[Lords of Madness might have been my favorite splatbook of the 3.5 era. It was chock full of good flavor and usable mechanics for some of D&D’s most iconic creatures, and it did a good job supplementing a few second-tier baddies.
The hound of the gloom had a pretty nice piece of art, but wasn’t much mechanically in the original. It didn’t even have any darkness themed abilities, with a name like that! So this conversion is much altered.]
Gloombeast This
creature is an enormous, bestial quadruped. Its hide is a rubbery gray
substance, and its head is covered in bony ornamentation. A mane of thrashing
tentacles grows from around its neck, two of which end in disturbingly
human-like hands.
Gloombeasts are mysterious creatures
native to the Darklands that combine aspects of bear, big cat and octopus. A
gloombeast is a savage and wandering predator of the subterranean realm,
although they may emerge on moonless or overcast nights to hunt above ground.
Despite their monstrous appearance, gloombeasts are somewhat intelligent and
can speak, but rarely have much to say to anything other than their own kind.
Unusually for the predators of the
lightless realm, gloombeasts are more feared by their subterranean neighbors
than by surface folk. A gloombeast is invisible when viewed with darkvision,
making them superb ambush hunters. Some less civilized humanoids, such as
troglodytes or morlocks, see gloombeasts as a sign of divine punishment and
make sacrifices to the creatures in order to appease them. Drow and duergar
both typically post immense bounties for a slain gloombeast. The only
subterranean people who do not view the gloombeasts with horror and hatred are
the dark folk, which can see them normally. Some gloombeasts even live within
powerful dark folk communities, serving as the front line of defense against an
incursion by other races.
The origins of gloombeasts are a
mystery, and by all accounts appears to be a recent phenomenon. Their shapes
and abilities of stealth have led some to suggest that they are an offshoot of
shadow mastiffs. Other hypotheses include an origin as a fleshwarping
experiment or a recent creation of the aboleth. Gloombeasts do not speak of
their own origins, and it isn’t known if they themselves know where they come
from.
A gloombeast grows to be eight feet
long and stands five feet high at the shoulder.
Gloombeasts are most common in the Darklands below Senksen, where they menace communities of shadow-folk. They rarely creep up to the surface in order to find new prey.
Shores of Swords 