good ideas everyone. I have to admit giving ink to underwater gargoyles makes me giggle so it will most likely happen.
will go over the other feedback when I have time.
Diet
Despite their imposing physiques and reputation as aerial ambush predators, gargoyles have surprisingly varied — and deeply symbolic — diets. Unlike most mundane creatures, gargoyles eat not to sustain flesh, but to
stabilize the humours and emotions that bind their living-stone bodies together. Their feeding habits reveal their origin, temperament, and potential threat to the unwary.
Three Modes of Gargoyle Feeding
1. Structural Nutrients (Primary Diet)
Gargoyles consume
minerals, dust, mortar, and residue from stone or metalwork. They eat not by chewing but by pressing their fanged maws into the surface and “wicking” in particles through alchemical capillaries.
Typical staples include:
- weathered brick
- masonry dust
- iron flakes (for rune-bearing gargoyles)
- volcanic stone (energetic or aggressive clans)
- compressed detritus (gum, tar, lichen, bird droppings)
This is why gargoyles thrive on:
- old temples
- fortress walls
- ancient ruins
- cliffside monasteries
- crumbling mage towers
Their environment
literally feeds them.
2. Emotional Nutrients (Secondary Diet)
Born from architecture shaped by belief, fear, or grief, gargoyles feed on
ambient emotions that saturate their birthplace. This is not vampirism — more like emotional photosynthesis.
Typical emotional flavors:
- Reverence & awe (cathedral gargoyles)
- Anxiety & urgency (military fortress gargoyles)
- Curiosity & dread (medical grotesques)
- Melancholy & abandonment (ruin-born ferals)
- Triumph & spectacle (arena gargoyles)
In high-emotion places (battlefields, coliseums, disaster sites), gargoyles may grow faster, molt new plates, or awaken additional subspecies traits.
3. Prey Consumption (Supplemental, situational)
Gargoyles
can eat biological creatures, but it is not strictly required. When they do:
- They extract bone minerals
- Absorb emotional residue at death
- Gain a temporary surge of humor energy
Feral variants — especially ruin-born gargoyles — incorporate traits of what they kill, gaining:
- sharper claws (from manual predators)
- camouflage stone patterns
- hollowed rib-vents to imitate predatory growls
Most gargoyles, especially civilized clans,
avoid eating sapient beings, seeing it as wasteful or sacrilegious.
Behavior & Social Structure
Gargoyles are paradoxical creatures—part sentinel, part predator, part philosopher. Their behavior is shaped by the
architecture that birthed them, but all gargoyles share a handful of universal instincts:
to watch, to guard, and to endure. These instincts run so deep that many sages claim gargoyles are less a “species” and more a
living expression of vigilance made stone.
Despite their grim facade, gargoyles show a surprisingly broad emotional range when studied over time. They are capable of loyalty, stubbornness, territorial pride, and even a form of humor that manifests through deadpan stillness and perfectly timed movement (or lack thereof).
Their behavior differs dramatically depending on whether they are awake or in Stone-Repose.
Stone-Repose Behavior
When a gargoyle enters its daily Stone-Repose (either triggered by sunrise, sunset, or some other architectural resonance), its instincts shift to pure sentry-mode:
- They freeze in whatever posture best suits the structure’s aesthetic.
- They stop breathing but continue sensing through tremors, flow of air, and faint magical vibrations.
- They do not dream, but they absorb impressions—chants echoing through a cathedral, screams in a dungeon, footsteps of invaders.
Over centuries, this shapes their personalities into
echoes of the lives around them, creating gargoyles that emulate priests, jesters, warriors, scholars, or the traumatized.
Awake Behavior
When fully awake, gargoyles are:
Cautious Observers
Gargoyles rarely speak first. They prefer to:
- Watch intruders from high vantage points.
- Whisper silently to each other via subtle stone-clicks.
- Move only when sure of their environment.
This stillness often unnerves mortals; they are
too silent,
too motionless when watching.
Purpose-Driven
A gargoyle always has a central
obligation, usually inherited from its birth-structure. Examples:
- Cathedral gargoyles feel compelled to guard the pious or repel “corruption.”
- Fortress gargoyles act as sentries and living battlements.
- Medical grotesques obsessively observe anatomy, mutation, or “unwholesome growth.”
- Ruin-born gargoyles feel duty-bound to protect their shattered home, often long after its people are dust.
This can lead them into conflict with adventurers who accidentally trespass on their perceived mandate.
Fierce but Calculated Combatants
Contrary to their brutish appearance, gargoyles are
patient hunters.
When battle is unavoidable, they prefer ambush, misdirection, and battlefield control.
Common tactics:
- Stillness Ambush: Remain statue-still until the enemy is directly beneath them.
- Vertical Drop: A classic—plummet from above to grapple and drag prey upward.
- Fragment Feints: Break off parts of themselves and hurl them to distract or mislead.
- Chorused Movement: Several gargoyles move at once, but never in a predictable rhythm.
Some move only when unseen, circling prey through blind corners or shifts in light.
Social Structure
Gargoyle society varies wildly by origin, but several structures appear again and again across cultures and worlds.
Clans
The most common social unit is the
clan—a group of gargoyles originating from the same building or region, bound by shared “humor-imprint.”
A clan typically consists of:
- Elders (the most ancient)
- Sentinels (patrol leaders)
- Youths (recent awakenings or nascent stone)
- The Heartstone — the immobile core or “egg-chamber” that all gargoyles feel compelled to protect
Clans live communally, sharing memory through:
- Stone-touch exchanges (melding fingertips to transfer impressions)
- Humidity humors (temporary psychic link through shared breathing of dust)
- Tremor-speak, a language of micro-vibrations
Territoriality
Gargoyles are territorial but not expansionist.
They do not seek conquest or land—only
guardianship.
A gargoyle considers territory to include:
- Its birthplace
- The sky above it
- Any structure it has chosen to defend
- Any people or groups it has “adopted”
This can create conflicts when:
- Adventurers explore ancient ruins
- Archaeologists “steal their history”
- Rogue mages attempt to harvest magical stone
- Criminals use their buildings as hideouts
- Royal edicts repurpose structures they were sworn to protect
Gargoyles will fight bitterly not for land, but for
purpose.
Personality & Emotional Range
Gargoyles exhibit:
- Dry humor (usually in the form of perfect stillness or dramatic pauses)
- Fierce loyalty (once earned, they consider allies part of the structure they protect)
- Intense curiosity about mortals
- Long memory, holding grudges for centuries
- Protective instincts, even toward those who fear them
They are not naturally evil; even monstrous gargoyles are usually acting according to
twisted purpose, not malice.
Inter-Clan Relations
Gargoyle clans rarely war with each other—buildings seldom feud—but political tensions arise when:
- Two structures claim the same territory
- A city treats one building with reverence and another with neglect
- A clan becomes corrupted by a cursed architect or malignant humor
- One clan believes another has abandoned its sacred purpose
These conflicts tend to be quiet, subtle, territorial cold wars, fought in shadows and rooftops rather than battlefields.
Gargoyle, Ruin-Born (Feral)
Medium monstrosity (gargoyle), chaotic neutral
Armor Class 15 (natural armor)
Hit Points 52 (8d8+16)
Speed 30 ft., climb 30 ft.
STR |
DEX |
CON |
INT |
WIS |
CHA |
15 (+2) |
14 (+2) |
15 (+2) |
7 (–2) |
12 (+1) |
6 (–2) |
Saving Throws Dex +4, Wis +3
Skills Stealth +6, Perception +3
Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
Damage Immunities poison
Condition Immunities exhaustion, petrified, poisoned
Senses darkvision 90 ft., tremorsense 20 ft., passive Perception 13
Languages understands Terran and Common but can’t speak
Challenge 4 (1,100 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +2
False Appearance (Rubble)
While the gargoyle remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from fallen stones, cracked masonry, or debris.
Creatures have
disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) or Intelligence (Investigation) checks to identify it, unless using dwarven
stonecunning, which negates the disadvantage.
Ambush Predator
The first time the gargoyle hits a creature that hasn’t acted yet in combat, the target takes an additional
7 (2d6) slashing damage.
Skitterstep
If the gargoyle ends its movement adjacent to a wall, pillar, or broken structure, it may use a bonus action to
Hide by flattening its body into a bas-relief shape.
Ruin-Born Ferocity (Recharge 5–6)
As a bonus action, the gargoyle enters a territorial frenzy for 1 minute:
- Gains advantage on attack rolls against creatures within 5 ft. of a wall, ruin, or structure.
- Its movement does not provoke opportunity attacks while climbing or moving among rubble.
Actions
Multiattack
The gargoyle makes
two attacks: one with its
Bite and one with its
Claws, or two Claw attacks.
Bite
Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 6 (1d8+2) piercing damage.
Claws
Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 7 (1d10+2) slashing damage.
Rubble Pounce
If the gargoyle jumps or falls at least 10 feet straight toward a creature and then hits it with a Claw attack on the same turn, the target must succeed on a
DC 12 Strength saving throw or be knocked
prone as the feral gargoyle lands atop it with crushing stone weight.
Reactions
Rubble Skitter
When a creature within 10 ft. misses the gargoyle with an attack, it may move up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks, but must end this movement adjacent to a wall, ruin, or debris.
Role in the World
Ruin-born gargoyles form from
sites of abandonment, collapse, or ancient betrayal. They are the most animalistic of the kind—territorial ambush hunters that thrive in crumbled fortresses, toppled towers, burned-out keeps, deep chasms, and forgotten cities reclaimed by vines and dust.
They rarely speak, but communicate with other gargoyles via
clicking stone language and rhythmic tapping across architecture—echoes that only other gargoyles perceive.
Where Cathedral-Born are guardians, Ruin-Born are
stalkers and
weepers—sad, hungry products of places that were broken long before adventurers arrived.
