Monster Workshop is a weekly feature where I build new monsters or monster variants for Dungeons & Dragons. This week, Monster Workshop drops on Tuesday to coincide with May the Fourth.
In honor of Star Wars Day, I’m starting Monster Workshop off with the rancor from The Return of the Jedi. Alongside the sarlaac, it’s an iconic pop culture monster, and they’ve been embedded in my imagination since I first encountered them on VHS in the ’90s.
Famed predators, the rancor is an adaptable, resilient creature at home in a number of environments. Lairing in deep caverns, jungle glades, and desert canyons, rancor are noteworthy for their large appetites and ferocity in battle.
Pit Fighters. A gate rises and two eyes shine the shadows behind it. The crowd roars as the hunched, 15-foot tall rancor stomps into the light. Bipedal with leathery brown, grey, or green hides, a tail, a wide maw, and long arms ending in sharp claws, rancor are familiar to the common person as a challenge to gladiators.
Battles against the monsters are often death sentences. Starved rancor are vicious and relentless. Their tough hides allow them to shrug off damage as they wear down prey. Many a gladiatorial career has come to a grizzly end, swallowed whole by a rancor.
Unearned Reputation. Their reputation as violent monsters comes almost entirely from the poor creatures trapped into service as arena attractions. In the wild, rancor are notably gentle with their offspring and mates.
A wild rancor, while still dangerous, rarely attacks unprovoked. So long as prey is plentiful, a rancor is only likely to attack humanoids if it believes they pose a threat to its young.
Far removed from their role in arenas, some humanoids raise and tame rancor as mounts, hunting companions, and protectors of livestock.
Legendary Origins. The exact origin of the rancor is a subject of debate among scholars. Most agree that they are the product of magical experiments, but the ancestral species is hotly contested.
Perhaps the most popular theory in the public imagination is that the first rancor was created from the hide of a tarrasque.
Design Notes
The goal with this build was to drop the rancor into the context of the average Dungeons & Dragons world. I’m pretty satisfied with how that shaped up.
I drew inspiration from the Wookieepedia article on the rancor and from my copy of The New Essential Guide to Alien Species from 2001. I’m not sure if we’ve ever seen it on screen, but rancor skin is supposed to be tough enough that blaster bolts don’t hurt it so I tried to reflect that with resistances.
I wanted something that was about on par with a Tyrannosaurus Rex in terms of challenge rating but a little more dynamic so I gave it a grapple-swallow sequence. In some ways, it’s a scaled down tarrasque, and that was a cool enough comparison to warrant lore-ification.
If you like the statblock, there’s more on GM Binder, including a juvenile rancor statblock, loot and salvage tables, and stats for rancor armor. I’ve also created a special Force-themed warlock patron.
Check out today’s YouTube video, three ways to build Obi-Wan Kenobi in D&D.
chasetriesagain.com 
1 Comment