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Krakens are gargantuan monstrosities who mainly live underwater.[1]

Description[]

Kraken, who inhabits the vicinity of the rift between the Elemental Plane of Water and Vesrah, has seven or more tentacles and a gleaming yellow eye.[2]

Abilities[]

All Krakens are immune to lightning damage, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons, and frightened, paralyzed conditions.[3]

  • Amphibious: The kraken can breathe air and water.
  • Freedom of Movement: The kraken ignores difficult terrain, and magical effects can't reduce its speed or cause it to be restrained. It can spend 5 feet of movement to escape from nonmagical restraints or being grappled.
  • Siege Monster: The kraken deals double damage to objects and structures.
  • Tentacle: Deals 3d6 + 10 bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 18). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained. The kraken has ten tentacles, each of which can grapple one target.
  • Bite: Deals 3d8 + 10 piercing damage and if the target is a Large or smaller creature grappled by the kraken, that creature is swallowed, and the grapple ends.[4] While swallowed, the creature is blinded and restrained, it has total cover against attacks and other effects outside the kraken, and it takes 12d6 acid damage at the start of each of the kraken's turns. If the kraken takes 50 damage or more on a single turn from a creature inside it, the kraken must succeed on a DC 25 Constitution saving throw at the end of that turn or regurgitate all swallowed creatures, which fall prone in a space within 10 feet of the kraken. If the kraken dies, a swallowed creature is no longer restrained by it and can escape from the corpse using 15 feet of movement, exiting prone.
  • Fling: One Large or smaller object held or creature grappled by the kraken is thrown up to 60 feet in a random direction and knocked prone. If a thrown target strikes a solid surface, the target takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it was thrown. If the target is thrown at another creature, that creature must succeed on a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw or take the same damage and be knocked prone.
  • Lightning Storm: The kraken magically creates three bolts of lightning, each of which can strike a target the kraken can see within 120 feet of it. A target must make a DC 23 Dexterity saving throw, taking 4d10 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

Legendary actions (Kraken has three legendary actions each round)

  • Tentacle Attack or Fling
  • Lightning Storm (costs 2 actions)
  • Ink Cloud (costs 3 actions): While underwater, the kraken expels an ink cloud in a 60-foot radius. The cloud spreads around corners, and that area is heavily obscured to creatures other than the kraken.[5] Each creature other than the kraken that ends its turn there must succeed on a DC 23 Constitution saving throw, taking 3d10 poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. A strong current disperses the cloud, which otherwise disappears at the end of the kraken's next turn.

Lair actions (On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the kraken takes a lair action to cause one of the following magical effects):

  • A strong current moves through the kraken’s lair. Each creature within 60 feet of the kraken must succeed on a DC 23 Strength saving throw or be pushed up to 60 feet away from the kraken. On a success, the creature is pushed 10 feet away from the kraken.
  • Creatures in the water within 60 feet of the kraken have vulnerability to lightning damage until initiative count 20 on the next round.
  • The water in the kraken’s lair becomes electrically charged. All creatures within 120 feet of the kraken must succeed on a DC 23 Constitution saving throw, taking 3d6 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.[6]

History[]

Krakens are ancient beast who were once guided by the titans until Exandria was claimed by the gods.[7]

Prior to 811 PD, the last generation of waveriders of Vesrah found out that krakens are the true source of lodestones, which they need to contain the rift to Elemental Plane of Water and to keep the city aflout.[8] Around this time, one such monstrosity named Ulugrah made the vicinity of the rift their home, which increased lethal outcomes of the expeditions seeking lodestones.[9] Many waveriders or Ashari completing their Aramenté are tasked with challenge to collect them but few return.[10]

According to Uvenda, Vilya reached the Water Ashari tribe in 806 or 807 PD for her final part of the Aramenté.[11]. With the help of her traveling companions, she set out to retrieving several lodestones from within the Water Elemental Plane. However, the kraken killed all of her companions in the process,[12] with Vilya miraculously escaping through another rift leading to Rumblecusp.

Campaign One: Vox Machina[]

Episode-88-Vox-Machina-vs-Kraken-by-Hugo-Cardenas

Fan art of Vox Machina versus the kraken, by Hugo Cardenas.[art 2]

In 811 PD Vilya's daughter, Keyleth, arrived with her friends to complete the Aramenté herself, and receiving a task similar to that of its predecessor: retrieve three lodestones without killing Ulugrah.[13] They ended up fighting it anyway, an intense battle in which the kraken had the upper hand and managed to hold off the adventurers (even killing Vax'ildan, albeit only temporarily; as well as swallowing Grog Strongjaw multiple times). However, Vox Machina managed to pass the test, escaping the Elemental Plane of Water (though not all at once or by the same means) and leaving Ulugrah alive, although with several severed tentacles.[14]

It is said that one century later Ulugrah the Requisite still lives, and boasts of its "victory" against Vox Machina to anyone visiting its lair, although no one dares to travel there to check if that's true.[15]

Between Campaign One and Campaign Two[]

Between the defeat of the Chroma Conclave and 836 PD a kraken from the Shearing Channel, mutated by the residual power that Tharizdun left in the ocean while being pursued by Pelor, has been haunting the region, mutating sailors, ships, and sea creatures into terrible abominations, and causing the clouds over the channel to rain thick, ichorous black droplets; apparently this powerful monstrosity has been gathering an army for some kind of attack.[16][17]

Sometime before 836 PD (if the rumors are true) the famed paladin sailor Shirkuh Marín outran a juvenile kraken in the Shearing Channel as well.[18]

References[]

  1. See D&D: Monster Manual, 5th ed., pp. 196–197.
  2. See "Tangled Depths" (1x88) at 2:27:09.
  3. See D&D: Monster Manual, 5th ed., p. 197.
  4. See "Tangled Depths" (1x88) at 2:57:04.
  5. See "Tangled Depths" (1x88) at 3:10:00.  Vox Machina was under the effect of Heroes' Feast, making them immune to the poisonous aspect of the cloud
  6. See "Tangled Depths" (1x88) at 3:41:08.
  7. See "Onward to Vesrah" (1x87) at 3:25:35.
  8. See "Onward to Vesrah" (1x87) at 3:24:07.
  9. See "Curious Tides" (1x89) at 1:06:26.
  10. See "Tangled Depths" (1x88) at 1:58:18.  Entring the rift, VM found "hundreds of bones and various other chunks of flesh" behind
  11. See "Tangled Depths" (1x88) at 59:26.  "five or four" years before 811 PD
  12. See "Onward to Vesrah" (1x87) from 3:28:30 through 3:29:39.
  13. See "Tangled Depths" (1x88) at 0:13:38.
  14. See "Tangled Depths" (1x88) at 5:21:30.
  15. The Chronicles of Exandria - The Legend of Vox Machina Volume II, p. 60.
  16. See Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, p. 48.
  17. See Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, p. 74.
  18. See Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, p. 174.

Art:

  1. Depiction of a kraken, by Christopher Burdett from D&D: Monster Manual, 5th edition, page 196. This page contains unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Wizards of the Coast Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.
  2. Fan art of Vox Machina versus the kraken, by Hugo Cardenas (source). Used with permission.
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