Cleon
Legend
Or no origins and let the DM decide.
"According to rumours given little account by sages..."
-
NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Finishing Off the Mimics
- Thread starter Cleon
- Start date
"According to rumours given little account by sages..."
Cleon
Legend
Shall we finish this off then.
All we need is a bit of background text. How about this. There's no mention in the original version as to whether they can talk, so I'm not sure whether to put "cannot speak" or have them speak Common like regular Mimics:
A house-sized block of stone thunders forward on solid granite rollers, a half dozen boneless limbs writhing from its sides.
Juggernaut mimics are bizarre carnivores of uncertain provenance, although they are clearly related to mimics. Most sages believe they are a relative of the greater mimic that has developed rollers to become more mobile, or possibly a "final stage" in the life cycle of the house hunter mimic. Another explanation, given little account by scholars, is that they are half-golem, half-mimic creatures created by wizards, who combine a huge living mimic with parts of a stone juggernaut into an unnatural hybrid. Regardless of their origins, juggernaut mimics are living creatures, not constructs. The secret of their origin and reproduction are unknown, no juggernaut mimic young have ever been recorded.
These monsters prefer living in firm, flat terrain, since they risk being bogged down by soft ground or tipped over by slopes. They can go for years without eating so long as they remain inactive, so can survive in wastelands with little prey.
Juggernaut mimics sometimes serve other creatures in return for treasure and abundant food. They are most commonly employed by armies as living engines of destruction, but can also be used to carry or drag massive loads. A few tyrants have used them as weapons of terror to (literally) crush rebellious villages and perform gory mass executions. The most curious example is a juggernaut mimic who worked as a trumpet musician and a foghorn.
Juggernaut mimics [cannot speak, but/can speak Common, and] can form their pseudopods into trumpets that produce roars, whistles and musical notes. These trumpets can be heard over great distances.
Combat
juggernaut mimics pretend to be a nondescript piece of scenery, such as a stone hut or huge boulder, then wait for victims to wander nearby. They then rise up on their rollers and tries to trample them. If its opponents prove too maneuverable to easily trample, the juggernaut tries to grab them with its pseudopods and then stick them to its crushing rollers using its natural adhesive.
All we need is a bit of background text. How about this. There's no mention in the original version as to whether they can talk, so I'm not sure whether to put "cannot speak" or have them speak Common like regular Mimics:
A house-sized block of stone thunders forward on solid granite rollers, a half dozen boneless limbs writhing from its sides.
Juggernaut mimics are bizarre carnivores of uncertain provenance, although they are clearly related to mimics. Most sages believe they are a relative of the greater mimic that has developed rollers to become more mobile, or possibly a "final stage" in the life cycle of the house hunter mimic. Another explanation, given little account by scholars, is that they are half-golem, half-mimic creatures created by wizards, who combine a huge living mimic with parts of a stone juggernaut into an unnatural hybrid. Regardless of their origins, juggernaut mimics are living creatures, not constructs. The secret of their origin and reproduction are unknown, no juggernaut mimic young have ever been recorded.
These monsters prefer living in firm, flat terrain, since they risk being bogged down by soft ground or tipped over by slopes. They can go for years without eating so long as they remain inactive, so can survive in wastelands with little prey.
Juggernaut mimics sometimes serve other creatures in return for treasure and abundant food. They are most commonly employed by armies as living engines of destruction, but can also be used to carry or drag massive loads. A few tyrants have used them as weapons of terror to (literally) crush rebellious villages and perform gory mass executions. The most curious example is a juggernaut mimic who worked as a trumpet musician and a foghorn.
Juggernaut mimics [cannot speak, but/can speak Common, and] can form their pseudopods into trumpets that produce roars, whistles and musical notes. These trumpets can be heard over great distances.
Combat
juggernaut mimics pretend to be a nondescript piece of scenery, such as a stone hut or huge boulder, then wait for victims to wander nearby. They then rise up on their rollers and tries to trample them. If its opponents prove too maneuverable to easily trample, the juggernaut tries to grab them with its pseudopods and then stick them to its crushing rollers using its natural adhesive.
Cleon
Legend
Cleon
Legend
I believe its first appearance is in T1-T4 The Temple of Elemental Evil (Gary Gygax, 1985). There are earlier Juggernauts in X4 Master of the Desert Nomads (David Cook, 1983) and S1 Tomb of Horrors (Gary Gygax, 1978) but they're both constructs. I don't believe either makes any mention of mimics.
Hmm, you know it'd have been helpful if I'd found the T1-T4 version before we'd started the conversion. It's been so long since I've read my copy of that "supermodule" I'd forgotten there was a Juggernaut in it.
The Temple version states outright it's a Mimic relative:
JUGGERNAUT
FREQUENCY: Rare
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 2
MOVE: 1" to 12" (see below)
HIT DICE: 10 to 13
% IN LAIR: 0%
TREASURE TYPE: See below
NO. OF ATTACKS: Up to 6
DAMAGE PER ATTACK: 2-12 each
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Crush (D 10-100)
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Immune to all fire
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard
INTELLIGENCE: Animal to Average
ALIGNMENT: N(E)
SIZE: L (8-20' long)
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil
Attack/Defense Modes: Nil/Nil
A juggernaut is a creature related to the mimic, appearing as a large stone object of some sort. The creature's form always has wheels, runners, or some other source of mobility.
Just as the mimic can project a pseudopod, so can its cousin produce several growths--including slim toothy heads, pincers, rams, and so forth. It can make up to six attacks per round in this way, depending on the limits of its shape.
The juggernaut can also change form to some extent, but more slowly than the mimic. Once pseudopods are cut off or reabsorbed into the body mass, up to a month may be needed to re-grow them, again depending on their forms. Heads on pseudopods may permit the juggernaut to make noises of many sorts, and some few can even speak (though poorly).
A juggernaut with wheels or rollers cannot turn sharply or reverse directions unless it first comes to a complete halt. For every ten feet it travels it can turn about three feet; it must travel 30 feet to make a 90 degree turn. It is also slow to start. In the first round of animation it can move but ten feet per round, gaining 1" additional movement each round thereafter until its maximum 12" rate is achieved. (For example, in the ninth round of animation it moves at 9" rate.)
This ungainly movement is, of course, balanced by an additional attack form. Such a juggernaut may attack by simply rolling over a victim, crushing everything in its path. A normal "to hit" roll is made (situation permitting). If the juggernaut hits, all the victim's items must be checked vs. crushing blow. The victim takes considerable damage, a maximum of 10-100 (10d10) points if the juggernaut is large and heavy. The victim may make a saving throw vs. death ray to take half damage, but success does not negate the crushing effect on items.
Cleon
Legend
A couple of things.
Firstly, I forgot to give the Juggernaut Mimic a size and weight, so I've Updated the working draft with "A typical juggernaut mimic can change its shape to occupy a volume between 1,000 and 2,000 cubic feet (e.g. a 10 ft. cube or a block 14 ft. by 12 ft. by 12 ft.), it weighs about 50,000 pounds regardless of its shape." I made them two-thirds heavier by volume than a regular Mimic, since they're crushingly massive.
Secondly, the original Temple of Elemental Evil version of the Juggernaut is different enough that I fancy converting it as a separate monster. How's about calling it a Lesser Juggernaut Mimic, since the version we just did was partially based on the Greater Mimic?
Firstly, I forgot to give the Juggernaut Mimic a size and weight, so I've Updated the working draft with "A typical juggernaut mimic can change its shape to occupy a volume between 1,000 and 2,000 cubic feet (e.g. a 10 ft. cube or a block 14 ft. by 12 ft. by 12 ft.), it weighs about 50,000 pounds regardless of its shape." I made them two-thirds heavier by volume than a regular Mimic, since they're crushingly massive.
Secondly, the original Temple of Elemental Evil version of the Juggernaut is different enough that I fancy converting it as a separate monster. How's about calling it a Lesser Juggernaut Mimic, since the version we just did was partially based on the Greater Mimic?
Cleon
Legend
What the heck?
The Juggernaut Mimic is still listed with a Construct's d10s instead of an Aberration's d8s. I recalculated the hit points to account for the hit dice change, but forgot to put the "d8" in the stats.
The HD should be 18d8+108 (189 hp).
How could we have missed that?
EDIT: Oh, and its BAB/Grapple modifiers were missing a "+", it being "+13/31" instead of "+13/+31". I've Updated the working draft.
The Juggernaut Mimic is still listed with a Construct's d10s instead of an Aberration's d8s. I recalculated the hit points to account for the hit dice change, but forgot to put the "d8" in the stats.
The HD should be 18d8+108 (189 hp).
How could we have missed that?
EDIT: Oh, and its BAB/Grapple modifiers were missing a "+", it being "+13/31" instead of "+13/+31". I've Updated the working draft.
Last edited:
Cleon
Legend
Well I'm doing a conversion of it regardless. It's quite different from the Greater version we've done (which isn't that close to the source material).
Plus, I practically finished a conversion of it yesterday and haven't got around to posting it.
Besides, unless you can come up with any Mimic-kin we've missed I think we've run out of Mimics for this thread. The House Hunter's already been done.
Similar Threads
