This text was inspired by the video game Maneater by Tripwire Interactive, on which I worked as a senior game designer. I ran a DUNGEONS & DRAGONS 5th EDITION campaign after work at Tripwire for six years and for most of that time it was set in a South Pacific-inspired campaign setting I called Catamaran. Several shark-related concepts came out of that campaign, such as the Shark Totem Barbarian Path. During the development of Maneater I felt some of the crazy evolved sharks we were making would work well as monsters in for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS 5th EDITION, so I wrote up some conversions in my spare time.
This is not a scholarly work on sharks or the mythology that surrounds them, but instead slapping some rules and stats on some ridiculous, over-the-top shark shenanigans from a video game. Don’t expect scientific accuracy.
This will be the first of several posts, each with different shark types. I left Tripwire two weeks ago so while I had permission to use some of the company’s art and such, I don’t feel it’s appropriate now.
Introduction
Found in every ocean for ages past count, sharks are one of the oldest carnivores of the natural world that still stalk the seas. From the depths to the shallows, they hunt fish, squid, seals, dolphins, and nearly any other creature that swims, but also scavenge and feast on detritus both floating and on the sea floor. Luckily for the sentient peoples of the world, most sharks don’t consume creatures as large as a human or even a halfling, but there are exceptions. Deadly, bloody exceptions.
Sharks have fascinated mortals for centuries with their destructive power, tireless endurance, alien physiology, and seeming detachment from the world around them. In some places, sharks are seen as hunters and destroyers, other guardians, or guides. In all places where sharks are known, they are respected.
Blood-Touched Sharks
Most sharks are not particularly dangerous to humans, elves, dwarves, and their kin, due to seeing them as more threat than food, there are a limited variety of sharks that see humanoids as little more than another source of protein and fat. Such sharks are species of great size, such as the bull, mako, great white, and those fearsome, primal beasts dubbed dire sharks. All of these are the subject of fearsome sailors’ tales and bloody local legends. Cultures that make their homes in or near the waters such sharks call home have learned to avoid these deadly predators of the deep, but sometimes there are even greater dangers to be found among the shivers and frenzies of sharks. As dangerous as a large, hungry shark can be, it becomes much worse when that shark has become blood-touched.
Born in Strangeness. Blood-touched sharks are sharks that have been warped by exposure to a transmuting force such as the blood of a dying god, exposure to a portal to another plane, or the alchemical waste of a wizard’s tower. The name was first suggested by the triton alchemist Dolarus Ekadius who studied the sharks warped by alchemical waste from his own workshop. Those sharks became larger and grew dark plates of cartilage along their skin, but most striking of all they developed poison glands they could use to weaken their prey. Since this first recorded instance of blood-touched sharks, there have been dozens of such incidents, causing the sharks to mutate, evolve, grow larger, and develop a wide variety of strange powers. Blood-touched sharks are most commonly found among populations of mako, bull, hammerhead, and great white sharks, but they can occur in any shark species. These changes are passed down to a blood-touched shark’s spawn, meaning that once a local shark population has blood-touched sharks in its ranks, if left alone in time all the sharks of that species in the region will become so as well.
Sharks are exposed to the strange elements that cause the blood-touched transformation through diet or environmental effects. Sharks who readily feast on unusual meats, such as dragons, fiends, celestials, or aberrations may find their bodies twisted and changed by such a diet. A single stray devil corpse may lead to the region’s sharks changing into something far more dangerous.
Environmental elements that create blood-touched sharks are usually magical in nature, such as the arcane aura of an artifact lost at sea or the curse of an angry sea fey, but that is not always the case. Blood-touched transformations have spread through more mundane means in waters corrupted by alchemical reagents or pollution from the industries of the mortal races. Submerged portals to other realms are also known to transform sharks, particularly those to the Shadowfell, Feywild, and elemental planes. In such otherworldly realms, blood-touched sharks may be the common breed of a shark with no “normal” sharks to be found. Visitors to these planes should do well to stay clear of shark-infested waters with even greater vigilance.
Favored of Sekolah. Sahaugin are known to seek out blood-touched sharks to add to their schools. Blood-touched sharks are normally no more intelligent than mundane sharks, allowing them to be easily controlled by sahaugin. Those sahaugin tribes lucky enough to have blood-touched sharks amongst their shark schools use them in a controlled breeding program to produce as many blood-touched sharks as possible, in time creating a horde of enhanced sharks. Among the sahaugin blood-touched sharks are considered avatars of the shark god Sekolah and are treated with great reverence.
The Bone-Armored Shark
The bone-armored shark is one whose rough outer layer of skin has been reinforced in some areas and replaced in others with a covering of thick, protective bone plates.
Shipbreaker. The armor plates of the bone-armored shark make it far more difficult to injure and vastly increase the mass of the shark, allowing it to shatter ship hulls with its impact. These traits combine to make the Bone-Armored shark very effective against ships and a swarm of them can quickly destroy even a large warship. This makes them very popular among the sahaugin for their effectiveness in attacking surface ships. The greatest of the bone-armored sharks is Mamax the Shipbreaker, a massive bone-armored shark that terrorizes shipping lanes through the southern seas at the direction of the sahaugin war queen Losoforax.
Born of Bone. Bone-armored sharks are formed through exposure to alchemical concoctions concerned with growth or regeneration. They have also been created through feasting on the flesh and shells of dragon turtles, leading some sahaugin tribes to seek out the corpses of such beasts in the hope of creating bone-armored sharks. There are stories of versions of the bone-armored shark with stone armor plates instead of bone in waters where portals to the elemental plane of earth are common, but otherwise, bone-armored sharks are not known to come from exposure to any specific type of portal.
Blood and Ivory. In addition to providing protection, the bone plating of the bone-armored shark also provides it with brutal weapons in combat. The teeth of the bone-armored shark are huge, jagged weapons that can slice through steel while the shark’s tail is a massive bone club that can send opponents reeling. It is said they can even launch one opponent at another by striking them with their tail.
Bone Harvest. Bone-armored sharks are valued among triton craftspeople as their bone plates are used to make high-quality, buoyancy neutral plate mail armor for triton warriors.
Bone-Armored Reef Shark
Medium Beast, unaligned
Armor Class 16 (Natural Armor)
Hit Points 39 (6d8+12)
Speed Swim 40 ft.
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
16 (+3) 11 (+0) 15 (+2) 1 (-5) 10 (+0) 4 (-3)
Saving Throws Con +4
Skills Perception +2
Senses blindsight 30 ft., passive Perception 13
Challenge 2 (450 XP)
Blood Frenzy. The shark has advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature that doesn’t have all its hit points.
Water Breathing. The shark can breathe only underwater.
Actions
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 8 (1d8 + 3) piercing damage.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6 + 3) bludgeoning damage. If the target is Large or smaller, it must succeed in a DC 13 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If the shark moves at least 30 ft. on its turn before making a slam attack, this attack inflicts double damage, and the target has disadvantage on their Strength saving throw. This attack does double damage against objects.
Reactions
Bone Spiral. When struck by a successful attack roll, the bone-touched reef shark attempts to spin out of the way, forcing a reroll on the successful attack roll. Any creature adjacent to the bone-touched reef shark must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw to avoid being struck by its slashing bone fins, taking 7 (1d6+3) slashing damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Bone-Armored Hunter Shark
Large Beast, unaligned
Armor Class 18
Hit Points 72 (8d10+24)
Speed Swim 40 ft.
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
20 (+5) 11 (+0) 17 (+3) 1 (-5) 10 (+0) 4 (-3)
Saving Throws Con +5
Skills Perception +2
Damage Resistances Bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks not made with adamantine weapons.
Senses blindsight 30 ft., passive Perception 12
Challenge 4 (1,100 XP)
Blood Frenzy. The shark has advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature that doesn’t have all its hit points.
Water Breathing. The shark can breathe only underwater.
Actions
Multiattack. The bone-touched hunter shark makes two attacks, only one of which may be a slam attack.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) piercing damage. If the target is Medium or smaller, it is Grappled (escape DC 15) and Restrained until the grapple ends. The shark may only grapple one creature at a time and it may only make bite attacks against that creature or use it to perform a whipshot attack.
Tailwhip. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 10 ft. one target. Hit: 12 (2d6 + 5) bludgeoning damage. If the target is Large or smaller, it must succeed in a DC 15 Strength saving throw or be moved 15 ft. away and knocked prone.
Whipshot. Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, range 30/120 ft. one target. Hit: 7 (2d6) bludgeoning damage. This attack can only be used when the shark has a creature grappled with its bite. The grappled creature is moved to be adjacent to the target, is knocked prone, takes damage equal to twice that suffered by the target, and is no longer grappled. If the attack misses, the same things happen to the grappled creature, but it takes normal damage from this attack.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) bludgeoning damage. If the target is Large or smaller, it must succeed in a DC 15 Strength save or be knocked prone. If the shark moves at least 40 ft. on its turn before making a slam attack, this attack inflicts double damage, and the target has disadvantage on their Strength saving throw. This attack does double damage against objects.
Reactions
Bone Spiral When struck by a successful attack roll, the bone-touched hunter shark attempts to spin out of the way, forcing a reroll on the successful attack roll. Any creature adjacent to the bone-touched hunter shark must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity, taking 12 (2d6+5) slashing damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.
Bone-Armored Giant Shark
Huge Beast, unaligned
Armor Class 20
Hit Points 150 (12d12+72)
Speed Swim 50 ft.
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
25 (+7) 9 (-1) 23 (+6) 1 (-5) 10 (+0) 5 (-3)
Saving Throws Con +9
Skills Perception +3
Damage Resistances Bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks not made with adamantine weapons.
Senses blindsight 30 ft., passive Perception 13
Challenge 8 (3,900 XP)
Blood Frenzy. The shark has advantage on melee attack rolls against any creature that doesn’t have all its hit points.
Water Breathing. The shark can breathe only underwater.
Actions
Multiattack. The bone-touched giant shark makes two attacks, only one of which may be a slam attack.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 24 (3d10 + 7) piercing damage. If the target is Large or smaller, it is Grappled (escape DC 17) and Restrained until the grapple ends. The shark may only grapple one creature at a time and it may only make bite attacks against that creature or use it to make a whipshot attack.
Tailwhip. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 15 ft. one target. Hit: 21 (3d8 + 7) bludgeoning damage. If the target is Large or smaller, it must succeed in a DC 17 Strength saving throw or be moved 20 ft. away and knocked prone.
Whipshot. Range Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, range 30/120 ft. one target. Hit: 7 (3d6) bludgeoning damage. This attack can only be used when the shark has a creature grappled. The grappled creature is moved to within 5’ of the target, is knocked prone, takes damage equal to twice that suffered by the target, and is no longer grappled. If the attack misses, the same things happen to the grappled creature, but it takes normal damage from this attack.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 24 (3d10 + 7) bludgeoning damage. If the target is Large or smaller, it must succeed in a DC 17 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If the shark moves at least 50 ft. on its turn before making a slam attack, this attack inflicts double damage, and the target has disadvantage on the Strength saving throw. This attack does double damage against objects.
Bonus
Bone Smasher (Recharge 5-6). The shark enters a frenzy and its bone plates temporarily grow thicker and more jagged. The shark’s speed increases by +50 ft. and it adds +1d10 bludgeoning damage to its slam attack and its bone spiral reaction. The shark gains damage immunity to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks not made with adamantine weapons. Any Strength saving throws to avoid being knocked prone by the shark’s attacks have disadvantage. This lasts until the end of the shark’s next turn.
Reactions
Bone Spiral When struck by a successful attack roll, the bone-touched hunter shark attempts to spin out of the way, forcing a reroll on the successful attack roll. Any creature adjacent to the bone-touched hunter shark must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity, taking 17 (3d6+5) slashing damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.