Skip to content
CharGen Icon
CreatePricing

Farwarped Laborer

Accounts from surviving artisans describe a figure that 'keeps working' amid ruin, smoothing cracks in impossible patterns. Where it labors, metal blooms with odd growths and workers dream of tidal colors. Cults seeking contact with the far realm collect pieces of its filament for rituals.

Monsters
Medium aberration · CR 5 · Unique or rare

Farwarped Laborer

A human laborer warped by far realm experimentation into a semi-sentient tool of psychic corrosion, combining brute strength with mind-bending afflictions that linger after the fight.
AC16
HP85/85
CR5
Init
STR
DEX
CON
INT
WIS
CHA
ConditionsNone

Combat

AC 16 · HP 85 · CR 5

Farwarped Laborer

Medium aberration (former human), chaotic neutral
Armor Class16 (hardened scrap plating and warped hide)
Hit Points85 (10d8 + 40)
Speed
30 ft.,
Climb 20 ft.
STR
DEX
CON
INT
WIS
CHA
Saving ThrowsWisdomConstitution
SkillsAthleticsPerceptionIntimidation
Damage Resistances
Acid 50% damage,
Psychic 50% damage
Immunities
Poisoned condition,
Disease
Weaknesses
Vulnerability to radiant damage 150% (the light of order disrupts filaments),
Predictable single-target focus makes it susceptible to area control and forced movement
Senses
Darkvision 60 ft.,
Passive Perception 11
Languages
Common,
Telepathy 60 ft.
Challenge5
Proficiency Bonus+3
Telepathic Worksong. The laborer telepathically communicates with any creature within 60 feet that understands a language. It cannot speak normally but can make a single mental impression as an action.
Far Corruption. When the laborer hits with Warping Grasp or Corroded Pick the target must make a Wisdom saving throw or gain one short-term madness (DMG). The laborer can inflict no more than one short-term madness per creature per minute.
Corrosive Labor. If a nonmagical metal object is struck by the laborer and damaged, that object gains a -1 to AC and attack rolls until cleaned with remove curse or greater restoration. The effect is cumulative up to -3.

Spells

Innate Far Echoes (cantrip, enchantment and evocation). The laborer can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components. Spellcasting ability is Wisdom (spell save , to hit with spell attacks). 1/day each: detect thoughts, hunger of hadar (as 3rd level), slow (as 3rd level).

Actions

Corroded Pick. Melee Weapon Attack: to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 () slashing damage plus 7 () psychic damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be nauseated by whispered visions. While nauseated a creature has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks. The condition ends if the creature takes psychic damage or a creature uses an action to shake it out of the vision.
Warping Grasp. Melee Weapon Attack: to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 9 () bludgeoning damage and the target is grappled (escape ). Until this grapple ends the target is restrained and takes 9 () psychic damage at the start of each of its turns as the laborer's warped aura gnaws at the mind. The Farwarped Laborer can grapple only one target at a time.
Mind-Slick Spray. The laborer releases a gout of shimmering, foul slime in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw, taking 27 () acid damage and 9 () psychic damage on a failed save, or half as much acid and no psychic damage on a successful one. Nonmagical metal in the area takes a permanent -1 to AC while coated unless cleaned with a remove curse or similar magic.
Mind-Call. The laborer speaks a single maddening phrase in a voice like grinding metal. Each creature of the laborer's choice within 30 feet that can hear it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened for 1 minute. A frightened target can repeat the save at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. Creatures that succeed are immune to Mind-Call for 24 hours.

Reactions

Warped Parry. When a creature within 5 feet hits the laborer with a melee attack, the laborer can force the attacker to make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save the attacker takes 7 () psychic damage and has disadvantage on their next attack roll. The laborer can use this reaction three times and regains uses after a short or long rest.
Role
Controller-bruiser
Built for
5

Gear

  • Fused Pick (Weapon, Priceless to creator)A fused iron pick-arm that counts as a magical +1 simple melee weapon for attacks made by the laborer.
  • Filament Coveralls (Clothing, 10 gp)Tattered linen coveralls inwrought with pale filaments; grants no benefit to others but is a clue to origin.

Feats

Tough (flavor: warped resilience)
Grappler-like focus

Augmentations

Bioluminescent filaments embedded in skin
Partially fused rusted pick integrated into forearm

Notes for the game master

CR 5 creature designed for a four to five player party of level 5.
Psychic damage and conditions are central to its threat profile.

Tactics

  1. Opening

    Close quickly and attempt to hit with Mind-Slick Spray to force concentration saves and impose area disruption. Follow with Warping Grasp on a vulnerable caster or healer.

  2. Mid-fight

    Grapple a single high-value target with Warping Grasp to isolate and sap them while using Mind-Slick Spray to fracture the party's formation. Use Corroded Pick to harry other opponents.

  3. End of the fight

    If reduced below half hit points the laborer intensifies psychic attacks and attempts to escape while dragging at least one victim to contaminate nearby structures for long-term corruption.

  4. Retreat

    If it drops below 20 hit points or loses its pick arm it attempts to flee to a site where it can smear its slime to create persistent hazardous terrain. It will call for far echoes with Mind-Call to slow pursuit.

How it fights

Focus on isolating and crippling a single spellcaster or healer with Warping Grasp.
Use Mind-Slick Spray early to split the party and reduce coordinated responses.
Exploit lair terrain to impose additional saving throws and damage over time.

Who it attacks first

Enemy healers and spellcasters
Solitary squishy fighters away from allies
Any creature attempting to cleanse its filaments

Works well with

Works well with creatures that can force enemies into melee so it can grapple them.
Pairs with summoned hordes to pin targets in place for area attacks.

How to beat it

High Wisdom saves and magic that grants immunity to being frightened reduce its crowd control.
Area spells that damage many targets at once (fireball, cone of cold) force it to risk collateral damage to its grapples.
Remove curse, greater restoration, and dispel magic can neutralize lingering contamination and permanent object debuffs.

Ways to avoid a fight

Party members who carefully study and clean its filaments can learn clues to the experimenters who made it and locate their lair.
A successful DC 18 Persuasion or DC 16 Insight check may cause it to pause its compulsion long enough to answer a question telepathically.
Disabling its lair machinery can weaken its lair-based saves.

Ecology

Once a broad-shouldered human laborer in stained linen, now a hunched figure whose skin ripples with pearlescent lesions and slow- moving filaments. One arm is elongated with a fused rusted pick, the other too many-fingered and twitching. Its eyes are pale and vertically slit. A faint, oily sheen hangs around it, shimmering in impossible colors.

Behavior

Patient and single-minded. It pursues labor tasks with disturbing ritual repetition, pausing to study the faces of victims. In combat it uses grapples to isolate and torment. It can seem cooperative if it believes a creature will accept its 'repairs', then strikes when guards drop.

How it lives

Spawned from illicit far realm grafting and alchemical labor camps, these warped laborers are both tool and contagion. They persist in ruined quarries, abandoned foundries, and the hulls of ships that dredged strange depths.

Lair

A ruined foundry where warped machinery continues to hum faintly. The lair contains shallow pools of iridescent sludge that reduce movement and slowly corrupt metal and minds. Farwarped resonances cause random whispers; each round in the lair requires a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw or take 1 psychic damage and gain a short-term madness roll on a failed save.

Habitat
Urban ruins, quarries, foundries, coastal shipwrecks

Signs that it is near

Iridescent slime trails on floors and walls
Faint grinding-metal whispers at night
Small metal tools fused together in twisted shapes

Tags

Far Realm,
Psionic,
Corrosive,
Grappler

Lore

Accounts from surviving artisans describe a figure that 'keeps working' amid ruin, smoothing cracks in impossible patterns. Where it labors, metal blooms with odd growths and workers dream of tidal colors. Cults seeking contact with the far realm collect pieces of its filament for rituals.

What drives it

Compulsion implanted by experiments to mend and perfect structures for inscrutable patrons. It 'works' because the drive is the core of its warped mind.

After the fight

Areas the laborer has occupied retain a slimy iridescent residue that warps mundane objects over weeks. Victims who survived prolonged exposure risk long-term madness traits and nightmares. Cleaning or reversing the corruption requires remove curse or greater restoration and a week of mundane scrubbing; magical objects may be permanently altered.

“Where it labors, metal blooms with odd growths and workers dream of tidal colors.”
From its lore

Variants

Larger Foreman variant: CR 8 with greater reach, an extra lair action, and stronger psychic effects.
Collapsed Worker swarm: multiple lesser warped laborers that behave more like disposable tools, CR adjusted for numbers.

Hooks

Plot hooks

A town's water supply is being subtly corrupted; investigators find Farwarped residues and must find the source.
A patron hires the party to recover a 'working man' from an abandoned foundry believed to be a myth.
A cult seeks to replicate the laborer for mass production. Stopping them requires capturing the original for evidence.

How to use it

As a single miniboss in an abandoned foundry where the laborer has been 'working' on arcane machinery.
As part of an ambush where it uses tunnels to appear and grapple isolated party members.
As a lingering threat after battles: its slime turns a key doorway into a corruption point.

Treasure

Fragments of filament valued by cultists as spell components
One fused pick that functions as a +1 weapon
A scrap of schedule notes pointing to the facility where it was made

Media

0 images

No images yet.

Visual sheet

Turn Farwarped Laborer into a sheet

A high-res, share-ready sheet you can post or print.