Sunday, March 8, 2015

Stirges



HD 1
AC as chain when flying, as unarmored when attached
Blood drain (1d4 + 1 con damage + attach)
Fly as bat
Morale 6
# Appearing 2d6
Special: If a stirge sucks the blood of someone affected by a potion, they also gain the benefits of that potion.  Drinking a potion while a stirge is attached to you also confers that benefit to the stirge.
Special: The bite of a stirge is painless.  Sleeping characters should make a wisdom check to awaken whenever they take damage from a stirge bite.

Attached monsters:
  • Automatically hit on subsequent attacks.
  • Can be pulled off with a Str check.
  • When killed, damage in excess of their HP rolls over onto the PC.
Stirges look like fibrous leeches or slugs or tongues.  They are the size of two fists, except they have a row of caterpillar legs on the bottom and a pair of slimy bat wings on the back.

They spend most of their time resting in on cavern walls or in crevices, where they spread their membranous wings on the stone around them for stability.  In this way, they look like a stringy nodule of fungus, or a ball of worms.  (And are often misidentified by dungeon neophytes.)

like this

They hunt through their subterranean territories in large flocks, but they also spend a great deal of time sleeping on walls or amid stalactites (noise wakes them up). 
Stirge nests look like an inside-out clam.  Fleshy folds that trap moisture, built around a calcified shell, porous with tunnels and sinuses.  In the center of every stirge nest is 2d6 juvenile stirges (harmless, lacking teeth and wings) and a mass of black jelly.

The black jelly is dungeon honey.  If eaten, a dose of dungeon honey heals as a potion of cure light wounds, but also causes 1 point of Con damage.

Encounters (d6)
  1. A chupacabra (HD 3) with a shepherd's crook.  Behind him, he pulls a stirge nest on cart wheels, which contains his semi-tame flock.  He has taught them to squirt harvested blood into his mouth.  On his back is a jar with 1d6 doses of dungeon honey.  He desires trade with morlocks; he covets their jewelry.
  2. Bloodless corpse whispers a warning before a flock of stirges billows out from beneath her clothing and attacks.  Her name was Blanche.
  3. Lone stirge trails the party, flapping wetly.  It is hoping to lure them back to the rest of the nest (3d6 stirges).
  4. High up on the cavern wall, a group of stirges cluster, asleep.  Also in the room: something that usually requires noise to overcome, such as a rusty gate, locked glass case containing a treasure, a aggressive shadow, a pair of skeletons, or a junk barricade at the verge of collapse.
  5. A vertical shaft with something desirable at the top.  Perhaps daylight?  Stirges attack any characters halfway up the rope.
  6. Red Cloak Kiriak (Wiz 5), a goblin wizard who rides in a flying chariot pulled by stirges, surrounded by a cloud of blood.  He is a cackling pervert who goes out of his way to harm dogs and children, but is extremely friendly to fellow wizards.  In truth, his body is an empty shell, and his consciousness was transferred to his blood long ago (stats as ooze that can cast wizard spells).  He desires wine and the humiliation of warriors.
Dungeon Honey Variations (d6)
Stirges create different types of honey based on what kind of blood they've been sucking.  This might not be a random roll: when considering what type of dungeon honey is in a certain stirge hive, consider what kind of monsters are most common in this dungeon, or closes.  All forms of dungeon honey cause 1 point of Con damage.
  1. Zombie honey is shot through with glitter.  It is a dissociative, imbued with a touch of undeath.  When eaten, you become immune to emotional effects, including pain.  It also makes it impossible to read your mind.  This lasts for the rest of the day.
  2. Troll honey is rubbery like tofa.  It causes regeneration.  1 HP is regained every 10 minutes.  Lasts for the rest of the day.  It can even help you recover from 0 HP, but if this occurs, you also gain a random mutation.
  3. Orc honey is thick like wax.  Eating it causes aggression and irrationality.  Your attacks get -1 to hit and +1 damage for the rest of the day.  This stacks up to +/- 4.
  4. Goblin honey is more viscous than usual, like black mucus.  It grants darkvision for 1 hour.
  5. Dragon honey is reified greed.  This glittering black jelly with a gold sheen has no practical value, but anyone who sees it desired to possess it.  Each dose is worth a whopping 100s.
  6. Ooze honey is rich, royal crimson that encourages growth.  A child or juvenile organism that eats ooze honey will grow to be +10% taller, and will see a corresponding boost to their Strength at the expense of their mind.  (+1 Str and -1 Int, for most systems.)
Variant honey usually has effect on the adult stirges--it is only eaten by the juveniles.

6 comments:

  1. The first character to get killed in my 5e game (a white elf barbarian named Iolo) was drained to a husk by a strige swarm. Since then the rest of the party have declared a blanket kill on sight order on the little bloodsuckers.

    Good times.

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  2. I'm curious about the attached monster rules above. Did you make the 3rd point up or is it in the rulebooks somewhere? I was JUST asking about this in a forum.

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    1. Just a houserule. Probably? I have a lot of houserules that I cribbed from somewhere and then forgot about.

      The other rule I've seen for attached monsters is to split the damage between the monster and the PC, but that seems sort of fiddly to me.

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    2. Ok thanks. I was just reading the stirge description today and noticed there wasn't anything that specifically covered attacking an attached creature-or what happens if someone in the party attacks it. The whole post was great-the honey and the random encounters are both filled goodness!

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  3. Mmmm dungeon honey, an excllent reason to go into a dungeon in the first place if you ask me.

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    Replies
    1. Have you tried saying it aloud yet? It rolls off the tongue. Dungeon honey.

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