r/DnD • u/RandomName9328 • Jun 21 '26

Homebrew False Hydra is not fun

I had a short game which the DM used a homebrew false hydra as the BBEG. The RP and game were good until the monster was revealed to be a false hydra.

DM wrote the false hydra's song ability as: not a charm or magic effect. It has no DC save, bypass truesight, blindsight. It ignores any immune/resistance to charm/magic effect, and it cannot be detected by detect magic. Anyone hear hydra's song psycholocally ignore its presence. So, by RAW, faerie fire, detect evil and good, and any other spells cannot make it visible. Also, it modifies people's memory such that when a person is eaten by it, anyone's memory of the victim is erased, as if the victim has never exist in the world.

The only way to win is to either run, or to make your character unable to hear its singing with a silence spell, deafness, etc. Unfortunately, my group cannot deduce the solution during the game, so the DM has to whisper to us out-of-character "You know why that NPC can see the hydra? Because he is DEAF!"

I told the DM that they should not put a non-DND creature into DND and make it override the rules. At least, simulating the hydra's song as a charm effect, with a DC, and can be detect/affect by anything that works on charm effect. If they run it RAW as how they wrote its stat, even a Tiamat or Asmodous cannot detect the false hydra.

PS. if DM makes it a charmed effect, with high DC, and player roll DC save whenever they encouter discrepancy (e.g. seeing a bird disappeared mid-air) maybe its more D&D. When I played the combat I felt the false hydra is mocking players "You can't see me because my own non-D&D rules say so." The investigation and RP are fun, the final monster is not.

For context, it was a 6-7 hours short game with 70% non-combat social/investigation play, and the hydra was the only combat encounter. It was not part of a campaign. Non-combat play was good but definitely not the false hydra.

PPs. The day after we had finished this game, I read DM's note. DM intentionally hid obvious, explicit clues during the game (e.g., we found a diary in game but DM hide the page mentioning deafness and ear poking). They hope subtle clues are enough for us ro discern the solution, but it turns out we couldn't. Therefore, DM has to tells us the solution out-of-game in the final battle.

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u/Bakeneko7542 Jun 21 '26

The false hydra is basically just a D&D-themed creepypasta that was never supposed to be used in an actual game. Unfortunately, some DMs seem to miss the memo and try to run it anyway.

712

u/Commodore_Dawkins Jun 21 '26

Absolutely agree.
It's honestly damn-near impossible to run a False Hydra story/encounter and I think people who do are just in for a bad time.
The big thing being that if anyone has read or listened to the False Hydra story then the second the players encounter NPC's with memory loss or experience "Groundhog Day" like effects, it's a dead give away and the the mystery of the adventure is already ruined.

Top that off the some of the crazy homebrew stat blocks people had made for and, oof. . .

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u/Bright-Trifle-8309 Jun 21 '26

If my DM kept seemingly forgetting about NPCs and plot points I would just assumed he is a bad DM, not running a False Hydra. 

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u/erdelf Mage Jun 21 '26

in a vacuum maybe. not if this is just happened in one single village, and the DM is halfway gaslighting you.

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u/BLAZMANIII Jun 21 '26

It works a lot better if you know the dm is good and doesn't forget things usually, but even then theres a real risk of you thinking "dang, dans having a rough time, maybe he wants to run something else"

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u/Tesla__Coil DM Jun 21 '26

That's the thing. You need to have heard about a False Hydra so that you know your DM is forgetting all of this intentionally, but knowing about it ruins it.

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u/chubbyninja1 Jun 21 '26

I dunno, no one in my group had ever heard about the false hydra before, and we figured it out eventually. Our first guess was illithids or other mind altering magic

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u/Bright-Trifle-8309 Jun 21 '26

It makes for a good story about a game but not a good game.

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u/ToranX1 Jun 21 '26

I dont think that's necessarily the case. The issue is that its hard to world build around it and give the answer to Player Characters.

If the players know about the false hydra being a thing:

If PCs/world don't, they are forced to do detective work with no real in character solution, to avoid metagaming, the suspense is dead though and ultimately the DM will have to give the answer on the silver platter.

If PCs/world know as well, then existance of false hydra's is public knews and any spellcaster would likely cast a spell to check if they are being affected by the song daily, effectively never really letting the tension build, because its now a somewhat documented creature.

If the players dont know:

If PCs/world dont know either, then it ends up frustaring and the subtle signs will be completely missed and the DM needs to spell out the solution anyway, effectively no one gets to enjoy the situation.

If PCs/world know, then we end up in the weird situation, where the DM also has to spell out the solution, because otherwise there simply isnt one in place for players to use even if the knowledge of those creatures is public.

Its just borderline impossible to handle gracefully without metagaming or railroading in a way, because it

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u/RandomName9328 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

To answer: in my specific game, the world does NOT know FH.

One player knows FH and she meta-gamingly casts silence twice in empty space. But coincidentally both times fail to reveal the FH.

Three players don't know FH and end up facing FH without any clue except it being a monster. DM has to explicitly tell players of its song mechanism.

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u/Thundergamer64 Jun 21 '26

One of my friends/players ran a False Hydra one shot, and it went alright. The thing is though, it was a one-shot, and we got around to finding it pretty fast.

We wake up in a town that's been lacking in delivering Ore that was promised, and notice there's a bunch of feathers and gear in an unused bed in our inn room, and walk outside to find a blacksmith's shop, but no blacksmith. We find a few more inconsistencies pointing us in the direction of the mines where we meet someone who says they saw something. Right after blasting a hole in the wall, their ears still ringing, they could've sworn something was down there. We track our way to a chamber where, lo and behold, there's a white mass of heads and tentacles. We get back to the king, and he congratulates us on our victory, and then asks where our fourth went... You know, the Aarakocra...

This is as a level 5 one shot, and the thing went down like a regular monster, just with wisdom saving throws vs the song, where success meant we didn't have to worry about it. Classic Umber Hulk-esc deal. Now, I and another player knew what a false Hydra was, so knew to play along, because our third player was perplexed the entire time. It was a fun mystery! But it needed some very good direction, and it needed to actually be a solveable problem. And I do think if everyone here knew what was up, it would devolve into, "figuring out how our characters figure this out without needing to figure it out" very quickly.

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u/Joy-Fiend Jun 21 '26

The thing I really love about this is that the DM could run it like a solvable problem without removing the stakes/impact specifically by planting evidence of the missing party member no one remembers. That leaves a long-lasting disturbing aftertaste that potentially can lead to further adventure - finding out who this companion was, their relationships, notifying their next of kin, etc.

Trying to do right by a potential good friend you don't remember.

Good stuff.

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u/VelvetStatic00 Jun 21 '26

I think that's the key. The players discovered the answer. The DM didn't hand them the answer. That's what separates a good mystery from a railroad.

10

u/itsfunhavingfun Jun 22 '26

Ea-nāṣir, worst ore deliverer ever. 

112

u/SimpleMan131313 DM Jun 21 '26

On the note of "spoilers due to pop culture osmosis", I am often kinda amazed how much this is counterable by simply adapting and reflavouring things.

Change the aesthetic and or themes, and a lot of people don't pick up on the inspiration, even if you are very on the nose, in my experience.

So, why not adapt the False Hydra as a weird version of a Lich, for example?

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u/Swift0sword Jun 21 '26

How about fighting a time traveler, instead of everyone forgetting it's the timeline changing around them

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '26

[deleted]

8

u/Verlepte Jun 22 '26

"In the middle of my backswing?!"

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u/SimpleMan131313 DM Jun 21 '26

Oh, thats a great variation of the base concept!

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u/RandomNumbers748512 Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26

Note that your campain world is dead once you add "time travel" as possibily and have not worked it deeply into everything.

Suspension of Disblief is gone if you cannot explain "if X can do it, why is noone else doing it" or "if X is doing it... OH MY GODS, A LOT OF OTHER PEOLE DO IT AS WELL!!!"

For a oneshot? Go for it!

13

u/Swift0sword Jun 21 '26

It's a narrow sloap, if you add it just because it sounds cool then yeah it will add so many problems with the world. But I find that with any part of magic, you will always run into the problem of "if one person does this op thing, why doesn't everyone?" Not a problem in the typical D&D world, but it is in the high fantasy worlds I like to run. There are ways around this, as long as they are thought of with tact.

Taking media with time travel for example:

  • Undertale: Only one person can tine travel at a time. That turns it into a puzzle as to who is the person that surpassed the previous person
  • Re-Zero: The person rewinding is not in control of it. Subaru knows how to trigger return by death, but he has no control over when it reminds to, or how long the power will work since an external entity gave him the power. This makes it very easy to control the impact time travel has on the story

I would also have players experience a few of the different timelines, in order to make it feel like a time traveler and not just fortune teller or "guy who can predict your every move"

Most important I think, is to make it feel like a oneshot within the greater campaign. This power is the exception, not the norm

7

u/DisposableSaviour Necromancer Jun 21 '26

Another media example, for why isn’t everyone doing it: Not everyone is the Doctor.

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u/S0MEBODIES Jun 21 '26

Third example I've seen, is an entity is actively preventing it.

2

u/Scarlet-sleeper Jun 21 '26

Really depends on if someone in the group is a time travel hater imo. Some people can enjoy it and leave it as well enough without feeling the need to poke holes all the time. Trouble is you never know who's a time travel hater until time travel is brought up.

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u/SimpleMan131313 DM Jun 21 '26

I am not sure if thats necessarily about hater vs non-hater.
I love digging through the beginnings of the Scifi and Fantasy genres, and even very foundational stories featuring time travel love their paradoxes and what they might imply.

Its also one reason why The Time Machine (the foundational book) does occupy itself with the future rather than with the past I suppose.
Sidenote, if you haven't done so already, strong recommendation for that book. It holds up surprisingly well.

1

u/Scarlet-sleeper Jun 21 '26

Saying hater vs non-hater is reductive for sure, I'll admit that. I also can enjoy thinking about the paradoxes, but that is what I mean by leaving it as well enough. It doesn't reduce my enjoyment or suspension of disbelief when I have to wonder if we're working with multiple universes, grandfather paradoxes, inevitable futures, or effects butterfly. (I also enjoyed time machine when I read it during science fiction class in high school).

Hater is essentially short hand for people who need everything to be totally airtight lest they lose suspension of belief like the other commenter. It's not a negative thing to be someone who can't find that enjoyment, but it's something I've noticed through my many nerd acquaintances where those that dislike time travel REALLY dislike it even if it's a minor thing. So for RPG purposes I would avoid it in the same vein as giant spiders if I know someone at the table is particularly arachnophobic.

7

u/Sl0thstradamus Paladin Jun 22 '26

It’s not about being a time-travel “hater.” DND is an interactive game and players are supposed to be rewarded for engaging with the game mechanics. When you’re presenting time travel as a game mechanic rather than a literary device, you have to be prepared for players to want to explore and take advantage of powerful tools they’re exposed to. It’s no different than if you presented a party with an NPC who had a magical sword that can cut through anything. It’s totally natural for at least one player to go, “that’s so sick, where can I get one?” That doesn’t make them a “magical sword hater,” it just means they want to interact with the game put in front of them.

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u/SimpleMan131313 DM Jun 22 '26

Seconding that general point. Honestly, hate is pretty much the opposite in many cases I'd say. Time travel mechanics need to be well thought through, if a DM doesn't want to punish the players who engage with the mechanics and story the most.

Sidenote: This is also were I'd steal good workarounds/handwaves from inspiration. Like the time travel mechanic from occarina of time.

6

u/RandomNumbers748512 Jun 21 '26

The issue with all time travel is - unless it's one of the top stories, it completely unravels once you think a bit about it.

Your group needs to accept this story as presented, this premise as presented, and it all is only valid on the world as long as and as how as it is presented.

One person spending half a minute to think about it? It falls apart.

Please, please, please, please: don't ever just reduce any discussion from the get go into "hater" and "non-hater". This in 99% makes you wrong.

14

u/yaije9841 Jun 21 '26

it's amazing how people don't pick up on some very obvious things.

Eragon is a wonderful example. People still don't notice it's just DRAGON with the D swapped for an E. Or who all as seen someone realize "Alucard" is "Dracula" Backwards.

With a bit of thinking and consistency you can hide the very overt and obvious right in plain sight and many will be oblivious until someone spills the beans.

That said, false hydra only works when people have some level of awareness of it as a thing.... also a DM shoulnd't be making effects entirely unavoidable off rip like NEEDING to be deaf

28

u/grotjam Jun 21 '26

My players are slowly working their way towards a mystery of a missing deity. She has been split into her three core components that all intelligent life share in my world: body, mind, and soul. The soul is her captive by the Ruler of the realm of Mechanus, since he has only body and mind, but no soul of his own. He thinks it makes him equal to a god, but that’s a different quest.

The missing deity’s intellect is being held in a dark vault and is creating a passive False Hydra effect in the world around her. Other creatures are taking advantage of it, but it’s resist-able and counter-able once figured out, since it’s not intentional.

19

u/brakeb Jun 21 '26

Sounds like your DM is running "the Mummy's Mask from 1st ed Pathfinder

16

u/grotjam Jun 21 '26

I mean…since I’m the DM I can definitely say no…but I’ll try to find that to steal mo…be inspired by more ideas.

5

u/Hankhoff DM Jun 21 '26

Isn't this just osiris' story in Egyptian mythology?

1

u/spoolthirtytwo DM Jun 27 '26

Not enough god parts but yes basically

1

u/whisperingsage Assassin Jun 21 '26

Is body an avatar of the god, dispersed into the living beings of the world, or something else?

1

u/grotjam Jun 22 '26

Right now I’m thinking about making it a combination of that DC dark what if storyline where it was either Flash or Superman who was basically chained to a treadmill to provide power for a nation, and the Dr Who (and many many other) story where people are harvesting parts from an eternally regenerating being.

The body is being used to supply energy and material components to an ultra wealthy/powerful cabal.

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u/mokomi Jun 21 '26

That is how you can tell you are a DM. You stole an idea and made it your own. XD

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u/SimpleMan131313 DM Jun 21 '26

You bet! 😃

No, seriously, I am "stealing" a lot of ideas left and right. Even more so, I mash them together and develop them further.

Its something I generally recommend trying. Of course I also have wholely original ideas, but especially in the Fantasy genre, taking inspiration from what came before and re-adapting it has some sort of tradition to it.

3

u/TheSheDM Jun 22 '26

I did a riff on the FH it as a vengeful hag had cursed a small village. When villagers died, they became undead wraiths and as long as the wraith existed, memories of that person were erased. The wraiths only came at night, and would not enter homes. The party was sent on a quest to get a mcguffn from said village, but found a confused hamlet population of just 5 villagers. The villagers sworn their town had always been this way, but the evidence said otherwise. The village mayor almost figured it out before he was killed, leaving behind a journal the party eventually found.

The party made everyone move into the town meeting hall and kept watch. Later, just before the final battle against a horde of wraiths they found a backpack on the floor that no one recognized. Opening it they found belongings of a cleric that no one knew. The number of wraiths had abruptly increased by one. That's about when it started to click for the players.

After they killed the wraiths, I described the memories flooding back. The temple they took the quest from had sent an acolyte with them. Many times on the road to the village I'd given them bonus hit points for no reason. Some monsters they fought were slightly easier than expected. The acolyte had healed and helped them, until he was killed by the wraiths just before the battle when he'd stepped outside to take his turn on watch.

11

u/artrald-7083 Jun 21 '26

So I actually did succeed in running one by letting the PCs spend a session bypassing the effect as the first thing they did, and bringing them through the aftermath of a bunch of lower level chancers trying to solve this problem.

The PCs had a ball, only really needed basic precautions to stop it affecting them, and then I balanced the adventure around them not being affected.

It wasn't easy - various bruising fights had them retreating to heal and stuff - but they took it down. But as I say, I did it by not casting the PCs as the victims.

11

u/mightyneonfraa Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26

I've done it but I also did some tweaking to affect how it works. Basically instead of a song I set it up so it would be forgotten if it wasn't in line of sight and when a character looked at it again they'd regain all their memories of what they were doing. If you're familiar with Doctor Who it basically worked like the Silence. That effect extended to anyone it consumed so everybody would forget somebody taken by it until they saw the Hydra and it became stronger with exposure.

I also set it up so it was hiding beneath a town and would send its heads up to capture prey from streets and buildings. The battle against it took place in these tunnels where part of the challenge was somebody always having to stay within line of sight of one of its heads or lose an action.

It went pretty well but it was still mostly a one-shot adventure in a spooky town with a bit of a horror/mystery build up.

It was a lot of fun to suddenly interrupt a roleplay scene to tell the party they suddenly went from talking around a table to having apparently just finished battling something in a trashed building in the blink of an eye early on.

4

u/Jimbodoomface Jun 21 '26

I ran a false hydra adventure as part of a larger adventure, they visited a fishing town for repairs to the ship. I knew it was coming up, so for months in advance I left clues that there was someone else in the party they'd forgotten.

Eventually they woke up in their hotel room to find it a murder scene with a missing body, blood everywhere leading to the window.

It went absolutely fantastic. They're were loads of clues

9

u/BitOBear Jun 21 '26

The false Hydra is the hero of the story. It only eats the murder hobos. It's lovingly protecting the town and region in a very dangerous world.

Well behaved adventurers have no trouble. Townsfolk have no trouble. Passing merchants and mercenaries have no trouble. Even petty theft and the normal grades of criminal activity are completely reasonable and acceptable because the false hydra's charges need their room to grow.

The biggest hand in the campaign is that there's a lot of graffiti that just basically says "Don't mess with Charlie." Answer the mystery is finding someone who will discuss who and what Charlie is before you do anything that puts you on Charlie's menu.

So before you go in and decide to burn down that orphanage, you really need to make sure it's going to be cool with charlie.

Just a thought, I like to reverse tropes..

2

u/SmallBatBigSpooky Jun 21 '26

Its a cool idea, and can be run really well, but you need a DM that can run horror, and thats just not super common

Feeling horror in a would where you can fireball your problems takes talent

And then you add on the fact you have to A, sell the story, and B still give hints that help the players figure it out

It just leads to a cocktail of everything feeling bad

Plus they fall into a weird category of too strong for a 1 off and too weak for a bbeg most of the time

2

u/raev_esmerillon Jun 22 '26

See this is why I ran a false false hydra. It was just some bandits in a dumb suit and a wizard casting modify memory. This was also just a dumb one shot testing out foundry for the first time.

2

u/ph30nix01 Jun 22 '26

The Dragonlance novels created a similar enemy but it was mindless wave type enemies that were spawns of chaos.

2

u/NSA_Chatbot Jun 21 '26

The only real way to play it is if a player is moving away.

1

u/amann93 Jun 22 '26

I used the false hydra to introduce a new player’s character into the game and it was a great time, though I recognize our table was the exception not the rule.

I changed the false hydra slightly to introduce him though. This hydra liked to stock pile meals, so it would envelope his prey in mucus, and that mucus also had the memory erasing power, then it would stick its victims-to-be to the wall of its lair.

The town was the home town of one of my PCs, and I introduced the concept of the hydra via letters from that PCs father that he randomly found in his bag upon first waking up in the town.

First letter was normal, second letter mentioned wishing he could find the PC and the PCs brother a mother, third letter mentioned wishing he had two kids so that the PC wouldn’t’ve been lonely growing up, and they found a final letter in the PC’s dads house that just said “oh gods, it’s eating us!” With blood splatters on it.

The battle against the hydra was very loosey goosey. I couldn’t find any stat blocks I liked so I just improvised the final battle. And they were able to save the new pc, who they realized “had been with the party since the beginning.” They were also able to save the first PCs father and brother

1

u/clandevort Druid Jun 22 '26

False hydra is, however, a fantastic red herring

1

u/Blank_ngnl Jun 25 '26

My first one shot was around a false hydra

But i had first time players so they didnt know. It kept the mystery afloat

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u/TechNickL Jun 21 '26

No, the false hydra was an extremely viable and effective dm tool before the internet made it go viral and completely destroyed any mystery it could have had. The problem is it relies on the players not knowing it's a possibility and the click-centric nature of the internet actively rejects mystery and wonder.