Four Wendigos for D&D

Someone on Quora had asked How would you stat a wendigo in D&D 5e?

And I kept thinking there were already stats for a Wendigo, or something like it. But digging through, the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition official sources, I couldn't readily find them. So, with minimal research and a little brainstorming, came up the ideas below.

Wikipedia says of wendigos:

The wendigo is described as a monster with some characteristics of a human or as a spirit who has possessed a human being and made them become monstrous. Its influence is said to invoke acts of murder, insatiable greed, cannibalism and the cultural taboos against such behaviors.

...

Basil H. Johnston, an Ojibwe teacher and scholar from Ontario, gives a description of a wendigo:

The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash-gray of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody ... Unclean and suffering from suppuration of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption.

In Ojibwe, Eastern Cree, Westmain Swampy Cree, Naskapi, and Innu lore, wendigos are often described as giants that are many times larger than human beings, a characteristic absent from myths in other Algonquian cultures. Whenever a wendigo ate another person, it would grow in proportion to the meal it had just eaten, so it could never be full. Therefore, wendigos are portrayed as simultaneously gluttonous and extremely thin due to starvation.

The Wendigo is seen as the embodiment of gluttony, greed, and excess...

Portrayal of the wendigo also appears in some stories of the Cthulhu mythos as a singular powerful, otherworldly giant under the alternate name of Ithaqua.

Madness

Any way you cut it, wendigo is a horrifying phenomena, experienced in desperate or isolating circumstances, so this would probably be as good a reason as any to break out the 5th edition madness rules.

Saves Difficulty

Even those not suffering the wendigo affliction may be horrified by it.  Resisting madness requires rolling either a Charisma or Wisdom save (whichever is better).  The difficulty is determined by the circumstances:

• DC 5 - First time seeing ominous evidence left behind by any wendigo.

• DC 10 - First time seeing carnage of ominous evidence left behind on a massive scale.

• DC 10 - Seeing a single member of the wendigo species or seeing Ithaqua in the far distance.

• DC 15 - Seeing a an afflicted or gluttonous wendigo, or a group of individuals from the wendigo species.

• DC 20 - Seeing Ithaqua any closer.

Consequences

On a failed save, the results depend on the type of encounter:

• Evidence Only - If the check fails, roll short term madness. Whether the save is failed or succeeds, you don't need to make it again.

• Wendigo Species - If the check succeeds, you don't need to roll it when witnessing members of the species again.  If the check fails, roll short term madness, and you will need to make the check again next time the species is encountered, but the worst you can get is a short term madness.

• Gluttonous or Afflicted Wendigo -  If the check succeeds, you don't need to roll it when witnessing this type of wendigo again.  If the check fails, roll short term madness, and you will need to make the check again next time the species is encountered. Failing a second check gives you a long term madness. Failing a third check grants an indefinite madness.

• Ithaqua - Roll three saves at the same time for short term, long term and indefinite madness.  Each one that succeeds prevents you from having to roll it again. Each one which fails will have to be rerolled during later encounters.

When choosing the exact type of madness experienced, only use results which make sense given the circumstances.

Four Wendigos

Rather than build completely new creatures from scratch, for the sake of simplicity, my preference is to find the existing, standard types of creature from the Monster Manual, and just reskin and alter them slightly to fit the concept.

So, in the case of wendigo, I can see maybe four ways to go with this:

Afflicted Wendigo

This is basically an outbreak of spiritual or physical illness. During a famine or prolonged cold snap there is a small chance someone in an isolated community will spontaneously succumb to the temptations of wendigo hunger if a prepatory ritual is not performed.

The person so afflicted changes in appearance to become a gaunt, boney creature with hungry eyes. In this form the affliction is possibly communicable through one of two routes (accounts differ):

• Anyone who is bitten by a wendigo and survives must make a DC 15 Constitution save the next time they take a long rest or become a wendigo.

• Witnessing a wendigo eating, or the aftermath of the meal causes observers to make a DC 10 Wisdom save the next time they make a short or long rest if they have not eaten in 24 hours.

A ritual known to most people living in the area who have the religion or arcana skills can be used to automatically succeed these checks.

The afflicted wendigo has the same stats as a ghoul.

Gluttonous Wendigo

One can become a wendigo through sheer greed and appetite. Such wendigo retain their human appearance, but in cold months may transform at will into a semi-human monster which stalks isolated members of the community hosting them and eating of their flesh. Fear of an undetected gluttonous wendigo in their midst can cause a community to turn on itself.

Gluttonous wendigo have the stats of a werewolf with the following differences:

• No wolf form, only human and monstrous semi-human. The monstrous form is not really wolf-like, but a larger reflection of the human form, at the same time gaunt and strong.

• No susceptibility to silver. But usually locals with the religion or arcana skills can ritually prepare a weapon capable of harming a gluttonous wendigo.

Wendigo Species

The wendigo species is similar to bigfoot or the yeti. They have white fur in the winter and mottled fur in the summer giving them superior camouflage in their natural environments.

Members of the wendigo species have never been known to speak, but seem able to understand each other’s intentions, possibly through subtle shifts in posture. They normally avoid humans and are very hard to spot, always traveling stealthily even when in plain sight. It is not known if they fear humans or merely find them distasteful. However, in the worst winters when all other plant and animal life is unavailable to feed on do they seek out humans as food instead.

Wendigo of this sort are statted out as bugbears, with the following variations:

• They only use wood, stone, or bone weapons, or claws (2d4+2) when fighting.

• As long as they are traveling in winter conditions or in forest or prairie environments, they are treated as always having the ranger abilities Vanish and Hide in Plain Sight active without expending any effort to do so.

Ithaqua (Mythos Wendigo)

A singular entity from a distant star who sometimes dwells among the colder regions and seasons of this world. This wendigo is one of the Great Old Ones, who can be killed but does not truly die over the span of strange eons. Rarely encountered up close, it is almost always seen in the midst of bitterly cold winds: a vastly huge, gaunt figure walking in the distance.

It is rumored that there are those who foolishly worship Ithaqua and sacrifice their fellows in return for the gaunt one’s favors. These boons may include one or more of the following:

• The worshiper is transformed into an afflicted wendigo. This most often happens to those who are desperate.

• The worshiper is transformed into a gluttonous wendigo. This most often happens to those who are greedy, cunning, and amoral.

• The worshiper becomes a warlock with Ithaqua as their patron. This most often happens with those who feel some true sympathy with Ithaqua itself, or hunger for power. Ithaqua tends to grant immunity to cold as well as other cold and hunger themed spells and powers.

Stats for Ithaqua are those of an ancient white dragon. Ithaqua does not have wings but seems somehow able to walk on the wind despite it’s enormous giant-like physique. The being also appears capable of interstellar or interplanar travel through unknown means.