D&D General Gargoyles need to be redone.

[Corinnguard]

What we need are a series of articles about various creatures explaining where they fit into the local ecology. You know, their behavior, habitats, treasure, etc., etc.

One problem with creating an ecology for a particular monster is how often you would have to update it every time a 3pp or WoTC introduced a new monster in their latest 5e supplement.

 

[dave2008]

Nobody ever uses them beyond a speed bump, and honestly, I'd rather play a gargoyle over an aarakocra as a pc.

so here's a quick brainstorm.

so here's my thoughts.

Gargoyles are sentient, ambulatory stone organisms sculpted from the architecture of faith, fear, or memory. They “grow” from places of emotional or mystical pressure and share traits of their parent structures:

• A gargoyle born from a cathedral spire has holy echoes, stained-glass veins, and gliding wings.
• One grown from a medical college’s parapet might have grotesque anatomical symbolism and parasitic humours that act like mutagens.
• A gargoyle formed from the ruins of a fortress becomes a warlike block of stratified battlestone, built to endure sieges.

They are simultaneously living sculptures and biological stones, deeply influenced by place, myth, and era.

Inspirations are:

• Disney's Gargoyles (clan structure, gliding, stone sleep, protectiveness)
• Medieval medical grotesques (anatomical exaggerations, symbolic organs, parasitic “humours,” alchemical symbolism)
• Princestons’ Gothic redesign (angular silhouettes, baroque armour-stone, cathedral-as-anatomy)

***************************************

Does this work, and do we want more?

Otherwise, how would you change them and how?

Though I too have a fondness for Disney's "Gargoyles," and they once featured as 2nd only to dragons in my game world, I definitely do not think the "need" to be redone.

In fact, I would go further and say they shouldn't be redone. Now, if you want to create a new creature or class of gargoyle that mimics the Disney version absolutely. But I see no reason to so thoroughly change 50 years of D&D tradition. Just make something new that follows the model you want.

 

[MGibster]

One problem with creating an ecology for a particular monster is how often you would have to update it every time a 3pp or WoTC introduced a new monster in their latest 5e supplement.

I call that job security!

 

[Tonguez]

But I see no reason to so thoroughly change 50 years of D&D tradition. Just make something new that follows the model you want.

Including Margoyles, Guardgoyles, Grist, Stone Lions and Grandfather Plaques there have been something like 30 different kinds of Gargoyle in D&D tradition, each of them different from the others.
If the people involved are having fun, I see no reason not to make another

 

[dave2008]

Including Margoyles, Guardgoyles, Grist, Stone Lions and Grandfather Plaques there have been something like 30 different kinds of Gargoyle in D&D tradition, each of them different from the others.
If the people involved are having fun, I see no reason not to make another

I agree - that is what I said. Don't redo, make another!

 

[Corinnguard]

@Shades of Eternity is having a moment of Bardic Inspiration.

 

[Brendan Byrd]

Though I too have a fondness for Disney's "Gargoyles," and they once featured as 2nd only to dragons in my game world, I definitely do not think the "need" to be redone.

In fact, I would go further and say they shouldn't be redone. Now, if you want to create a new creature or class of gargoyle that mimics the Disney version absolutely. But I see no reason to so thoroughly change 50 years of D&D tradition. Just make something new that follows the model you want.

If I understand you correctly, you object to calling them "gargoyles" because it would cause confusion with the D&D "canon" version?

Do you have a new name that you could recommend?

 

[Corinnguard]

In fact, I would go further and say they shouldn't be redone. Now, if you want to create a new creature or class of gargoyle that mimics the Disney version absolutely. But I see no reason to so thoroughly change 50 years of D&D tradition. Just make something new that follows the model you want.

It is quite possible to have a setting where these Gargoyles exist, and the canonical version doesn't exist. The OP is following the trope, "Our Gargoyles Are Different."

 

[CleverNickName]

My gargoyles are stone golems with a Fly speed and Multiattack (2 claws, 1 bite).

Speed bump, indeed.

 

[Corinnguard]

In the World of Warcraft MMORPG, some Gargoyles were called the Stoneborn. So, if a name change is needed for the gargoyles, here's a name that they could be called and still stick with @Shades of Eternity 's ideas for the species.

Stoneborn

The stoneborn, also known as gargoyles, are winged stone constructs who serve the venthyr of Revendreth as soldiers and guards.

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