Monsters from the myriad worlds of Dungeons & Dragons.

Notes on the Entries

A creature's Origin denotes the specific campaign setting it debuted in, if any. This is not to say that setting is the only place that creature can be found — D&D has a long history of repackaging creatures from sub-settings for general use, and ultimately the DM decides what appears in a game.
A creature's listed Challenge Rating may be for "baseline" examples of the monster, rather than listing every advanced variant presented in Monster Manuals. Also remember that 3rd and 5th Edition use a 1-20 scale for "standard" Challenge Ratings, while 4th Edition uses 1-30.
Not all Playable creatures are created equal, especially in 3rd Edition, in which Monster Adventurers can have significant Level Adjustments for the sake of party balance.
A creature's listed Alignment is typical for the race as a whole, not an absolute for every individual in it — even supposed embodiments of Good and Evil can change their alignment. Also, if there are two alignments listed, and one is for 4th Edition (in which Good encompasses Neutral Good and Chaotic Good, Unaligned encompasses the morally neutral alignments, and Evil encompasses Neutral Evil and Lawful Evil from other game editions), assume that the other alignment holds true for all other editions. Finally, the "Always Neutral" alignment listed in the first three editions for nonsapient creatures has been equated with the "Unaligned" alignment of 5th Edition.

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Kalothagh

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Animal (3E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Large, spiny fish also known as "pricklebacks," known to occasionally hunt swimming humanoids.

Adaptational Dumbass: Kalothagh are actually given a Low (5-7) Intelligence score in 2nd Edition, enough to give them a habit of collecting shiny gems from shipwrecks to hoard in their lairs, but 3E downgrades them to a nonsapient animal Intelligence of 2.
Art Evolution: They look like oversized pufferfish in 2E, but are given trout-like bodies with fewer spines in 3E.
The Paralyzer: In 3rd Edition, their spines deliver a poison that can potentially deal 3d6 points of Dexterity damage.
Playing Possum: If a fight is going poorly for the fish, a kalothagh can inflate a special air bladder within its body that makes it rapidly rise towards the surface, at which point it floats belly-up until the danger has passed.
Spike Shooter: They can fire volleys of spines at nearby creatures.
The Spiny: Anyone who simply spends a round adjacent to a kalothagh has to save or get stuck by one of its poisonous spines, which detaches and is stuck in the victim's body to deal additional damage when removed. 2nd Edition notes that for this reason, mating is fatal for male kalothagh.
Weird World, Weird Food: Averted; kalothagh flesh is poisonous. Superstitious Sailors thus take an encounter with a belly-up kalothagh as an omen of economic woe.

Kamadan

Classification: Magical Beast (3E), Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (3E), 4 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil (kamatlan, 2E), Unaligned

Large predatory felines with biting serpents protruding from their shoulders.

Ambiguously Related: Some sages argue that kamadans are related to displacer beasts, but others disagree, and the monsters' entry can take a different side of the argument depending on the game edition. For their part, it's noted that kamadans seem to despise displacer beasts, attacking them on sight, laying complex traps for them, and using their scent ability to foil their foe's light-bending glamer.
Eye of Newt: Kamadan tongues can be used to brew sleep potions, while Maztican priests of Zaltac know how to make use of nearly every part of a kamatlan's body.
Forced Sleep: Kamadans' Breath Weapon is a cone of sleep gas, which they use at the start of combat, allowing them to focus on downing conscious foes before finishing off the sleepers.
Multiple Head Case: 3rd Edition notes that a kamadan's six snake heads each has its own brain, allowing them to attack as a free action.
Poisonous Person: The serpents growing from their shoulders have poisonous bites.
Underground Monkey: 2nd Edition distinguishes between kamatlan and kamadans. The former, found in Maztica, resembles a jaguar with four venomous snakes growing from its shoulders, and has a rattlesnake's tail. The latter, found elsewhere on Toril, resembles a leopard with six non-venomous snakes growing from its shoulders, sports a normal tail, but has a sleep-inducing breath weapon. Kamatlan are a little larger, evil, but dumber, while kamadans are more inelligent but neutral. Other than the poison bites and sleep breath, there isn't much practical difference between the two, and they're worth the same amount of XP.

Kani Doll

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Construct (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Dolls of humans or animals meant to be good-luck charms, though they have a worrying tendency to be corrupted by evil, becoming animate and murderous.

Adaptational Intelligence: 2nd Edition evil kani dolls are mindless, but in 3E they're not only intelligent but capable of speech.
Animalistic Abilities: The shape of a kani doll defines what powers and ability scores they're associated with — bulls or tigers with Strength; cats, rabbits or raccoons with Dexterity, speed or stealth; bears or turtles with Constitution or defense; foxes or humans with Intelligence or luck; elephants or owls with Wisdom; eagles or lions with Charisma or courage; hawks with sight; and doves with love. Most kani dolls don't actually offer their owners any tangible benefit, but some are enchanted by hedge mages to give children a +2 enhancement bonus to the associated ability score. Evil kani dolls, in contrast, drain their associated ability score with their bite attacks, as they "literally chew away at the spirit and life-force of their victims."
Creepy Doll: Kani dolls are made from cheap materials but can be quite detailed, making some collectors pay good coin for a specific type of doll, but once possessed by an evil spirit, they become twisted-looking things, with sharp teeth and evil grins.
Nitro Boost: 3rd Edition gives kami dolls a "scamper" action, letting them double their movement speed to 40 feet, three times per day.
Personal Space Invader: Evil, animate kani dolls are known to latch on after biting a victim, dealing ongoing ability score damage until they're pulled off.
Perverse Puppet: About one-in-ten kani dolls ends up possessed by an evil spirit, which has unsurprisingly led to a decline in their construction since the start of the Age of Might, though some rural communities and simple tribes across Ansalon still make them. Most people will try to dispose of an evil kani doll as soon as its nature becomes clear, but dolls that are buried or thrown into the sea remain animate and dangerous, ready to attack those who stumble upon them. More worryingly, evil mages are known to make possessed dolls on purpose, sometimes enchanted to animate several days after being gifted to a would-be victim.
Protective Charm: Non-corrupted, enchanted kani dolls also grant their young bearers a protection from evil effect while the child sleeps.

Kank

Origin: Dark Sun
Classification: Animal (3E), Natural Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E), 4 (4E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Large hive-dwelling insects that are hardy but docile, and easy to domesticate.

Crafted from Animals: Kank chitin can be used to make armor, but it's brittle and has a 1-in-5 chance of shattering into uselessness with every blow it absorbs.
Fantastic Livestock: Some Athasians, the elves especially, keep herds of kanks. While kank meat is so sickeningly foul that only the desperate will eat it, kanks who become a hive's food-producers regularly secrete green nectar stored in melon-sized globules in the creature's abdomen, which can be easily harvested without harming the kank. This honey fetches a high price, and humanoids can live on it for up to three weeks before their bodies require some other form of sustenance.
Hive Caste System: Kank hives consist of the aforementioned food-producing drones, soldiers who also collect food and raw materials for nests, and a helpless queen who produces eggs. 4th Edition also adds specialized "spitters" that are Small compared to the Large soldiers, but have a ranged Acid Attack. Any other creature that regularly feeds the hive will come to be considered part of it, making the creatures easy to tame.
Horse of a Different Color: Kanks are primarily used as mounts — they can carry 400 pounds while moving at their top speed for a full day before needing rest, they can survive off just about any organic matter, and they don't require any special care.
The Paralyzer: Kank soldiers' mandibles also deliver a paralytic poison.

Kaorti

Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Aberrant humanoids who were corrupted by the madness of the Far Realm, and now strive to subject the Material Plane to that dismal dimension's influence.

Alien Blood: The kaorti's blood is a green fluid.
Holy Burns Evil: Kaortis have been so fully corrupted by the Far Realm that exposure to the Material Plane actually harms them, dealing subdual damage and fatiguing them for every hour they spend on it unprotected, until they pass out and start taking lethal damage. For this reason, they have to coat their hideouts in a resin they secrete from their palms, which shields them from the Material Plane's harmful effects.
Humanoid Abomination: The kaorti is a completely alien creature, inherently wrong and evil, that is humanoid in shape only. Their features are like that of a melting spider, their fingers are boneless tendrils, even their translucent flesh seems to slither and run over their visible entrails.
Kryptonite-Proof Suit: When leaving their cysts, kaortis don armor made of strips of alchemically-treated resin, which they wrap around themselves like a mummy's wrappings. They're time-consuming to make, though, so only exceptional kaortis are allowed to wear them.
Mage Species: Kaorti have the innate ability to use spells like alter self or spider climb, and generally respect and admire arcane magic, so that most of their leaders are mages. Kaorti sorcerers are common, while their wizards record their spells on long strips of resin.
The Virus: Kaortis can infuse humanoids with essence from the Far Realm, turning them into kaortis themselves. Sometimes the subjects resist the psychological transformation, becoming rogue kaortis forced to struggle to survive in world that harms them.
Was Once a Man: The first kaortis were wizards who travelled to the Far Realm, fully expecting that their preparations would protect them from its influence. Instead they succumbed almost immediately, sensed their entry portal as a disturbance, and traveled back through to destroy it. Stranded on a now-hostile Material Plane, the kaorti resolved to feed the world around them into the Far Realm, by converting individual creatures one at a time if necessary.

Kaorti Creations

As part of their campaign to corrupt the Material Plane, the kaorti have created several breeds of servitor creatures they use as living war machines.

Rukanyr

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 9 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

These warped monstrous scorpions can smash or blast apart anything they encounter, and were created by the kaorti to destroy regions they themselves fear to enter.

Beware My Stinger Tail: Instead of a conventional scorpion's stinger, rukanyrs have a massive, mace-like club that hits hard enough to stun victims.
Gone Horribly Right: Rukanyrs are awesome war beasts, but are so destructive that the kaorti don't allow them within their enclaves, instead leaving them to wander the periphery of a cyst.
Mooks Ate My Equipment: Their armor plating constantly shifts and scrapes against itself as the rukanyr moves in combat, which can potentially trap and crush the weapons of those who strike at it with a slashing or piercing weapon.
The Paralyzer: Their bite attacks deal Dexterity damage, potentially paralyzing victims whose Dexterity hits 0.
Scary Scorpions: They have the general shape of one (assuming the scorpion is 15 feet long), but rukanyrs boast additional armor plating, a club-like tail rather than a stinger, several sets of claws around their tail, three toothy maws on their front, and a single staring eye.
Super-Scream: Every few rounds, a rukanyr can let loose a devastating roar from one of its mouths, potentially deafening everything within 60 feet and dealing heavy sonic damage to the creature or object the monster is focusing this blast of sound upon.

Skybleeder

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 12 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Huge masses of tentacles, claws and eyes normally hidden behind an unnautral mist, and which rain acidic red slime upon their victims.

Acid Attack: Skybleeders' signature attack is the slimy red acid their tentacles constantly weep. This deals damage to anything beneath a skybleeder, though fortunately the acid goes inert quickly, so creatures who move out from under them stop taking damage.
Beast of Battle: Kaortis occasionally ride upon skybleeders by roping simple wooden platforms to the top of their amorphous bodies. Since skybleeders are fully intelligent, any rider who fails to show them the proper respect is likely to be attacked several miles above the ground.
Fog of Doom: Skybleeders are constantly surrounded by a 60-foot radius of unnatural white mist. Not only does this grant the creatures concealment against outside attacks and help it hide, it grants the skybleeder and anything else within the mist Spell Resistance against druidic magic.
No-Sell: These monsters don't have anything resembling a conventional anatomy, so they aren't subject to flanking, Critical Hits or Back Stab attempts.
Tentacle Rope: Anything grappled by their tentacles will take both constriction and acid damage.

Kaortic Hulk

Classification: Magical Beast (3E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Giant quadrupedal predators clad in resin armor, usually found hunting Material Plane creatures on the fringes of a Far Realm incursion.

Artificial Insolence: Kaortic hulks can be summoned with the appropriate spell, but they are reluctant servants at best, and have a cumulative 1% chance each round to turn on their summoner.
Big Eater: Kaortic hulks are hungry predators that devastate populations if they spend too much time in one place.
Extreme Omnivore: A kaortic hulk eats everything, including oozes, constructs and undead.
From Nobody to Nightmare: The best theory concerning these huge monsters' origin is that they're descended from the feline familiar of a wizard who attempted to explore the Far Realm in ages past.
It Can Think: Downplayed. Kaortic hulks have animalistic intellects (Intelligence scores of 2), but are still smart enough to use their spell-like abilities — gaseous form, spider climb, invisbility, silence — during their hunts.
Super-Senses: They have no obvious eyes or ears, but enjoy blindsight out to 120 feet.

Kappa

Origin: Kara-tur
Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil (2E), Chaotic Neutral (3E)

Small, aquatic, turtle-like humanoids whose behavior can be unpredictable and dangerous.

Achilles' Heel: Kappa's heads have bowl-like indentations that contain some of the water from their home pond or river. Should the bowl be emptied — usually by an opposed grapple check, as not even the rigors of combat are enough to spill the water — a kappa's Strength and Constitution score drop significantly, and they lose their fast healing, until the bowl is refilled. A would-be victim can also try the "trick the kappa into bowing" strategy, though most kappa are wise to it.
Affably Evil: Kappa delight in the discomfort of others, but they are usually polite even to potential victims, at least initially. Should said victims compliment the kappa's good manners, appeal to their vanity, or offer gifts, the kappa might be pleased enough to spare them. "But a hungry, insulted, or simply ornery kappa shows no mercy."
Dying Curse: In their AD&D rules, about one in twenty kappa know enough magic to curse those who defeated them, and if the victors fail their saves, they'll take permanent penalties on their attack rolls and saving throws — and inflict lesser penalties on those around them — until they're subject to a remove curse.
Elite Mook: Kappa-ti are bigger (i.e. Medium-sized), stronger kappa that have natural camouflage to aid in ambushes. Normal kappa consider them repulsive.
It's All About Me: According to their 2nd Edition write-up, kappa are so self-interested that they won't intervene even to save their own kin, unless their personal safety is assured and the kappa is confident they'll get some food or treasure for their efforts.
Kappa: They hit most of the beats of the source myth, but there's no mention of them extracting victims' shirikodama.
No-Sell: They're immune to any water-based magic.
Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Kappa are typically only two feet tall, but have Strength scores comparable to orcs'.
Sinister Suffocation: They prefer to drag their victims into the water to drown them.
Sumo Wrestling: Kappa love wrestling, and will often challenge a potential victim to a match to save their life, sometimes conventional wrestling, other times a round of "finger-wrestling" where the kappa and their opponent hook a single finger around the other's and see who can win a tug-of-war. Despite their Chaotic bent, kappa have developed several martial arts techniques, involving grapples, holds and throws. In rare cases, a kappa who develops a deep respect for a human (whether because they're helpful, deferential, or intimidating) will teach them some kappa martial arts techniques.
Trademark Favorite Food: Beyond cucumbers and melons, kappa have a taste for horseflesh, leading them to try to drag such animals into the water whenever possible.
Vampiric Draining: Some "vampiric" kappa can bite victims and drain Strength from them.

Karsite

Classification: Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Scions of an ancient sorcerer-king, whose blood randomly asserts itself among the human population. Marked by their ancestor's failed attempt to seize the position of God of Magic, they repel magical energy, and are driven by a racial goal to complete their ancestor's mission and raise him to the divine throne he should have claimed.

Anti-Magical Faction: Karsites consider it their purpose to rid humanity of spellcasters and establish Karsus as mankind's only god. As such, organized groups of karsites work to prevent the founding of mage guilds, discredit the good works of heroic spellcasters, and steal magic items while ruining their makers. They also relish the chance to harm spellcasters.
Dispel Magic: A karsite's melee attacks can temporarily suppress the magic of enchanted equipment.
Divine Parentage: Of a sort; Karsus died attempting to steal and harness the power of a god of magic, and now exists as a vestige. During his experiments leading up to that fatal endeavor, he fathered many children among his slaves and supplicants, the descendents of which retain a measure of his power.
Feed It with Fire: If a karsite's Spell Resistance nullifies a magical effect, they heal some damage based on the spell's level.
Human Subspecies: They have the human subtype, and are treated as humans for the purposes of certain spells or effects.
Pragmatic Villainy: Karsites aspire to set themselves up as the rulers of human civilization, and have evil natures, but they actually loathe killing other humans since it robs them of future servants.
Puberty Superpower: In many cases, a karsite's special powers make themselves clear by the time they reach puberty. Other times, a nascent karsite only realizes there's something different about them when they try and fail to learn magic, or an attack leaves them less harmed than it should.
Shared Unusual Trait: All karsites have mismatched eyes, one of which is always pale blue, as well as a skunk stripe in their hair. If karsites are able to form communities of their own and breed true, other shared traits reassert themselves, namely straight dark hair, a sharp widow's peak, and a small nose and mouth.
Super-Toughness: Karsites are exceptionally resilient, and enjoy Damage Reduction against non-magical attacks.
Un-Sorcerer: Downplayed; a karsite's Spell Resistance comes at the cost that they cannot cast any arcane or divine spell themselves. However, spell-like abilities — such as those granted by karsites' favored binder class — are fair game, as are magic items, Psychic Powers, and other esoteric abilities like incarnum magic.

Keeper

Origin: Planescape
Classification: Outsider (3E), Shadow Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E), 17 (4E)
Alignment: True Neutral

A race of strange creatures obsessed with gathering the secrets of other beings, and then ensuring that no one else can discover that information.

Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: All of a keeper's joints can bend in either direction.
Cyanide Pill: A variant; if a keeper finds itself captured, pinned, or held helpless, it has 10 rounds to free itself before it automatically dissolves into a puddle of poison.
Ditto Aliens: Keepers all look remarkably similar, and wear the same style of dark leather coat.
Eyeless Face: Keepers wear black goggles to hide their shallow, empty eye sockets, but can still see normally despite their lack of eyes.
He Knows Too Much: Keepers are known to murder those who know secrets they desire or wish to erase. Fortunately, they can be bought off with offers of additional knowledge, deals that the keepers will honor.
Gone Horribly Wrong: It's speculated that keepers were an attempt to create a race of spy-constructs, or guards for some secret knowledge. Instead the keepers began to be born free-willed, and now roam the planes looking for information to hoard.
Knowledge Broker: Averted; a keeper will never willingly divulge its secrets, they only accept offers of information, never trading knowledge for knowledge.
Hive Mind: Each keeper group shares a hive mind, which each individual functioning akin to a limb or extension.
The Men in Black: They serve as a fantastic example, being uncanny, unnerving humanoids in black clothes and glasses who show up to secure secrets and silence others who know them.
No-Sell: They share a lot of traits with constructs (and would probably have been classified as extraplanar living constructs if their rules had come out after Eberron's release), and as such are immune to things like critical hits, poison, sleep, paralysis, necromantic effects, etc.
Poisonous Person: Keepers can vomit gouts of a nauseating poison to incapacitate enemies, and dissolve into a puddle of that same poison when slain.
Shapeshifter Weapon: A keeper can form the malleable flesh and bone of its arms into any melee weapon.
Super-Senses: They can track enemies via scent, and also boast an impressive 200-foot blindsight.
Swap Teleportation: A keeper can use a standard action to teleport without error to another keeper's location within 500 feet, exchanging places with it. They frequently use this when attacking in groups, switching out with one another when an individual becomes too damaged to keep fighting.
Uncanny Valley: Keepers tend to unnerve other creatures thanks to their appearance, single-mindedness and abrupt manner. They're also bad at blending in with other beings, so a keeper might walk into a bar, observe patrons drinking liquor, then try to imitate them by guzzling a nearby bottle of lamp oil.
You Are Number 6: Keepers do not have names, referring to themselves with a numerical designation within their own groups, plus a title referring to the type of secrets they were originally tasked to discover if necessary (an example being Third of the Colorless Pool).
Zeroth Law Rebellion: One story about the keepers' genesis holds that a member of the Fraternity of Order discovered a way to find/invent entirely new universes just by thinking about them, and one of those universes contained the keepers. After bringing in hundreds or thousands of keepers to serve as his agents, this Guvner gave the careless order "Make sure no one ever discovers how you got to be here." The keepers promptly killed him.

Kelp Angler

Classification: Plant (3E)
Challenge Rating: 9 (3E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Mobile, magical and predatory sea plants that lurk in shallows and kelp forests, or terrorize shipping lanes.

Chameleon Camouflage: Kelp anglers can change their coloration to blend in with their surroundings, for a bonus to Hide checks.
Dispel Magic: Among other spells, kelp anglers can cast dispel magic three times per day, which is particularly dangerous if their victims are under water breathing and other enchantments to help them fight in the water.
It Can Think: Kelp anglers are actually a little smarter than the average ogre, enough that they can wait patiently for days in a reef or kelp forest, ignoring smaller prey to help sell the illusion of safety until a larger morsel presents itself. They also "know something of magic," enough to cast entangle, confusion and displacement. They don't seem able to communicate, however.
No-Sell: These sea plants are immune to bludgeoning weapons and cold damage, and take only half damage from fire.
Super-Senses: Their sight is supplemented by sonar, which grants kelp anglers 100-foot blindsight so long as they're not in a silence effect.
Tentacle Rope: They try to grapple those they hit with their leafy tendrils.

Kelpie

Humanoid guise (2e)

^{Horse guise (3e)}

Classification: Fey (3E), Plant (5E)
Challenge Rating: 10 (3E), 4 (5E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil (2E, 5E), Chaotic Evil (3E)

Murderous aquatic nature spirits who lure victims into ponds or rivers to drown them.

Charm Person: Kelpies can cast the spell to encourage victims to come closer, or defend them against other enemies.
Emotion Control: 3rd Edition kelpies can cast emotion as well, typically to paralyze victims in fear.
Hellish Horse: Their natural form in 3rd Edition is that of a warhorse with coal-black eyes, covered in rotted vegetation and constantly dripping with water.
Human Shifting: Kelpies can take humanoid form, but aren't great at it. In 2nd Edition, their efforts are a "grotesque mockery" that doesn't hold up to inspection in daylight, requiring further magic to disguise themselves. In 3rd Edition, kelpies' human shapes have a "feral and disturbing aura" due to their long stringy hair, gruff voices, tattered clothing and darting eyes. In 5th Edition, the seams between the strands of seaweed are visible in bright light or if the viewer closes to 30 feet.
One-Gender Race: 2nd Edition kelpies always appear female in humanoid form, and their charm only affects males.
Our Kelpies Are Different: In a departure from the base myth, in most editions, D&D kelpies are intelligent, magical, saltwater plants rather than fey (kelp-ies, you see), created by some vengeful ocean deity to punish sailors for not paying proper homage before voyages, or perhaps by the evil water archomental Olhydra. A later 2nd Edition sourcebook introduced an evil "water-horse" more in line with the original kelpie myths, and in 3rd Edition kelpies were properly fey horselike creatures, but 5th Edition went back to the "shapeshifting bundle of seaweed" interpretation.
Sinister Suffocation: Kelpies typically take humanoid form to attempt to lure victims into their watery lairs, either taking the guise of a fisher or lost traveler, or pretending to drown in the water. Once a victim is close enough, the kelpie reverts to its natural form, makes a trip attack, and pins them underwater until they drown.

Kenku

Classification: Humanoid (3E, 5E), Natural Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 1/2 (3E), 3 (4E), 1/4 (5E)
Playable: 3E-5E
Alignment: Neutral (2E), Neutral Evil (3E), Unaligned (4E), Chaotic Neutral (5E)

A race of small, sneaky avian humanoids, flightless but able to perfectly mimic any sounds they hear. See the Playable Races subpage for more information about them.

Ker

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_ker_2e.jpg

Alignment: Any evil

Malignant spirits that seek revenge against the living.

No Body Left Behind: If a ker succeeds at killing a target, it drains the victim's blood and consumes the corpse, leaving nothing to resurrect.
Our Ghosts Are Different: They're classified as a type of ghost, and can be turned as such. However, there's no mention of any way to lay them to rest, instead some societies set aside holy days or make sacrifices in attempts to appease keres.
Pay Evil unto Evil: Keres often go after the people responsible for their deaths, or are attracted by extreme acts of violence and greed. Three keres attacking the same individual or group can be considered a warning or act of retribution by the gods, or a sign of a dire fate.
Plague Master: The third time a ker strikes a target with its whip in a round, its target is infected with mummy rot.
Rapid Aging: The second time a ker strikes a target with its whip in a round, its target is ages by up to forty years.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: They can polymorph themselves into the form of gnats, which they use to hide from the sun until nightfall, or better pursue their targets.
Wings Do Nothing: Going by the rules as written, keres can't actually fly in their bat-winged humanoid form, only in their gnat form.
Winds of Destiny, Change!: The first time a ker strikes a target with its whip in a round, its target is inflicted with bad luck.

Kercpa

Alignment: Netural to Chaotic Good

Intelligent squirrel-folk no more than a foot-and-a-half tall, who protect their forests from despoilers.

The Alliance: Kercpa get along well with other forest folk like treants, sprites, and especially elves. The kercpa serve as "indispensable" messengers and scouts for the elves, who will mentor young kercpa and come to the aid of a tribe when necessary. Young kercpa enjoy "running amok" in their elven guardians' homes and eagerly asking questions about "olden times," while the elves genuinely enjoy the squirrel-folk's company.
Civilized Animal: Kercpa have human-level intelligence and the capacity for speech (whether their own chittering language, Elvish or Common), wear clothes and use tools, and build Treetop Towns for themselves, but otherwise live very much like mundane squirrels, foraging rather than hunting to survive and making sure to store enough food for the winter (though unlike squirrels, they don't hibernate).
Defensive Feint Trap: If the kercpa's foes are too many to fend off, they'll instead try to goad their enemy into chasing after them, leading opponents out of the kercpa's territory, into prepared pit traps or deadfalls, or simply breaking up an invasion force into more manageable pieces.
Death of a Thousand Cuts: Kercpa's attacks with their swords and "toy-like" bows only deal at most 3 points of damage, but the squirrel-folk have honed their archery to be able to fire three shots per round of combat. Combined with their penchant for attacking from concealment, and "It is not uncommon for a band of orcs, gnolls, or other forest marauders thus assaulted to believe themselves under attack by scores of the creatures, when in reality they are faced by only a dozen or so. Certainly the kercpa do their best to encourage this mistaken impression."
Folk Hero: While the kercpa revere a nameless nature goddess as their patron deity, for ethical dilemmas they turns to fables about their mythic progenitor Rititisk the Clever and how he defeated monstrous spiders, outwitted "oafish giants" (i.e. humans), quested for magic arrows, and so on.
Magic Is Feminine: Downplayed; most of a kercpa tribe's shamans are female, just like their elite warriors are mostly male, but "This is by no means the rule, and exceptions are not uncommon."
Stealth Expert: They're 90% undetectable in their home forests, and have such a light effect on their environment that woods the kercpa have been living in for centuries may appear as virgin forests. If travelers aren't deemed a threat, they'll probably pass through kercpa territory without realizing they're being watched.
Super-Reflexes: Kercpa's great agility gives them a high Armor Class (to counteract their low Hit Dice), and they have a chance to Dodge the Bullet when shot at.

Kes'trekel

Origin: Dark Sun
Classification: Animal (3E), Natural Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 1/3 (3E), 1 (4E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Croaking, cowardly carrion-eaters, which prefer to feast on the dead and dying, though their flocks can be bold enough to overwhelm healthy prey.

Cannibalism Superpower: Some inhabitants of the Ringing Mountains eat fresh kes'trekel eyes in hopes of gaining the birds' keen vision. "Such rituals are ineffective, but sometimes myth and tradition are stronger than logic."
Combination Attack: In groups of 20 or more, kes'trekel's "minuscule brains" can link together to generate psionic effects, an aversion ability in 2nd Edition and a "loathsome feast" attack in 4th Edition that deals psychic damage and drives foes away.
Cornered Rattlesnake: Kes'trekel's cowardice disappears when dealing with intruders in their home territory, at which point they'll cooperate in flocks that swarm the opposition. This makes kes'trekel that are hatched and raised by humanoids excellent watch birds, which will raise squawking alarms if they detect intruders.
The Swarm: An individual kes'trekel is hardly a threat, but their flocks can put up a fight, swarming over and raking opponents with their talons.
Vile Vulture: They're the Athasian equivalent, ugly avians with the unpleasant habit of following creatures around until they become too weak to fend off the scavengers.

Khaasta

Origin: Planescape
Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 3 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Barbarous reptilian humanoids who wander the Outlands and the chaotic parts of the Great Wheel, living as raiders, sellswords, slavers and smugglers.

Arch-Enemy: The khaasta spent centuries fighting the sarrukh, after the reptilian creator race tried to enslave them following the collapse of the sarrukh empire. Even though they eventually repelled the sarrukh, the khaasta have come to hate them to the point that they won't rest until every last sarrukh is exterminated, and will launch incursions onto the Material Plane to continue the war.
Barbarian Tribe: They exist as such, wandering the planes in bands that are alternately traders and raiders, or hiring themselves out as soldiers to more powerful creatures.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Khaasta derive status from both wealth and prestige, the latter according to "a convoluted and twisted set of rules of conduct that rewards backstabbing, conniving, and deceit." This can make dealing with them dangerous, as a khaasta who thinks themself unable to defeat a foe in a straight fight will resort to treachery to advance themself.
Dirty Coward: Khaasta of both genders consider themselves warriors, but they also have a strong cowardly streak and will turn and flee if a fight goes against them.
Henchmen Race: The khaasta were created by the demon lord Demogorgon as foot soldiers, and spent millennia loyally serving him in battle. But as more tanar'ri joined his ranks, Demogorgon's demonic generals began complaining about the khaasta's unruliness and subpar performance compared to the fiends. Demogorgon, "in a rare moment of generosity," released the khaasta from his service rather than purge them, letting them seek out a new patron. Many khaasta have since fallen in with Sess'innek, the demon prince who seeks to lead Material Plane lizardfolk away from Semuanya.
Horse of a Different Color: They prefer to fight from atop a giant lizard mount.
Lizard Folk: They bear a resemblance to the lizardfolk of the Material Plane, but khaasta are larger, have intricately patterned scales, and flaring crests. Most significantly, and unlike their primitive kin, khaasta can always be found wielding metal wargear.
Might Makes Right: The guiding principle of what passes for khaasta society is that the strong rule. Their leaders must endure constant challenges and ritualistic, nonlethal combat, because in ancient times the khaasta nearly dueled themselves to extinction. While this does mean that khaasta who think themselves in a position of strength will simply try and take what they want, an outsider who proves their toughness can find khaasta to be good sources of information, illicit goods, or muscle.

Khargra

Classification: Elemental (5E)
Challenge Rating: 1/8 (5E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Small creatures from the Elemental Plane of Earth with an appetite for metal.

Achilles' Heel: Khargra are deathly susceptible to certain spells — casting phase door on rock they're moving through, or stone to flesh or transmute metal to wood on the creature directly, is an instant kill. Move earth stuns a khargra for several rounds, while heat metal always deals maximum damage to one.
Ambiguously Related: There's speculation that khargra are the "larval" forms of xorn and xarren, and transform into the latter on the Quasiplane of Mineral before returning to the Elemental Plane of Earth, but "the theory seems to rely on a significant leap in logic that is — at least with the information possessed currently — unwarranted."
Fantastic Fauna Counterpart: The way their schools "swim" through geological "currents" on their home plane leads some observers to dub khargra "earth fish." "But the name's really not any more accurate than calling birds 'air fish.'"
Instant Messenger Pigeon: 5E mentions that some dwarf, duergar or azer clans have picked up the trick of using khargra as carrier pigeons, by sprinkling a scroll with iron dust to entice the creature to eat it. The missive gets stuck in the khargra's digestive system, then it's sent off to its destination to cough up the scroll.
It Can Think: They're semi-intelligent, just enough to speak Terran in 5th Edition.
Metal Muncher: They feed on metals, preferring copper, iron or tin, while considering gold to be bland and mushy. In fact, they can't even digest organic material (or gemstones), and so will only attack living creatures out of desperation for the metal they're holding. Khargra seem to end up on the Quasiplane of Mineral toward the end of their life cycle — some think the creatures' metal-infused bodies become part of the plane's mineral deposits, others say the khargra gorge themselves to death.
Mooks Ate My Equipment: Their terrible, rock-chewing maws are more than capable of ruining the metal equipment of their opponents. In 5E, they can even make an "Opportunistic Hunger" Counter-Attack whenever someone hits them with a metal weapon.
Retcon: 2E khargra "swim" through solid earth and stone a la xorn, but are slow and ungainly outside of their element. 5E gives them a more limited "Earth Phasing" ability and lets them fly through the air.

Kholiathra

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Alignment: Neutral Good

Often-invisible spirits who watch over elven lands, bringing good luck to the locals and misfortune to intruders.

Eating Optional: As enchanted beings, kholiathra don't need to eat or drink, and instead gain sustenance from cavorting in the sunlight.
Flight: They can move through the air as easily as they walk over the ground.
Guardian Entity: Some say that kholiathra are the spirits of departed elves, returned to serve their communities as unseen protectors, or sent by the Seladrine to bring good fortune to the elves before a battle. They rarely intervene directly, however, preferring to manipulate fortune in favor of their wards and against their adversaries.
Invisible Monsters: Kholiathra can turn invisible at will, and usually remain unseen.
Winds of Destiny, Change!: The mere presence of a kholiathra brings good or bad luck to those around them, allowing the spirit to add or subtract 4 from any dice rolled by creatures within 20 feet. This makes kholiathra largely responsible for the good luck and happy existence of elven communities.

Killmoulis

Classification: Fey (5E)
Challenge Rating: 0 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Good or True Neutral

Big-headed humanoids no more than a foot tall, known for providing useful services, with a side of mischief.

Animals Hate Him: Unlike their brownie kin, killmoulis don't get along with animals like rats, dogs and cats. The rats are snared and stabbed with needles, while if dogs and cats prove a danger to killmoulis, the fey will poison them.
Big Eater: They devour "prodigious" amounts of grain, meal and flour, though the labor killmoulis perform will always outweigh their cost in food.
Gag Nose: These fey's faces are dominated by their enormous noses, and since they lack mouths, they inhale food to eat.
House Fey: Killmoulis are considered distant relatives to brownies, and like those creatures will coexist with humans, living out of sight beneath floors, within walls, or in a building's rafters. They're tireless workers who want to be useful, and are adept at performing simple labor once human workers leave the area, but they also have a mischievous streak. Their relationship with their "landlords" determines the severity of killmoulis' antics — if left alone or given gifts of warm food and garments sized to them, killmoulis will be satisfied with annoying pranks, while if their landlord tries to capture or harm them, killmoulis can be destructive, though not fatally so.
Retcon: 5th Edition recasts killmoulis as fey spawned from acts of chairty towards travelers, and rather than settling to help a home, the fey instead seek out bands of travelers and shadow them, eating a day's worth of rations each night. If left alone, a killmoulis will bestow a blessing that improves the quality of the travelers' rest, but if they interfere with the fey's snacking, it will instead curse them to not receive any curative benefit from sleeping.
Shrinking Violet: Killmoulis are extremely shy, and when confronted with one of the "giants" face-to-face will flee in a mindless panic, or even die of fright. They do like to watch their benefactors from hiding, however, and when approached with telepathy, or by a shapeshifting character, killmoulis can prove to be quite the source of gossip or even serve as a spy network, with the caveat that their interest lies in labor and domestic matters.
Telepathy: Their lack of mouths requires that they use ESP to communicate. If treated well, killmoulis may send barely-noticeable telepathic messages of thankfulness, which recepients perceive as "warm feelings."

Kindori

Origin: Spelljammer
Classification: Celestial (5E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (5E)
Alignment: Unaligned

80-foot-long, starfaring whales who are among the largest creatures found in Wildspace.

Blinded by the Light: When threatened by a foe they can't defeat by bludgeoning with their tails, kindori can blast them with light from their multiple eyes, blinding the threat so the space whale can escape.
Giant Corpse World: A kindori's bones and cartilage don't deteriorate after death, allowing the creature's skeleton to be converted into a macabre spaceship with a spelljamming helm.
Sapient Cetaceans: Downplayed; at Intelligence 6, they're smarter than ogres, but they don't have a language and live as animals.
Space Whale: They're also known as such, though they're distinct from terrestrial cetaceans for having six eyes and lacking mouths (they sustain themselves by absorbing starlight). Kindori are hunted by the likes of star dragons and krajen, as well as humanoids seeking their meat for consumption or to be rendered into oil. Some "savage" starfaring races domesticate kindori as mounts, even establishing farms or livestock herds on their backs, but the creatures are maddened by efforts to install a spelljammer helm upon them.
Turtle Island: Kindori are large enough to create their own air envelopes, allowing mosses and molds to develop on their hides. The creatures take care to keep their light-absorbing bellies clean by scraping them against one another, but their lack of concern about their backs can cause small ecosystems to develop around kindori, attracting smaller space life like scavvers, which the kindori might tolerate so long as the creatures don't go after their young. Some kindori may even have ruined structures or howdahs left on their backs after a time spent domesticated, while old or sickly kindori can be identified by the overgrowth of vegetation on them.

Ki-rin

"I was awed to tears at the mere sight of my first ki-rin, and I've met gods." — Volothamp Geddarm

Classification: Magical Beast (3E), Celestial (5E)
Challenge Rating: 29 (3E), 12 (5E)
Alignment: Lawful Good

Wise and noble creatures that share their wisdom and blessings with mortals, roaming the world in search of good-hearted people to reward and evildoers to punish.

Beauty Equals Goodness: They are as majestic as they are virtuous.
Fertile Feet: A ki-rin's very presence has numerous positive effects on the region surrounding its lair. These include such things as purifying nearby water sources, supressing the effects of poisons and diseases, and stimulating the growth of non-evil plants and animals.
Hermit Guru: Some ki-rin settle down in a difficult-to-reach spot like a forbidding mountain, offering their wisdom to those with the gumption to reach them. A few ki-rin end up attracting a following of monks this way.
Kirin: Ki-rins are intelligent, celestial beasts with golden scales and manes, and coppery hooves and horns, though their exact appearance can vary — some resemble huge stags or horses, others have draconic features, some have one or two horns, others have a full set of antlers. All can fly by simply galloping on the air, and spend most of their lives high in the sky.
Knight Errant: Other ki-rin spend their lives traveling the world in search of wrongs to right.
Made of Good: They are living embodiments of the concept of good.
Omniglot: Like most celestials, ki-rin can speak every language.
Telepathy: They can also communicate telepathically.
White Mage: A 5th edition ki-rin has the spellcasting abilities of an 18th-level cleric, allowing it to cast powerful healing spells like mass cure wounds and true resurrection.

Kir-lanan

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/d&d_kir_ianan_3e.png

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E), Shadow Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E), 4 (4E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: Chaotic Evil (3E), Evil (4E)

Also called black gargoyles, the godless or stalkers, these murderous winged humanoids despise the gods and any who would worship them.

Boomerang Bigot: Ironically, by 4th Edition the kir-lanan have aligned themselves with the church of Shar due to her doctrine of "ultimate dissolution," so that now this misotheist race is entirely dedicated to the goddess of darkness.
Creating Life Is Unforeseen: During Faerûn's Time of Troubles, the divine, negative energy released by the deaths of the deities Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul spawned several hundred kir-lanan, creating a new, self-sustaining race outside of normal divine influence.
Explosive Breeder: Kir-lanan are born only three months after conception, and are fully mature in just a year. Presumably the only things keeping their numbers down are attrition and the fact that they only breed according to a schedule.
Gender Is No Object: Their society is an egalitarian form of Might Makes Right — even childrearing is done by the weaker of a kir-lanan's parents.
Make Them Rot: Kir-lanan can channel negative energy to add a Life Drain effect to a melee touch attack or use ray of enfeeblement, each a few times per day. They can also rebuke undead like an evil cleric.
Mortality Grey Area: Though living creatures, kir-lanan are infused with negative energy, which means they're harmed by positive energy, blessed weapons and holy water, but healed by negative energy effects, just as if they were undead.
Our Gargoyles Rock: Kir-lanan are sometimes deemed a gargoyle variant, though this is inaccurate, and they have no relation to gargoyles other than a superficial resemblance as Winged Humanoids with fearsome visages.
The Political Officer: The kivars, or "voices," are the kir-lanan leader caste, who guide their people's campaign against the gods, extolling death and destruction, and indoctrinating young kir-lanan to hate deities as fervently as they do. Though by 4th Edition, the kivars have become more of a Sharran priestly caste.
Rage Against the Heavens: They despise the "feckless and fickle deities," and seek to destroy them by killing all who worship them. Which, on as devout a world as Toril, basically means the kir-lanan want to kill everyone else on the planet.
Scary Dogmatic Aliens: As their entry explains, kir-lanan "exist only to kill, to breed, and to learn how to become better at killing." They have no reverence for life, even their own, and are either actively slaughtering the hated "godslaves" or learning how to be better at slaughter.
The Soulless: Kir-lanan explicitly don't have souls. This means that they can never wield positive energy or advance as a cleric, druid or paladin, and it takes more powerful magic like wish or miracle to bring them back from the dead, as if they were Outsiders.
The Sneaky Guy: The valraks, meaning "eyes," are kir-lanan scouts who go about covertly observing other races, learning everything about them so that the rest of the kir-lanan can get better at killing them. They occasionally do assassinations as well.

Kirre

Origin: Dark Sun
Classification: Magical Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 13 (4E)
Alignment: True Neutral

Large feline predators who lurk in Athas' rare forests and jungles, using their superior minds and formidable physical attacks to bring down prey.

Beware My Stinger Tail: Kirre's barbed tails can deal more damage than their claws.
Crafted from Animals: Their horns make for natural spearheads or can be carved into ornate daggers, while the spikes on their tails make for good arrowheads or darts.
It Can Think: Kirre can be smarter than ogres, and 4th Edition elaborates that they're intelligent enough to identify potential prey's weapons, equipment and health, and adjust their hunting tactics accordingly. Sometimes they stalk and spook prey into acting rashly, other times kirre patitently wait until victims are weakened from exposure and dehydration. They're even willing to adopt other intelligent creatures as packmates, hunting alongside the likes of halflings, half-giants and gith.
Psychic Powers: 2nd Edition kirre have an array of psionic abilities, such as levitation, psionic crush and life detection.
The Speechless: Despite their intelligence, kirre can't speak, and lack any psychic power of communication.
Vertebrate with Extra Limbs: They resemble green-furred, eight-legged, horned tigers or lions, and use those many claws to rake foes in combat.
Weird World, Weird Food: Kirre meat is "some of the finest on all of Athas," much sought after by hunters.

Knell Beetle

Classification: Vermin (3E)
Challenge Rating : 5 (lesser), 10 (standard) (3E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Giant instects that have been mutated by exposure to magic, allowing them to both weaponize and be healed by sonic energy.

Big Creepy-Crawlies: They have wingless, beetle-like bodies that are four to nine feet long.
Feed It with Fire: They're healed by sonic damage, and are just smart enough to aim their sonic chimes at each other when fighting in groups.
Horse of a Different Color: Hobgoblins, some orc tribes, and various Underdark races have domesticated knell beetles, forming cavalry units that can knock opposing soldiers off their feet.
Make Some Noise: The oversized, bell-like protrusion on a knell beetle's head can chime once per day to emit a cone of damaging sonic energy.
Power Pincers: They attack with their wicked claws in melee, and should both hit a single target, knell beetles automatically rend their foe for additional damage.
Shockwave Stomp: Knell beetles can channel sonic energy through their legs as they rhythmically pound the ground beneath them, which can knock adjacent creatures off their feet. If multiple knell beetles work together, the effected radius around each beetle grows proportionally larger.

Kobold

Classification: Humanoid (3E, 5E), Natural Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 1/4 (3E, 5E), 1 (4E)
Playable: 2E-5E
Alignment: Lawful Evil

Small draconic humanoids often found in the service of dragons, or in warrens protected by clever traps. See the Playable Races subpage for more information about them.

Kopru

Origin: Mystara
Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 6 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Degenerate aquatic humanoids feared for their ability to mentally dominate others.

Cthulhumanoid: Koprus have four tentacles on their faces, leading some sages to suggest that they might be an amphibious relative of the dreaded illithids. Fortunately, koprus lack "extract brain" or Mind Blast attacks.
Fantastic Racism: They despise all intelligent air-breathing races, and view humans as little more than brutes to be toyed with and dominated, but koprus hate elves in particular with a passion, since they innately resist the koprus' attempts to dominate them.
Mind Control: They can innately cast dominate person once per day in 3rd Edition, while their 2nd Edition power is even more insidious, allowing the kopru to see through its victim's senses and read their thoughts, compel them to follow the kopru's commands when necessary but otherwise act naturally, and lasting until dispelled.
Our Mermaids Are Different: They look something like merfolk, just with eel-like bodies that end in multiple barbed tails, and the torsos of Fish People with squid-like heads.
Prehensile Tail: Koprus can grapple and constrict foes with their tails.
Vestigial Empire: Evidence suggests that the koprus once ruled a great civilization beneath the sea, but for the past generations they've fallen into a terminal downward spiral into barbarism. The koprus' ancient cities lie in ruins, still containing exotic treasures but also twisted marine life. Koprus often live in caves near their cities, but the reminders of how far they've fallen only make them embittered.

Korred

Classification: Fey Humanoid (4E), Fey (5E)
Challenge Rating: 8 (4E), 7 (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Shy, satyr-like underground fey with an affinity for stone and truly fantastic hair.

Dishing Out Dirt: Korreds can hurl boulders far larger than it seems they should be able to, shape stone as though it were clay, swim through rock, and summon earth elementals and other creatures.
He Was Right There All Along: Korreds can blend in with stony surroundings, gaining advantage on Stealth checks in rocky terrain.
Involuntary Dance: Korreds hold weekly holidays in which they play flutes, harps and drums while dancing merrily. While other fey such as satyrs and dryads are welcome to join the festivities, others who interrupt the korreds' dance have to make a saving throw or be swept up in it themselves, taking a bit of damage every round until the korreds flee or restrain them, otherwise the interloper will literally dance themself to death.
Magic Hair: When a korred's hair is cut, it transforms itself into the same material as the cutting tool. Korreds traditionally cut their own hair with iron shears, weave their cut hair into iron wire, and craft it into snares. This trait has unfortunately led dwarves or treasure-hunters to seek out korreds to take advantage of their mutable hair.
Volo: There's a legend about a merchant who tried to cut a korred's hair with golden shears. The korred fed him those shears, from his swallow to his sitter.
Prehensile Hair: A variant; korreds can animate a rope of their hair and make it grapple and restrain a target.
Super-Senses: Beyond boasting darkvision and tremorsense out to an impressive 120-foot range, korreds are said to be able to sniff out veins of metals or gems, and easily spot any secret doors in a dungeon.

Krajen

Origin: Spelljammer
Alignment: Unaligned

40-foot-long squidlike space monsters, which prey upon the likes of dragons, kindori, and starships.

Bizarre Alien Reproduction: They reproduce via clouds of spores, which a spelljamming ship and its crew can sail through without noticing, only for the spores to take root in the hull and grow into something that looks like a barnacle, albeit one that can defend itself with a retractable tentacle. After spending two months feeding upon a ship's hull, space rock, or a large space creature, a juvenile krajen detaches, grows its secondary tentacles, and starts hunting, growing ever larger.
Giant Squid: In Space Though unlike a conventional squid, a krajen's body is dominated by a thick central tentacle, supplemented by secondary tentacles.
Horse of a Different Color: Rumor has it that a group of barbarous humans have found some alchemical means of taming krajen, using them to raid the spacelanes with the help of lifejammers purchased from the arcane/mercane.
Monstrous Cannibalism: Adult krajens show no hesitation in consuming a spaceship that has young krajen barnacles attached to it, while mobs of juvenile krajens will cooperate to attack their fully-grown kin, but only one member of such groups will survive to grow to adulthood.
The Paralyzer: Their sentries, or secondary tentacles, are tipped with a paralytic poison that can leave victims helpless for up to 30 rounds, allowing a krajen to focus on enwrapping and crushing a starship with impunity before finishing off its crew.

Kraken

^3e

Classification: Magical Beast (3E), Aberrant Magical Beast (4E) Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 12 (3E); 10 (sea), 25 (astral) (4E); 14 (juvenile), 23 (adult) (5E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Immense, tentacled terrors of the deep.

Art Evolution: Krakens got a major makeover in 5th edition, where they go from being Giant Squid to finned, scaly vertebrates with tentacled hindquarters.
Giant Animal Worship: Krakens occasionally accrete cults of humanoids awestruck by the monsters' immense power and anxious not to find that power directed at themselves. Krakens pleased with their worshippers reward their flocks with clam seas and plentiful fish harvests, although they do not ultimately except them from their schemes to ruin all things.
Giant Squid: For most of their history, krakens have tended to resemble colossal squids with tentacles thirty feet long. 5th edition bucks this trend, portraying them as vertebrate monsters with hind ends ending in tangles of tentacles.
Kraken and Leviathan: Immense, tentacled monsters that slumber in the deep, emerging only to ruin civilizations.
Our Titans Are Different: In 5th edition, krakens have the titan tag. This edition reimagines them as creatures created by the gods themselves to fight their wars, only for the krakens to desert their divine masters once those wars ended.
Shock and Awe: 5th edition krakens can call down lightning bolts whenever they please, striking up to three creatures at a time. A kraken can also electrify the water of its lair to shock any creatures swimming in it. Even in death, a kraken's electrifying powers persist: tendrils of electricity will lash out at anything which disturbs the creature's final resting place.
Supernaturally Marked Grave: The 5th edition sourcebook Ghosts of Saltmarsh states that dead krakens leave behind a supernatural stain on the seafloor called a kraken's grave. Anyone or anything which swims too close to a kraken's grave risks disturbing it and getting shocked by the kraken's residual magic.
Tentacled Terror: Evil, scheming cephalopods who rule over populations of enslaved humanoids trapped beneath the sea.
Touched by Vorlons: 5th edition krakens can imbue people with supernatural powers, turning the recipients into loyal kraken priests. Krakens can also serve as warlock patrons.
Underground Monkey: 4th Edition includes astral krakens, a stronger variant found in the Astral Sea.
Weaksauce Weakness: 5th edition Krakens are notably one of the highest CR monsters not to have either the Legendary Resistance^note or Magic Resistance^note traits. Because of this, despite their impressive base stats, it's a lot easier than you might expect to impose negative status effects on them.
Weird Beard: Their 5th edition art shows them with a "beard" made out tentacles.

Krathbairn

Origin: Forgotten Realms
Classification: Outsider (3E)
Challenge Rating: 7 (3E)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Malicious humanoids that blend draconic and fiendish traits.

Beware My Stinger Tail: Theirs does additional acid damage.
Bioweapon Beast: In their home setting, these creatures were created by the priests at the Altar of Scales as part of a bargain with the brown dragon Slavin'krath'magaal, in which they agreed to infuse her with fiendish power in exchange for eggs they could use to create a draconic army (hence the creatures' name, krathbairn, or "Krath's babies").
Enemy Summoner: Like extraplanar fiends, they have a chance to be able to summon another of their kind.
Fast Tunnelling: Rather than wings, krathbairn have aerodynamic scaled bodies that let them burrow through sand and earth as fast as a human can run.
Hybrid Monster: They're Draconic Humanoids infused with fiendish power, giving them an immunity to fire and poison, resistance to acid and cold, Damage Reduction that can only be overcome by good- or law-aligned weapons, and the ability to see in even magical darkness. However, all that concentrated evil makes them vulnerable to Holy Water.
Magic Knight: Krathbairn are dangerous in close combat, but also have an array of potent spell-like abilities they can use at will — animate dead, charm person, disguise self, scare, and more. They actually prefer to use these powers to disrupt and distract opponents, and only engage in melee combat if given no other choice.

Krenshar

Classification: Magical Beast (3E), Natural Beast (4E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (3E), 4 (4E)
Alignment: Unaligned

Carnivores that use their unnatural control over their faces to spook their prey.

Attack Animal: Krenshars can be domesticated to serve as guard beasts and companions, though as social animals, they'll grow depressed in isolation to the point where their facial skin tightens, preventing them from pulling it back to scare opponents. Even if kept healthy and happy, krenshars like to playfully jump out and surprise their masters as often as possible; said masters attribute numerous gray hairs to this behavior.
Mix-and-Match Critters: Krenshars physically combine the worst features of a wolf and hyena, while their behavior is that of a big cat.
Skull for a Head: The skin on the krenshar's head is so flexible that they can pull it back as a standard action, revealing the skull and musculature underneath. Mechanically this is treated as an attempt to Bluff during combat in order to scare an opponent, and normally a krenshar uses this ability to flush prey into an ambush.
Supernatural Fear Inducer: If a krenshar combines its skull-revealing face with a loud screech, the result is a supernatural effect replicating the scare spell.

Kruthik

"Other creatures that abide in hives serve a purpose in the natural world. Bees pollinate flowers. Termites make earth out of wood. Kruthiks, by contrast, slay societies. Perhaps that function is just as necessary." — Mordenkainen

Classification: Magical Beast (3E), Natural Beast (4E), Monstrosity (5E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (hatchling), 4 (adult), 6 (greater) (3E); 2 (hatchling, young), 4 (adult), 6 (hive lord) (4E); 1/8 (young), 2 (adult), 5 (hive lord) (5E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil (3E), Unaligned (4E-5E)

Insectoid-reptilian creatures that live in large, dangerous swarms.

Acid Attack: A kruthik hive lord can spray digestive acid from its maw.
Bioweapon Beast: In Nentir Vale, they were created by the tiefling empire of Bael Turath to be living siege engines. They proved impossible to control, however, and escaped into the Underdark when Bael Turath fell.
Crafted from Animals: Kruthik chitin, when properly treated, can be used to make strong and lightweight shields and armor.
It Can Think: Kruthiks are driven by instinct, but at least some hive mothers are capable of planing and strategy. In the 4e comic, one asks Tisha (a tiefling, whom she recognizes as her creators) to take care of her spawn, as the mother is dying.
Mix-and-Match Critters: In-universe, they are hybrids of insect and drake.
Non-Malicious Monster: They are Unaligned starting in 4th Edition, reflecting that they act on instinct alone with no true malice intended. Mordenkainen ponders if maybe their purpose in the natural order is to end civilizations.
You Kill It, You Bought It: When two swarms meet, their leading hive lords battle to the death while the rest watch. The winner devours the loser's corpse and then takes control of its swarm.

Kuo-toa

Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E), Natural Humanoid (4E), Humanoid (5E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E), 12 (4E), 1/4 (5E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Insane fish-men who live in the Underdark and obsessively worship whatever catches their eye.

Clap Your Hands If You Believe: In 5th edition, the kuo-toa are constantly inventing new gods. If enough of them believe in a given god, that god becomes real, manifesting then and there as a Physical God.
Evil Smells Bad: The air around a kuo-toa always stinks of rotten fish.
Expy: Kuo-toas are fish-like humanoids that lurk in half-sunken settlements and keep great knowledge of ancient, forgotten evils slumbering beneath the sea. It's not difficult to see how these guys were inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's own Deep Ones.
Fish Person: They resemble a humanoid cross between a frog and a particularly ugly fish, are naturally amphibious and live in settlements straddling the shores of underground seas.
Infectious Insanity: Centuries of inbreeding and the cruel regime of their patron deity has given kuo-toa a racial tendency towards madness, which can spread through their communities like a disease. A kuo-toa who suddenly snaps during a religious rite or the stress of everyday life can inspire homicidal outbursts in its neighbors, so a special caste called Monitors closely watches a settlement's population for any signs of madness, and exiles those whose sanity begins to break. These crazed kuo-toa fend for themselves on the settlement's periphery and act as the first line of defense adventurers will encounter. In other cases, kuo-toa clerics, called Whips, will imprison insane kuo-toa in dungeons beneath the temples of Blibdoolpoolp, ready to unleash them upon any trespassers. The maddened howls of these prisoners add a unique flavor to religious services.
See the Invisible: Kuo-toa have otherworldly senses which let them detect the presence of nearby invisible-slash-ethereal creatures.
Shock and Awe: A pair of kuo-toa priests can work together to create powerful electric shocks.
Sticky Situation: Kuo-toa coat their shields with their own alchemically-treated secretions, allowing them to catch any blows with the glue-covered shields and potentially disarm opponents.
Touched by Vorlons: In their 5th Edition backstory, they were initially captured by illithids and tortured to insanity with psionic energy. This is why they are able to literally create their own gods through sheer force of belief.
Weakened by the Light: The kuo-toa have spent ages living in the lightless depths of the Underdark, so sunlight — or any bright light, really — bothers them a great deal.

Kuo-Toa Leviathan

Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E), Natural Humanoid (4E)
Challenge Rating: 15 (3E, 4E)
Alignment: Lawful Evil (3E), Evil (4E)

Kuo-toa blessed by Blibdoolpoolp may grow into 20-foot-tall titans, lording over entourages of their smaller kin.

Adaptational Dumbass: 3E kuo-toa leviathans are in fact highly intelligent, while 4E turns them into Dumb Muscle.
Combat Clairvoyance: The blessing of the sea mother gives leviathans a sixth sense that allows them to evade blows, even when caught flatfooted — only physically immobilizing them negates it.
King Mook: They're giant-sized versions of standard kuo-toa, venerated for enjoying their goddess' favor, and they have some combat abilities their smaller kin lack.
Retcon: 4th Edition presents kuo-toa leviathans as those who have grown "overwhelmed by crippling madness," which somehow causes them to mutate into giant, feral monsters. Rather than being revered by other kuo-toa, such leviathans are used as beasts of burden or warbeasts.
Super-Scream: In 4th Edition, a bloodied kuo-toa leviathan can let out a scream that deals both thunder and psychic damage.
Swallowed Whole: They can swallow anything smaller than them in a single bite.

Kyrie

Origin: Dragonlance
Classification: Monstrous Humanoid (3E)
Challenge Rating: 2 (3E)
Playable: 3E
Alignment: True Neutral

Reclusive birdfolk who venerate nature and distrust outsiders.

Arch-Enemy: In their home setting, the kyrie are embroiled in a Hopeless War with the minotaurs of Mithas and Kothas — the kyrie raid minotaur caravans and mining villages, killing ruthlessly and stealing food (especially wine) and weapons, while the minotaurs retaliate by assaulting kyrie aeries and making soup of their eggs.
Better to Die than Be Killed: They fight to the death rather than let themselves be taken prisoner.
Bird People: Kyrie have humanoid faces and torsos, but plumage covering their bodies, birdlike legs ending in taloned feet, and arms that double as wings. Their movements are quick and jerky, and they have birdlike habits like immediately turning their heads towards noise or cocking their heads when confused. According to legend, they were once bird-adoring humans transformed into a partially-avian race by the goddess Chislev.
Hidden Elf Village: The kyrie live in small communities atop high mountain peaks or in the side of sheer cliffs, inaccessible to non-flyers. When not at war they pursue a "delicate and poetic lifestyle," passing the time by musing on philosophy, communing with nature, and composing "avian-inspired melodies." But they're deeply suspicious of outsiders and quick to assume the worst about them, and will fight furiously should anyone trespass in their territory.
Wandering Culture: On Krynn, the kyrie used to live a nomadic existence, making decades-long circuits of their home islands, but were reliant upon a magical navigation aid called the Northstone. Then the minotaurs stole that Northstone, stranding the kyrie on Mithas for a time until it was recovered, and now the birdfolk are claiming the Blood Sea Isles as their own.

Kython

Classification: Aberration (3E)
Challenge Rating: 1 (broodling), 3 (juvenile), 5 (adult), 8 (impaler), 11 (slaymaster), 13 (slaughterking) (3E)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Eyeless horrors that combine fiendish, reptilian and insectoid features, kythons are wholly evil creatures that exist only to propogate themselves and prey upon everything else. The result of Fiends trapped on the Material Plane trying to make more of themselves, they now spread like wildfire... or a particularly lethal bug infestation.

Armless Biped: Kython broodlings have no arms, and scurry about looking something like a two-legged, eyeless crocodile.
Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Kythons only defer to more powerful creatures, so their current rulers are their slaughterkings, who are also among the largest of their kind.
Bioweapon Beast: An unintentional case; kythons arose when a group of fiends stranded on the Material Plane attempted to magically create more of their kind. The results weren't loyal to their creators, but were just as evil as the fiends, and so are sometimes known as earth-bound demons.
Dash Attack: Kython impalers have retractable spikes of hardened bone they can extend from their palms, and like to charge at foes with those bone-spikes lowered to deal heavy damage.
Diverting Power: An organic example; a kython slaymaster or slaughterking can generate enhanced defenses for itself, boosting its Armor Class and spell resistance, or inflict penalties to attacks, saves and checks on all non-kythons around it. The catch is that using either of these abilities cuts the kython's blindsight by 30 feet, so if it activates both at the same time, it's effectively blind.
Evil Evolves: The original kythons were mere broodlings, which proceeded to mature into more varied forms. Previously the slaymasters ruled kython nests until the slaughterkings began to appear, and given time, a more powerful and specialized kython form is likely to develop.
Expy: The result of Monte Cook wishing to use Warhammer 40,000's Tyranids in D&D.
Horde of Alien Locusts: Kythons exist only to eat and increase their numbers, which combined with their general appearance, habit of evolving into more powerful forms, and penchant for organic weaponry, makes them resemble the Tyranids.
It Can Think: Kythons are no mere beasts, and even their broodlings are about as intelligent as the average human. They make good use of their organic weaponry, and speak a pidgin of Abyssal and Infernal, but only to each other — they have no interest in conversing with prey.
Metamorphosis Monster: As a kython ages, it starts as an armless broodling, grows forelimbs as a juvenile, then loses its tail, grows an extra set of limbs, and fully develops an exoskelton as an adult. Most kythons remain in that form, but some continue to mature into more specialized shapes.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Upon reaching adulthood, kythons grow an additional set of arms, and are capable of using all of them in combat, either slashing with them or utilizing their organic weaponry.
No-Sell: Kythons are immune to acid and cold damage, and resist fire and electricity.
Organic Technology: Kythons can lay eggs that develop into biological weaponry rather than broodlings, ranging from additional armor plating, or swords and crossbows made from bone and cartilage, to more esoteric things like acid- or mucus-sprayers.
Poisonous Person: Kythons have poisonous bites and, in their youngest stages, tail sting attacks. Through their juvenile stage the attacks deal Constitution damage, but from adulthood on it's Strength damage instead. This poison grows more virulent with age, and slaughterkings are unique in being able to spray it as a ranged touch attack.
Snake People: Kython slaymasters seem to regress back to their juvenile stage in a sense, as they become Large aberrations with snakelike lower bodies rather than legs. They're also fully capable of enwrapping and constricting smaller creatures with their tails.
Super-Senses: Though eyeless, kythons have blindsight out to 60 feet.
Xenomorph Xerox: Aside from being based on Warhammer 40,000's Tyranids who are themselves Xenomorph copies, they also default to following and protecting the biggest, baddest Kython around, just like Xenomorphs and their Queen.

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