D&D General I hate this figure......arghhh!

[GuyBoy]

Now for a real beast....

This mini (or maxi ‘cos he was a giant) was a Real Partha giant, retailed under the name of Hecatron.....and, boy, would he have been a great receiver for Detroit!
But to me, he is Gror, and represented my first real attempt to customise a monster according to a figure. It was around 1981. I was 17 and had put the party through the G series and into the D series.
Snurre was dead, Obmi’s treachery uncovered, Asberdies had been laid to final rest and Eclavdra had fled to Erelhei Cinlu, her plans in tatters.
But she had Gror!

I decided that she had taken Snurre’s young son to her home some years previously as a hostage, but had seen potential in the young fire giant and had him trained in the best drow battle strategy.
He was a fire giant, but I added ranger levels ( TWF with morning star and gauntlet) and drow spell resistance. That resulted in massive hit points (for 1E) and the damage potential of several howitzers.

When Valon the Patriarch, Celetan the Wizard, Lord Octavian, Shirthoth the Fox (who was a thief if you hadn’t guessed) and the other fighter whose name I forget, but had lost a hand to Snurre’s sharpness blade, finally entered the sunless vault of Erelhei Cinlu, Gror was waiting for them.....

And Celetan cast disintegrate, and overcame spell resistance and I rolled a 1 on the save....and it was 1E

Nice miniature though.

 

[Voadam]

Sometimes your PC's hand is cut off by an NPC's magic sword. Sometimes your PC makes it through all the magic resistance and saving throw to disintegrate a huge customized bad guy on round 1.

 

[Lyxen]

Really nice story, and lost of nostalgia for all these names and adventures.

 

[GuyBoy]

Sometimes your PC's hand is cut off by an NPC's magic sword. Sometimes your PC makes it through all the magic resistance and saving throw to disintegrate a huge customized bad guy on round 1.

And of course, Celetan the Wizard and Gror-disintegrator, was played by none other than Dave, the DM of the small troll/ halfling with baguette which featured in the original post!
Come to think of it, I’m sure the disintegrate spell left a faint afterscent of tobacco as the dust settled........

 

[Mad_Jack]

Now for a real beast....

I still own that guy to this day.
Of course, now he's barely an ogre, lol.

 

[GuyBoy]

So, this friendly fellow is a bugbear from Essex Miniatures c1979/80:

Now my default is that I like bugbears, pumpkin-headed or goblinoid. They are a good foe for low level groups, with more of a danger edge than orcs or gnolls.
But, my school acquaintance and sometime DM, Justin, had a few of these and it’s Essex Miniatures brethren; from memory, there were three alternate sculpts.
Picture the scene. It’s 1980, school holidays. The D&D club have organised a sponsored 24 hour D&D session for charity, from 10am till.....well, I’m sure you can work it out.
As an aside, I later went on to be a headteacher (school principal for US readers) and there is NO WAY I could have ever allowed a bunch of students to be locked in the school overnight playing D&D. Charity or no charity.
As another aside, schools at night are creepy places as they carry the “ghosts” of liveliness and noise, and this creates a strange atmosphere. Even more so at the one I attended, which dated back to 1549. We should have played CoC really!

Anyway, enough asides and back to bugbears in general and this bugbear mini in particular.
It was 2am. Justin was DM. I was playing a paladin called Roland the Defender ( guess I had a bit of a Roncevaux thing going). Simon ( see Klarg and the pointed stick and the sister post) was a barbarian, and there were three other players.
Enter the bugbears attacking a caravan. Fair enough, we fought the bugbears. Enter more bugbears. We fought them. We then progressed to a nearby ruined keep, which was held by a group of....you guessed it....bugbears. We defeated them.
Having secured the ruins, we then had to defend it from a group of....ogres? gnolls? bandits? Nope....bugbears.

Roland the Defender was fast becoming known as Roland the bugbear slayer. Simon had dozed off. Someone else had made a Pot Noodle. We had overdosed on bugbears. The ghosts of all those who had died in the school since 1549 were emerging from the walls to eat our souls. There were more bugbears approaching. One of the preceding sentences is a lie.

I still hate this figure. There is definitely such a thing as too many bugbears.