided this encounter so it hasn't been playtested, so there might be some rough edges!_ This horde is pretty deadly, particularly if you have a few to surround your players with! One issue I've had sometimes with Daggerheart is during exploration sessions it can be quite hard to drain player's resources (Stress/Hope etc), as they get enough rests that it makes the session's encounters not have enough impact, as there is typically only one or two encounters per travelling day. To counter this, I've been experimenting with making adversaries that can drain various resources from the players - and these frogs are an option for causing Stress! Comboing Binding Tongues with Poison Touch will hopefully reliably cause a few Stress points, making players consider their choices carefully - do they get close to finish off the horde, or keep their distance and use their more expensive abilities? * * * The house move continues so these posts are admittedly a bit shorter than I'd like, but I wanted to make sure I still put up some content to use in the meantime! I've got some cool stuff coming up for once the move is complete (hopefully by next month all being well!), including an Environment for the Veridian Rainforest (and another mystery Environment...), and more adversaries including underwater foes! Sign up to be notified when these are ready for you! Thanks for reading! Poison Frog HordePoison Frog Horde.pdf33 KBdownload-circle ## Sign up for The Merithayan's Tome Worldbuilding, homebrew, and tips for D&D and Daggerheart Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

The party have battled and defeated the Lupine Wraith, and now they venture further into the ruins to search for a lost elf. Exploring the druidic groves and once-grand butterfly houses of the city, they eventually come across a fallen temple where the elf they were seeking is trapped by a ferocious monster - a Vine-Wrapped Revenant! This terrifying creature is the result of the protective magic of the city interacting with a recently fallen elf that came to investigate the city, and the vines that make up its jungle home - imbuing them with the overwhelming desire to protect at all costs, even if that means trapping its target. _Sidenote: Yes, this is another large brutish monster. I have some fun encounters planned with hordes of smaller creatures or other types of creatures, but it just so happens we've been on a streak of these more solo/brute style creatures recently!_ The Revenant is an interesting foe as it has the option to swap back and forth between being defensive focused and attacking. After using it in my most recent session I'm considering whether the Protective Vines feature needs to be more powerful (either a fixed modifier or larger die) as that didn't actually affect a single roll in our game, but I present it here unmodified as I'm concerned that adjusting this might push it a little into overpowered territory. The Vengeful Strike worked as intended though - encouraging movement to prevent the players from getting caught in the swing. A nice synergy was Relentless and the stance swapping - it could swap stance as its first spotlight, then hit with an attack on the second spotlight (or vice-versa), giving maximum flexibility. I think this creature has a lot of potential as a mini-boss if it had slightly enhanced stats - in retrospect I question whether it truly counts as a Tier 2 Solo, perhaps it is more of a Bruiser instead. It did have great story impact though - as it took damage, I could narrate how parts of the body inside showed through the vines, creating an emotional moment when they realized what the creature actually was. Sometimes the best monsters are not the most powerful, but those that have a particularly good story impact! _Another short one today as I'm still in the midst of house moving. More coming soon though!_ Vine-Wrapped RevenantVine-Wrapped Revenant.pdf65 KBdownload-circle If you like this series, be sure to subscribe - it's free, and you can have the latest Daggerheart creations sent straight to your inbox! ## Sign up for The Merithayan's Tome Worldbuilding, homebrew, and tips for D&D and Daggerheart Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

_A short article today, as I'm in the midst of house moving stress, but hopefully I'll have more regular updates coming soon!_ We have ventured into the jungles of Veridia, and have now arrived at the ruins of the capital, Lepiditia. Once a grand city of druids, it was destroyed in the magical blast that caused the continent to be overrun by forest. It is now a haunted ruin, the fallout from the druidic energies bringing life to all manner of monstrosities. Some of the creatures here can be represented by the skeleton stat blocks in the Daggerheart core rulebook, but I wanted some creatures that fit the druidic theme of the place. One landmark in the city the party visited was an ancient breeding centre, where the druids made creatures to help them in the war they faced, so I thought a suitable monster could be one of their experiments that had been reanimated by the magic afflicting the city. Thus, the Lupine Wraith was born! The Lupine Wraith is designed as a single mini-boss monster. Its Lingering Crunch can be used to give players a brief debuff (and the random element of the countdown leads to a fun dynamic - is it worth the risk to just take the hit and hope for a short Curse, or do they need to keep their distance?). This is compounded by the Fearful Visage ability, which means attacking the creature can come at a cost if you fail... It then rounds out its ability list with the usually required abilities to make sure it can get some actions going even when facing a party of 5. * * * Let me know how you find the Lupine Wraith! Coming soon we'll have some different types of creatures - I've been mainly homebrewing solos so far so it'll be fun to try some different styles of combat soon! _(Also, if you're still interested in the world that these creatures inhabit, I'll also be writing some articles about that eventually too - starting with the jungles of Veridia!)_ Lupine WraithLupine Wraith.pdf55 KBdownload-circle

Continuing the theme from last time, for today's post we're still in the mysterious jungles of Veridia - the party have survived their initial encounters and are now exploring the ruins of the fallen kingdom. I wanted a slightly more challenging monster for them to face that started to play with some interactions in Daggerheart mechanics, while also letting them stretch out the abilities of their new characters. Enter the Oneg'low! > _Petrus paused, the leaves of the trees rustling in the gentle wind. Something wasn't right, Lena should have been back by now. The forest was eerily silent, the usual cacophony of birds and insects conspicuous by their absence, the scent of fear drifting through the mists. He pushed through the branches straining for any sight of his companion, seeing nothing but foliage and fog, until he caught a movement in his periphery. He spun around, only to be confronted by a strange dancing light. All other thoughts left Petrus's mind, the beauty of the dancing green light taking all his focus. That beauty was the last thing he saw before the claws came down._ The Oneg'low is a large, hulking creature - a gorilla-like monster recognisable by the haunting cluster of lights that dangles in front of its face like an anglerfish. It distracts and lures prey off the jungle paths, bringing them into its domain where it tears them apart. In our game it ambushed the party as they entered the ruins of one of the ancient cities of Veridia, but it could also be found in your games in any jungle or forest, or even in mountains or other remote places. The observant among you have probably noticed that this is labelled as a Tier 2 Solo. One thing I've already noticed while playing Daggerheart with a fairly large group of 5 players is that they deal with Tier 1 creatures very easily - even at level 1, without sending a horde of enemies at them it's hard to provide a proper challenge. (And this is with the large amount of Fear I had from a recent Long Rest, without that ability to spotlight several creatures a turn it would have been a walkover). I suspect this is with how the game scales to larger groups at lower levels - it'll be interesting to see how it goes at higher tiers of play - and perhaps I've just been unlucky as the group has been rolling with hope a lot. Regardless, one Tier 2 solo seemed to be a good match for a more tense fight for my 5 players - particularly with Daggerheart's HP system meaning it's much harder to 1 hit KO a player accidentally. The Oneg'low is also good for getting players to try new tactics, and rely on other party members - so far, the up close fighters had been the stars of the show. The Oneg'low's Hypnotic Glow ability encourages the players to keep moving, and gives ranged players a chance to shine (having said that, it was a close-combat character that managed to slay it in the end!). I adjusted this slightly mid-battle - originally players could get affected by the glow multiple times, but that was leading to some players not able to take any actions so we adjusted it to be once per battle, which still seemed a risk enough. When combined with the Lure and Pounce action, it becomes fearsome. A fun way to introduce this predator is to have the creature stalk the party through the wilds. Have them notice the occasional rustle of leaves or feel the eyes upon them. Then, when one of them is a little way away from the others spend a Fear to have them notice the lure, make the Entranced save, and start the ambush! * * * I hope this monster can provide an interesting encounter for your games! Next time, we'll venture inside the ruins of Lepiditia, and see what lurks inside... Oneg'lowStat Block for the Oneg'low, a monster for Daggerheart.Oneg'low.pdf54 KBdownload-circle

The group I GM for has just started our latest campaign, this time using Daggerheart, and one thing I've immediately noticed is there is how much I used to rely on online content for D&D that hasn't quite been replicated for Daggerheart yet. I thought it might therefore be useful for me to post the home-brew creations I make for our games here in case anyone else is looking for some quick statblocks/environments etc. to use in their own games! This week's post is a short one to kick things off - my players have just started exploring the enchanted jungle of Veridia that formed as the result of a spell at the end of a magical war. In the first couple of sessions, they've encountered a few of the monsters that lurk in its depths. The first is a modified zombie from the Daggerheart rulebook, with some abilities picked from other stat blocks - nothing very original here. I merged it a bit with the Skeleton Warrior to better represent a fallen soldier from the magical war that continues to defend its home. (Note - I made this in a program to make them appear more like Daggerheart official stat blocks, but I'll include the PDFs at the end of the post for those who want the text not the image!) The Festering Maw ability is a weaker version of the Brawny Zombie's Rip and Tear - this was for the group's first session, so I wanted a thematic but simple enemy so they could get used to Daggerheart combat again (the jungle humidity probably encourages rot and festering wounds from things like Zombie bites). We've only done a couple of one shots so I didn't want anything too complex for their very first enemy! The second creature is from the second session, and was a bit more experimental. Predictably, the group tore through the Zombies with ease, so I wanted something a bit "meatier" for them to tackle. These panthers were a good level of challenge for a group of 5 - I used 3 of them in the encounter and it seemed to balance OK. The stalk/ambush combo worked really well on a map with plenty of trees and bushes, and had the group watching their backs! The Pack Tactics and Vine Lash combo is also pretty sinister if the panthers get close together - I started them out surrounding the group to allow it to be a later combat surprise, but it would also work as a pack hunting together too for a more difficult ambush! That's all I have for today - I have other jungle stat blocks prepared, but I'll reveal these next time as my party haven't got that far yet! I hope this is useful for someone - I'll include PDFs of the stat blocks below for those that can't view the images or want a copyable text source. Thanks for reading! Leafcloak PantherLeafcloak Panther.pdf60 KBdownload-circle Veridian ZombieVeridian Zombie.pdf46 KBdownload-circle