What is a Legendary Eminence?

A Legendary Eminence is a powerful ability or feature that becomes weaker or inactive when a monster uses a Legendary Resistance. Emery’s Log of Legendary Eminences is a 5th Edition toolkit that will revolutionize Legendary Resistances at your table. No longer will players be disappointed by monsters simply "choosing" to succeed against their most exciting abilities. Now, the monster makes a significant sacrifice to keep themselves in the fight with immediate mechanical and narrative consequences.

Legendary Eminences in Action

Za'Ul the Lich King cackles in glee as his Mortis Nebula saps the strength from the lumbering gladiator and lithe assassin. They were fools for engaging him in melee combat. The sickly mists sear their skin and sap their strength. They collapse in exhaustion at the Lich King's feet and he calmly hovers past them as they writhe in agony on the ground.

Then with a flash of brilliant white light, you cast a banishment spell. Za'ul's decaying eye sockets widen in shock as the spell bypasses his magical defenses and succeeds! However, Za'Ul is no typical Lich; in an intense surge of malice and magical energy Za'Ul spends his last Legendary Resistance and resists the banishment.

His contemptuous grin dies on his face however, as he realizes that the energies he expended to deflect your spell were fueling his necrotic mists. Your Gladiator and Assassin companions rise, their strength returned, vengeance glinting in their eyes.

More Than Just a Bag of Hit Points

Our design team felt that many 5E statblocks do not tell a story. So many iconic monsters are steeped in rich lore and history, but those details are rarely reflected in mechanics. We used Legendary Eminences as an opportunity to place these narrative details at the center of your encounter.

In some cases, we use Legendary Eminences to cover a glaring weakness. For example, the Tarrasque can now interact with players trying to attack it at range out to 450 feet.

Product Details

We designed Legendary Eminences for 40 monsters total including all 23 monsters with Legendary Resistances found in the Standard Rules Document. We liked Legendary Eminences so much that we added a few extras for monsters that we thought could use a single polymorph insurance policy.

Including: 2 Devils, 2 Demons, 10 Chromatic Dragons, 10 Metallic Dragons, 6 Giants, Hydra, Dragon Turtle, Assassin, Archmage, Mummy Lord, Planetar, Solar, Lich, Vampire, and of course, the Tarrasque.

Who is Emery the Eclectic?

Emery is a powerful Archmage who retired as an adventurer long ago. Emery's Log of Legendary Eminences is written from their perspective and includes anecdotes of how they fared against the powerful creatures contained within their log. Perhaps one day your party might cross their path...

Check out Running Off The Rail's podcast here.

UUID 0864d91c-ac8e-11ed-8c52-0050562be458