Yesterday morning, I was drinking my coffee and prepping for next week’s D&D sesh when I realized my crawling claws needed a bite attack – inspiration brought about by the Santa Cruz “Screaming Hand” on my coffee mug. But where to insert this into my Along the Triboar Trail game that I run for my friends?

My adventure features Cragmaw goblins and a necromancer (Hamun Kost). So why not join one to the other?

Perhaps Hamun Kost found his way to the Cragmaw Hideout after the adventurers finished clearing the caves out, leaving dead goblins all over the place. Through a foul necromantic ritual, the wizard animates the hands of each goblin to become crawling claws – remaining dormant, hidden near a goblin corpse until it senses a living creature nearby, and begins to stalk its prey (or joins a pack of other ravenous crawling claws that stalk the adventurers).

I know that the folks at Wizards of the Coast have taken great pains to soften the image of goblins by making them a playable race/ancestry. However, canonically, goblins have been known to do some vile things, among which include the practice of cannibalism. A kinder and gentler Dungeons & Dragons can never take that away. Play as many lawful good goblin paladins as your heart desires, but there will always be goblins out there who have supped on humanoid flesh.

And since that’s the case, I can use those dietary choices to make my goblinoid crawling claws hungry. RAVENOUS, even. MWAH-AH-AH… Perhaps a fun little surprise for the party if they return to the Cragmaw Hideout to retrieve the loot piled up in Klarg’s Cave.

Description

Ravenous crawling claws are the severed hands of cannibals, reanimated through foul necromancy and driven to continue their grisly appetites beyond death. Unlike common crawling claws, these horrors bear a gnashing mouth in the center of the palm – a cursed remnant of their former hunger – which writhes and snaps in search of humanoid flesh.

Evil wizards and warlocks often use them as obedient extra hands, kept faithful with the promise of human flesh to feast upon.

Magical Origins. A ritual binds a cannibal’s lingering life force to their severed hand, animating it. The ritual fails if the spirit already exists as undead, has been resurrected, or has passed on. Freshly severed hands work best, leading ritualists to collect them from executions for cannibalism or through dealings with cannibal killers.

Ravenous crawling claws cannot be turned or controlled by typical undead magic. They are bound solely to their creator, who can mentally command any claw within sight. Without direction, a claw follows its last order.

Commands must be simple — they cannot track specific individuals, but can be ordered to kill all creatures in an area. Despite their blindness and low intelligence, they can manipulate objects like keys and door handles.

Malign Intelligence. A crawling claw retains little memory, but the murderous emotions that fueled its crimes endure and intensify. Left alone, it reenacts violent behavior.

Living Claws. If created from a living cannibal’s hand, the claw remains tied to their soul. It can reattach seamlessly, leaving no trace. When separated again, the murderer falls into a coma. Destroying the claw kills the murderer, but killing the murderer does not destroy the claw.

Undead Nature. Crawling claws do not need air, food, drink, or sleep.

If there’s anyone out there who actually wants to use the ravenous crawling claw in their game, I’ve built it out in the homebrew monster collection over on dndbeyond.com. You can add it to your game here.

---

If you’d like to support my work, please consider checking out my free/pwyw supplements for Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak over on Dungeon Master’s Guild!