New Monster: Sand Assassin
This content can now be found at its most updated version in The Elements and Beyond, a free 246-page compendium that you can download right here, filled with 23 subclasses, 8 spellcasting feats, 134 spells, 213 spell variants, 85 monsters, 30 magic items, 4 races plus 12 new subraces each with racial feats, and even more goodies for both players and DMs!
“Who is that out there looking at us? This sandstorm is too thick to see through. Maybe we can get a better look up close!“
— Final Words of an Unknown Adventurer
Art Credit: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/9Blgy
As we get closer and closer to the release of The Elements and Beyond, we have another monster release from this upcoming compendium. Like the Magma Elemental we saw before, this new monster is a higher-level elemental made out of multiple elements. While the regular sand elemental (also appearing in the compendium) is only CR 6, today’s strangely lawful elemental is a deadly CR 9, making it among the highest CR elementals that a spellcaster can summon using the conjure elemental spell.
Why would someone use a 9th-level spell slot to summon a sand assassin? Well, for one thing, its probably a better assassin than most of the wizards and druids who might summon it. This monster is capable of great feats of infiltration and stealth thanks to its sand form and dispersal abilities combined with its high Dexterity. It also specializes in slaying targets that don’t have any of their allies near them, and it is routinely capable of blinding its targets with its very presence before it strikes them down.
When someone hasn’t summoned it using the fairly temporary conjure elemental spell, a sand assassin is typically encountered in a remote location where it hides and slays any unwelcome intruders (which is usually anyone that enters at all). Sand assassins fill a similar role to that of water weirds, except that the sand assassin is a much more dangerous threat (CR 9 instead of 3) and doesn’t need water to be bound to, making it more versatile and more difficult to disrupt by the mere passage of time. Because of this, these sentinels often stand guard for centuries or even millennia after those who summoned them have long-since passed, and all memory of what they stood guarding has left the world.
The sand assassin makes an excellent challenge for a 4-7th level group, and two or three can continue challenging a group of characters from levels 11 all the way to 17 or 18. You don’t need to add many sand assassins to a fight with a Mummy Lord in its desert tomb to spice things up in an unexpected and unforgettable way that your players will adore… once they’ve survived it!
Links: PDF | D&D Beyond: Sand Assassin
