Dungeons & Dragons Reveals Its Version of the Slender Man

A new preview of Dungeons & Dragons' next book gives fans a sneak peek at a horrifying new monster that lives inside an invaluable magic item. The latest issue of Dragon+ magazine went live earlier this week, giving D&D fans plenty of new material to page through. One of the central features in the new issue is a sneak peek at Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, the upcoming campaign setting guide that fleshes out the horrifying world of Ravenloft. The new preview provides a detailed look at the bagman, a new monster to Dungeons & Dragons inspired by creepypasta and "fakelore."

The bagman was conceived by F. Wesley Schneider and Shawn Wood, who were looking for a D&D equivalent of the Slender Man. According to Schneider, they were looking for "a terror that has always been there—always been right in the background—but that you never noticed. A being close to home for D&D adventurers, and one who once they know about it, they can't un-know about it. The genie's out of the bottle. The threat's always there." You can check out concept art for the bagman as drawn by concept artist Stephen Oakley below:

The bagman is a creature that lives inside a bag of holding, an invaluable magic item that players use to store all of their loot and gear. The bag of holding allows players to carry an almost limitless amount of treasure with them at all time and bypasses encumbrance rules. The bagman hides inside a bag of holding and comes out at night, committing atrocities and attacking resting players at random. The bagman even has the ability to pull a player character inside the bag of holding, which is a potentially deadly attack given that living creatures can't survive inside a bag of holding for more than a few seconds.

While the magazine article didn't provide much details about the bagman's stats, it did note that the creature has ways of getting around the bag of holding's restriction on holding live creatures and it has a very high Stealth modifier so that it can slip in and out of the bag without being noticed by a player on watch.

The bagman seems like a perfect menace to low-level parties and could provide a lot of fantastic character moments both in and out of Ravenloft.

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft will be released on May 18, 2021.