Swamps are a classic adventuring environment for the heroic journeys of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons. Whether it's a tribe of monstrous humanoids, the lair of some terrible beast, or a remote cottage deep in the bog, there's no shortage of won🍌derful tropes to choose from when your adventuring party decides to trek out into the wilderness of an inundated quagmire.

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Dungeons & Dragons: 13 Be💟st Monsters For A One-S🥃hot

These monsters are perfect for a D&D one-shot.

Whatever the location, you're going to need to fil꧟l it with your selection of interesting and multi-faceted monsters. Thankfully, the Monster Manual and subsequent monster books are filled with all kinds of terrifying bogeymen pe𓆉rfect for a dastardly morass. Let's take a look at the best of them, ordered by challenge rating.

Updated on February 9, 2025, by Alfredo Robelo: The 2025 Monster Manual has added plenty of creatures for players to use in a wide variety of settings, from underground caves to vast jungles. If you're looking to add some spice to your swamp, we've updated this article to include a few new toys from the latest Monster Manual.

11 Stirge

Dungeons & Dragons image showing a swarm of stirges.
Art by John Tedrick

When visiting a swamp in real life, you won't be dealing with monstrosities or giant creatures (at least, we hope you don't), but you will have to deal with bugs, and mosquitoes in particular. Stirges are a great way to represent these annoying bugs, attaching themselves to their♏ target and dealing damage at every turn.

The 2025 Monster Manual adds a new kind of stirge, or rather, a lot of them grouped together: the swarm of stirges. The swarm works similarly to the individual stirge, only that when so many of the creatures latch on to you, you get the grappled condition as youꦛr life is constantly being depleted.

10 🥀 Yuan-ti Ma༒lison

Dungeons & Dragons image showing two yuan-ti malisons.
Art by Brian Valenzuela

The yuan-ti group, in general, are a great set of creatures to populate a swamp with. They work as great 𒅌antagonistic forces representing the worst you could find in a swamp, making deals with shady gods to gain monstrous forms, often terrorizing the communities that might live n💖earby.

Of all the available yuan-ti of the 2025 Monster Manual𝓰, the malisons are the most varied. They come in three distinct variants: with a snake's bottom half, a snake's head, or snakes for arms, with each having their own strengths that the players will need to figure out during combat.

9 Haunti🍸ng Revenant

Haunting Revenant art showing a townhome with an evil face glowing from within.
Haunting Revenant by Cristi Balanescu

One thing your players might be looking for while in a swamp is shelter since having a long rest out in the dampness doesn't sound particularly nice. If you want to give them a nasty surprise, the haunting revenant is here to assist you since it is literally 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a house trying to kill your players.

Even if the party can tell that something is up with the house, the revenant can use Invitation to force them inside, trapping them and attacking them with random items. You can even populate the house with other creatures, such as animated armors, and have them be a part of the revenant as well꧅.

8 Bullywug

Dungeons & Dragons image showing four bullywugs.
Bullywugs by Warren Mahy 4th Edition D&D

Bullywugs are brutish f🌠rog-men that aren't necessarily the most powerful enemies you might encounter in a swamp, however, they're the perfect monsters for a low-level party or a hoot of a social encounter. These toady talkers believe themselves the masters of swampy terrain despite their rather meager strength.

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What they lack in individual brawn, though, they make up for in numbers. Bullywugs enjoy nothing more than making a show of their dominance of the fen to visitors, captive slaves, and trespassers alike. In fact, they prefer to capture intelligent enemies so that they might✱ have a chance at displaying their grandiose baubles and "noble" nature stolen from other, more well-to-do societie🎐s. It can also be quite easy to socially manipulate these creatures, which may just provide your players with a hilarious conversation.

7 ✃ Lizardfolk

Lizardfolk charges into battle with pirates elven archers behind him from Dungeons & Dragons.
Ghosts of Saltmarsh by Sidharth Chaturvedi 

Where bullywugs are all bark and no bite, lizardfolk are the opposite end of the spectrum. These crafty muck-dwellers rarely interact with other species due to their predisposition fo🐽r cannibalism. Lizardfolk will eat just about anything, and ꦦthat very much includes people who wander into their territory.

Th🉐ey are also simple crafters well-versed in primal technology such as making shields out of large shells, armor out of pilfered bones, and weapons from sharpened stones and spare teeth. Lizardfolk are prone to taking prisoners just like bullywugs, however, they usually do so in order to prepare a gre𝓰at feast or ritual sacrifice to one of their serpentine gods. These tribal reptiles also revere Dragons and will do anything they can to enter the employ of such powerful creatures, which they will then often worship as avatars of their gods or even gods in their own right.

6 Guard Drake 🎐

Blue and green reptile dogs from Dungeons & Dragons.
Guard Drake by Wizards of the Coast

Guard Drakes are created through a ritual that involves fresh meat, a cauldron, and a number of chromatic dragon scales. These aggressive creatures function as🤡 guard dogs for more intelligent servants of Dragons and are often bestowed upon a Dragon's servants as a sort of reward for loyal service.

Just like dogs, Guard Drakes are obedient to their masters. This is the perfect monster to include alongside a tribe of Lizardfolk or Bullywugs that has fallen into the employ of a Dragon. The presence of Guard Drakes in one🦩 of these cꩲommunities is a great method of foreshadowing a much more terrifying enemy.

5 Green Hag

The green hag art for Dungeons & Dragons.
Green Hag via Wizards of the Coast

The Green Hag is the stereotypical 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:witch in the woods from popular tales like Hansel and Gretel. They are masters of deception and even have the ability to disguise th🥀eir appearance as something much more friendly than their true nature. However, the popularity of this trope often leads many players to see through their schemes much faster than you might prefer.

Nonetheless, the Green Hag is an absolute classic and very much worth using in any swamp environment you develop. This hag also has a great get-out-of-jail-free card in her ability to turn invisible at will and hide any evidenc💟e of her travel while invisible. A Green Hag that's attacked by a suspicious party and manages to escape will no doubt hold a grudge and begin plotting her revenge immediately.

4 ♓ Shambling Mound

Shambling Mound plant devours man from Dungeons & Dragons.
Shambling Mound by Wizards of the Coast

Arguably the first truly dangerous enemy on this list, Shambling Mounds are extremely deadly in combat thanks to their ability to engulf enemies and suffocat🐻e them within their brambles. These masses of detritus are formed by errant lightning bolts that strike strange plant life and give them a facsimile of lifeꦡ as well as a penchant for spreading death.

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Shambling Mounds are especially powerful against any party that likes to use ligh🔥tning damage, as any lightning damage dealt to them will heal them for the damage dealt. They are also resistant to cold and fire damage, which are some of the most popular damage types in the game. Their one weakness lies in the🐽ir incredibly slow speed; however, most players will fail to take advantage of this, especially after one of their allies gets engulfed.

3 🐷 Catoblepas 🎃

Catoblepas dinosaur cow with clubbed tail from Dungeons & Dragons.
Catoblepas via Wizards of the Coast

As dangerous as the Shambling Mound sounds, the Catoblepas is a bit more threatening due to its obscurity, animal nature, and ability to instantly kill opponents. This amalgamation of cattle, dinosaurs, and mythical b💟east blights any land that it spends time in by its very presence.

Catoblepas are like evil cows, created to punish anyone who ever considered cow-tipping to be an acceptable pastime. Their tails end in large clubs like that of an ankylosaurus, 𝕴which is capable of stunning even the heartiest foes. Their hides are filled with so much rot and disease that merely standing next to🍃 one has a chance to poison you. Worst of all, their mere gaze is capable of stopping your heartbeat in a second.

2 Hydra

Dungeons & Dragons image showing a Hydra as a many headed snake.
Hydra by Wizards of the Coast

The Hydra is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a famous monstrosity from mythical tales a💙cross all kinds of cultജures. This many-headed serpent has access to as many attacks as it does heads and can quickly make short work of anyone unfortunate to get too close to it.

Even if y꧟ou do manage to cut off one of the Hydra's heads, two more will grow to replace it unless the creature takes fire damage. The Hydra also regains hits points when this happens, providing it with an extra measure of vitality that will catch unassuming opponents completely off-guard. Hydras are always hungry, which makes them voracious predators that will hunt down anything that comes across their path. They are also natural-born swimmers with enough instinct to make use of this advantage over land-dwelling folk.