D&D 5E How would you update the gargoyle?

[Tony Vargas]

I have an upcoming homemade adventure that contains gargoyles. They aren't central to the adventure or anything like that but it got me thinking about gargoyles in general. I find the gargoyle to be a tired schtick in D&D. Every statue on a building has players immediately assuming they are gargoyles (even when it rarely turns out to be one).

Gargoyles could be a manifestation of fear. The elemental spirits of the statues could as easily be dispensers of helpful advice or beneficial magic or benign guardians, but because they're viewed with jaded fear & suspicion, they come to life with violent malevolence.

What changes would you make to the gargoyle to give its story a refresh which may or may not inform new mechanics for it? Looking for some inspiration here!

I'm clearly not alone in liking Hawk's idea of the inhabiting spirit. It could be an elemental spirit from the plane of earth, and you could base variant gargoyles on the adjacent para-elemental planes - when they inhabit a statue, it takes on the secondary element, so they're more obvious.

For that matter, you could combat gargoyle paranoia by letting the characters come across a bit of knowledge that lets them positively ID gargoyles or a magic item, a gem that you look through, for instance, that reveals the true nature of stonework (thus gargoyles, and golems and caryatid columns &c, and magical walls of stone vs conventional masonry, etc).

 

[Markn]

Good stuff all!

Tony Vargas, I think your idea meshes well with Hawk's suggestions.

 

[LordEntrails]

I like two inspirations/thoughts on the gargoyle concept;
1) I like the cartoon mentioned. Used to watch it on occasion and like the concept
2) Why do gargoyles have to be evil? In real human history, they were not (that's why they are found on churches!)

So, some might be evil, some might not be. I like that gargoyles may have a ecology all there own. Maybe they aren't crafted, maybe they aren't born. Maybe they are created when a powerful guardian is destroyed (humanoid or otherwise) and somehow it's soul is converted into a gargoyle (that maybe it can transfer statues, maybe it can't), but whatever the case, it is a guardian of some sort. (Of a place, a royal bloodline, a artifact, a ???)

As to how do you address paranoid murder hobos who think every statue is a gargoyle or golem? Well, the same way you deal with them thinking every door and hallway is a trap. Use them sparingly.

 

[ad_hoc]

Make them like the Gargoyle cartoon from the 80's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjI0TdvVbqI

It ran from 94-96.

Nothing like 80s cartoons.

 

[Guang]

It ran from 94-96.

Nothing like 80s cartoons.

Seriously? My memory is getting odder all the time. Still a fun show tho.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Seriously? My memory is getting odder all the time. Still a fun show tho.

The '90s brought us a lot of great cartoons that were significantly better than those of the '80s in art and story. Batman the Animated Series, X-Men, Gargoyles, etc.

 

[steeldragons]

Something I've done for years is allowed them to shapeshift.

DM/me: "You see a large humanoid statue of a creature with bat wings and a single horn coming out of..."

Whole party: "GARGOYLE! Blunt weapons! WE SMASH THE STATUE TO BITS!"

So, after doing THAT a few dozen times, they can make themselves look like a statue of ANY roughly humanoid form.