Weekly Hombrew: Dominated Cultist

This weeks Weekly Homebrew is a cultist minion that is a much larger threat than it first might appear. The dominated cultist was made on the Wizards of the Coast Monster Builder using the Human Lackey as a base. The dominated cultist works great as a generic minion of a cult. Having a Mind Flayer at the center of the cult would work great. One thing that could work really well is having a familiar npc, preferably one the players like, be one of the cultists.

The dominated cultist works like any other minion while alive, doing a small amount of damage on a hit and generally being a nuisance. It is not until it dies that it really comes into its own. Any time a Dominated Cultist dies anyone in a cultist's Mental Feedback aura takes a small amount of psychic damage. If someone is standing in multiple auras the damage can really start to ramp up. If you can make the party vulnerable to psychic damage either through a terrain effect or another monster such as Zindriel, Sand Bride that's even better. The best is that the domination is insidious, attempting to dominate whoever kills the Dominated Cultist. Note this ability only works when the cultist is killed so a smart party would be encouraged to knock the cultists unconscious and look for another way to end the domination. This is all to the good since the players likely know the cultists and would probably feel bad about killing them outright. 

When using these you will want to be careful, because it would be easy to overwhelm the party especially if they kill a lot of cultists with close burst effects. You should definitely give the party some clues as to the nature of the cultists so that the first Mental Feedback isn't a total gotcha. I hope you enjoy using these cultists as much as I did. Until next time remember, don't let your DM tell you no. It's always "Yes, and...?"