Vargouille

D&D 2024 monster: Vargouille. Source: Volo's Guide to Monsters. challenge rating 1, creature type Fiend, Tiny size, speed 5 ft., fly 40 ft. Shrieking, flapping, and hideous to behold-with a body like a severed head and bat-like wings in place of ears-vargouilles boil out of the Abyss to infest other planes of existence, such as Carceri, where they are a menace. Each vargouille carries a disease that creates more of its kind; a flock of vargouilles on the wing is a plague of chaos and evil waiting to happen. Abyssal Nuisances Swarms of vargouilles flap through the caverns and skies of the Abyss. They are given little regard by powerful and intelligent demons since vargouilles can do them no harm. Even the weakest demon, such as a manes or a dretch, fears vargouilles only if they appear in great numbers. In the Lower Planes, vargouilles rarely get the chance to eat live prey other than vermin. More often, they lap up the ichor left behind when one fiend kills another. The World Awaits Because of their instinctive hunger for living prey, vargouilles are eager to escape the Lower Planes. On rare occasions, the summoning of a demon to another plane can bring a vargouille along for the ride, attaching itself like a tick. The precautions a mortal takes to contain and control a summoned demon rarely account for a stowaway, and thus a vargouille enters the world unbidden. Until ye've seen a king's head tear off his shoulders and flap aloft amid fountaining blood, only to turn and lap his own dying gore as his body totters and falls, ye haven't lived. And if ye want to go on living, ye might want to stop watching in favor of fleeing. Ghastly Reproduction Vargouilles that roam free on the Material Plane are a dire threat to all creatures, especially humanoids. Their awful shrieking can paralyze other creatures with fear, and such victims are helpless to resist a vargouille's accursed kiss. The kiss of a vargouille infects a humanoid with a fiendish curse. If allowed to run...