Thursday, March 5, 2020

OSE Encounter Activities - Gargoyle

Rapidly encroaching on a third of the way through! I’ll celebrate with a monster I enjoy: Gargoyles.

It should go without saying to anyone familiar with them that Gargoyles can be quite a nasty encounter to spring on an unprepared party. Their stealthy camouflage among other statuary is perhaps a bit overplayed, but it’s really their immunity to non-magic weapons that can make a fight rapidly turn into flight if the adventurers lack the appropriate tools to defeat them. In some ways, they can serve as Traps/Hazards and I always give the Dwarf their due bonus in recognizing them for what they are.

Remember that they have a tongue among the canonical twenty “Other Languages,” so this almost seems to imply that they aren’t merely Constructs and possess some sort of culture. I tend to default into running them with somewhat feline tendencies for some reason, maybe it’s their propensity for ambush?

As far as their origins, I play with a few options below, but you might have more original notions. Are they hewn from stone by Magic-Users in need of territorial guardians? Perhaps Gargoyles are Elemental transients, or maybe they evolved mimesis over eons like other gotcha-dungeon-dressing monsters like Mimics? How do they reproduce? Are they particularly religious, being found near Churches and Cathedrals so often? I love monsters that make me ask questions, and sometimes it’s even more fun to leave these answers up to my players.

Here are a hundred goings on for those grimacing grotesques and hunchback hunky punks!

1 comment:

  1. I like the idea of a monster like a gargoyle being religious. Their demonic appearance would probably mean they hide from normal parishioners but perhaps the priest holds a secret night service for them in exchange for them protecting the church?

    ReplyDelete

Search

Labels

random tables (228) d100 (226) tables (161) encounters (138) OSE Encounters (133) OSE (132) magic items (20) equipment (19) dnd (17) wilderness tier (17) dungeons (15) character generation (14) monsters (14) spells (14) magic (13) wilderness (13) generators (11) house rules (11) gear (10) hex crawls (10) hexes (10) spell features (10) BECMI (9) clerics (9) rumors (9) RC hacks and house rules (8) ideas (8) dnd hacks (7) NPCs (6) advancement (6) magic users (6) classes (5) dressing (5) names (5) plants (5) resources (5) yoon-suin (5) animals (4) backgrounds (4) character sheets (4) cities (4) current campaign (4) curses (4) dragons (4) mountains (4) reviews (4) set dressing (4) settlements (4) shrines (4) team tuesday (4) 4e (3) TROIKA! (3) WHITEHACK (3) character classes (3) characters (3) dm (3) events (3) foraging (3) fourth edition (3) goblin project (3) landmarks (3) mentzer (3) rules cyclopedia (3) spellbooks (3) transcripts (3) traps (3) treasure (3) villages (3) why tables (3) world building (3) Cairn (2) Dwarfs (2) Elfs (2) ability scores (2) abstract combat (2) adventure hooks (2) armor (2) backstories (2) cantrips (2) carousing (2) clues (2) community projects (2) d&d (2) dolmenwood (2) doors (2) experience (2) food (2) forests (2) fungi (2) gods (2) gorgon trail (2) harry clarke (2) hazard system (2) herbs (2) hex crawling (2) hex-describe (2) hirelings (2) hooks (2) identifying (2) locks (2) magic systems (2) magic-users (2) magical research (2) mushrooms (2) potions (2) reagents (2) religion (2) rooms (2) saving throws (2) scrolls (2) skills (2) tex-crawl (2) toadstools (2) tools (2) weapons (2) 5e (1) DR (1) GLOG (1) KtA (1) OSR (1) PCs (1) VEINS (1) adventure seeds (1) alcohol (1) arduin (1) backpacks (1) bags (1) birds (1) books (1) boots (1) bows (1) breath weapons (1) buildings (1) camping (1) candace (1) cards (1) cartography (1) city crawls (1) cloaks (1) cold iron (1) complications (1) containers (1) corridors (1) cosmology (1) crowdsourcing (1) d12 (1) d66 (1) deities (1) dimensions (1) discoveries (1) diseases (1) dogs (1) donkeys (1) downloads (1) downtime (1) drinks (1) dungeon stocking (1) encumbrance (1) energy drain (1) fairy tales (1) familiars (1) fish (1) fishing (1) flaws (1) foibles (1) followers (1) foodways (1) fountains (1) furniture (1) future campaigns (1) game jams (1) garlic (1) gary gygax (1) gauntlets (1) gloves (1) grimoires (1) habits (1) hacks (1) hallways (1) hats (1) helmets (1) hexagons (1) hints (1) horses (1) how tables (1) identification (1) ingredients (1) initiative (1) itch.io (1) jewelry (1) keys (1) knacks (1) lore (1) magic research (1) magic words (1) magical items (1) mapping (1) maps (1) meetings (1) memes (1) mentors (1) miens (1) miniatures (1) mishaps (1) modern (1) motivations (1) mules (1) new spells (1) obituaries (1) omens (1) overland travel (1) overloaded encounter die (1) percepts (1) perchance (1) perdition (1) pets (1) pits (1) places (1) planes (1) player characters (1) poisons (1) pools (1) portals (1) pouches (1) procedures (1) process (1) projects (1) protection scrolls (1) purses (1) puzzles (1) quests (1) reaction rolls (1) religions (1) reputation (1) rests (1) rituals (1) rolemaster (1) ropes (1) ruminations (1) seafood (1) secret doors (1) shields (1) shoes (1) shopping (1) smells (1) software (1) song tables (1) sounds (1) special attacks (1) specials (1) spell casting (1) spoor (1) springs (1) statues (1) stocking (1) subsystems (1) surprise (1) swords (1) table talk (1) task resolution (1) terrain (1) the middle road (1) thief (1) thieves (1) timekeeping (1) tinkering (1) traces (1) tracks (1) traits (1) treasures (1) trees (1) turn undead (1) venoms (1) vignettes (1) voronoi (1) waterskins (1) weather (1) where tables (1) wizards (1) xp (1) ynn (1)

Blog Archive