Monster - Ogre Variants

Ogres get a bad rap.  Largest of the "normal" humanoids (not counting giants as "normal") they seem to get pushed off to the side, used either as a thuggish minion of the "big boss" monster in dungeons swarming with their smaller cousins or as more manageable minions in adventures featuring giants.  It's as though we don't know what to do with these in-between creatures.

When I was young and foolish, I had ideas.  Boss monster indeed, I thought.  What if - what if! - ogres were more than just the half-witted and overgrown orcs they're usually taken as?  They spend a great deal of time alone or in small groups - what do they do?  Where do they come from?  Who created them and why?

I didn't answer any of these questions, but I did concoct my own twisted B/X version of the Temple of Elemental Evil, from memory of a much-enjoyed game with friends and with liberal mixing from the mass-media dreck I had been consuming obsessively at the time.  That's a long and not very relevant story save to say: rather than rather gates into the elemental planes (which didn't make much sense to us in that era of D&D) I took inspiration from module B4 - The Lost City, and (without offering any spoilers for those who have never played this excellent adventure) decided that the nodes of evil were Chaos temples - and at the heart of each were creatures that had achieved unprecedented convergence with their dark, unspeakable gods.

Et voila, some new ogres were born, ever so slightly more horrible than the original:

	Grinder	Gulper	Whistler
AC	5	5	5
HD	4+1	4+1	4+1*
Move	90’(30’)	90’(30’)	90’(30’)
Attacks	2 claws(+bite)	1 weapon	1 weapon
Damage	1-6/1-6 (1-8)	By weapon+2	By weapon+2
No. Appearing	1-4 (1-4)	1-4(1-4)	1-4(1-4)
Save As	Fighter: 4	Fighter: 4	Fighter:4
Morale	10	10	10
Treasure Type	(Sx10)	(Sx10)	(Sx10)
Alignment	Chaotic	Chaotic	Chaotic
XP Value	175	175	225

	Stitcher	Blister	Rotter
AC	5	5*	5**
HD	4+1	4+1	4+1
Move	90’(30’)	90’(30’)	90’(30’)
Attacks	See below	1 weapon	2 claws
Damage	See below	By weapon+2	1-6+2/1-6+2
No. Appearing	1-4(1-4)	1-4(1-4)	1-4(1-4)
Save As	Fighter: 4	Fighter: 4	Fighter: 4
Morale	10	10	10
Treasure Type	(Sx10)	(Sx10)	(Sx10)
Alignment	Chaotic	Chaotic	Chaotic
XP Value	175+25/arm	175	225

When ogre variants are encountered, the number appearing represents the number of these mutants who might be found among otherwise normal-seeming ogres, where they serve as a (hopefully interesting, if unpleasant) surprise for cynical and world-weary adventurers.

Grinder: At first glance, these creatures appear to be fairly ordinary ogres, however those who look more closely may note that they bear no weapons – and in fact their long, wiry arms end in similarly long, hooked fingers that probably couldn’t grasp a weapon with any skill. No surprise, then, when they discover the creature’s real mode of attack.  Each round a Grinder will attack a target with its hooked claws, doing 1-6hp damage with each hit.  Should both claws hit, the beast will gather its victim into a deadly embrace, at which time its true weapon will be revealed: a wide maw filled with chisel-like teeth that have been filed down to points.  The Grinder will automatically deal 1-8hp damage to an embraced victim, and will continue to hug (dealing no damage) and “grind” (dealing 1-8) until the victim is dead or has escaped.  Note that, due to the “hook, hug, bite” mode of attack, the ogre’s traditional +2 to damage is not applied.  “Hugged” victims may attempt to escape each round: 1d6-2 is rolled for the character, with STR bonus applied, and the character escapes on a result of 6.

Gulper: There is something obviously “wrong” with this ogre on first sight – while the limbs are as muscular and corded with tendons as an ordinary ogre, the head of this beast is huge, with a wide mouth that stretches almost to divide the head in half, and blends smoothly into the shoulders and bulbous torso.  The body itself seems to ripple with excess flesh and odd, warty growths.  It seems like an obese monstrosity of an ogre, and rightly so.  While the Gulper is quite capable of fighting just as an ordinary ogre would, its favourite tactic is less savory – within that enormous maw is a long, muscular, sticky tongue.  When possible, the Gulper will fight from behind a screen of his ordinary cousins or smaller allies such as orcs or goblins  – occasionally snapping out its tongue up to 15’ to strike especially the smaller and weaker of its foes.  If hit by the tongue, the target is immediately dragged back through the battle lines to find themselves face to face with the Gulper - targets larger than a dwarf may make a save vs wands at -2 (STR bonus applies to this save instead of WIS) to resist.     On a hit roll of 20, even larger targets get no save, and dwarf-size or smaller targets find themselves drawn into the maw and swallowed whole – where they will take 1-6hp damage every round until cut from the creature’s belly.  Gulpers seem to find halflings and magic-users particularly tasty.

Whistler: Most adventurers have probably been at risk of a Whistler attack without knowing it – for they are often the source of a mysterious whistling sound in the deepest and darkest of caverns. In addition to infravision, Whistlers have the uncanny ability to function even completely blind – whether vision is obscured by magical darkness, invisibility, smoke/fog, or any other effect – with their bat-like power of echolocation.  As a result, their favourite tactic is to surprise victims in the dark, where they have a significant advantage.  This would perhaps not be nearly as effective a tactic were it not for a supernatural ability they have developed from long years in deep communion with the powers of Chaos: each Whistler is able to create magical darkness as the spell once per day.  As Whistlers are intelligent creatures, they will often coordinate their attacks with both other Whistlers and more ordinary cousins, using darkness to surprise opponents and cloak their attacks or to help their friends escape when overpowered.  Whistlers will also work together to cover larger areas with darkness, or to re-establish their advantage should their darkness be dispelled.

Stitcher: Stitcher lairs are terrible places, filled with the remains of dismembered bodies and twisted biological experiments – for this is the Stitcher’s special power: the ability to take parts of the bodies of others and graft them to their own – or others’ – bodies.  The main body of a Stitcher appears to be that of an ordinary ogre, and as such the Stitcher will usually bear some kind of weapon which it will wield in combat dealing normal weapon damage with a +2 bonus due to strength.  However, the hideous grafting power the Stitcher gains from his devotion to unnatural Chaos gods means that each Stitcher will have an additional 1-6 limbs (or other appendages) taken from victims.  These appendages provide additional attacks in addition to their grotesque appearance.  Naturally, any appendage is possible – but for convenience sake, for a sample of limbs, roll on the table below:

Roll	Appendage	Damage
1	Weapon-wielding humanoid arm	As weapon+2
2	Tentacle	Constrict 1-8/round
3	Giant scorpion tail	1-4+poison (save or die)
4	Giant crab pincer	2-12
5	Whole pit viper	1-4+poison (save or die)
6	Manticore tail (can shoot 4 spikes per round, 24 total)	1-6 each
7	Ghoul arm	1-3+paralysis
8	Weapon-wielding humanoid arm	As weapon+2

The dimmer Stitchers are likely to take the limbs of any especially powerful foe and add it to their bodies immediately , but Stitchers can swop/replace limbs given 1-4 days for the necessary “surgery” and often maintain stocks of alternative limbs in their lairs. 

Rumour has it that certain especially powerful Stitchers carefully curate their own collections and the collections of their fellows for best effect, including “utility” limbs as well as “fighting” limbs.  At least one such has managed to graft a pair of wings in addition to the usual 1-6 “fighting” limbs.  If a magic-user or cleric such as a tribal shaman is available, it may be possible for a Stitcher to work with him to develop arcane artificial limbs with entirely new abilities.

Blister: It is obvious at first glance that the Fetid has something wrong with him – head, face, arms and shoulders, chest, all are covered with a mass of growths that appear to be bubbles or blisters, mottled in various colours.  In fact, this is an infection of subterranean fungus that spreads under the heavy skin of the ogre, creating the hideous bubbling surface.  In combat, whenever the Blister is hit some of these growths burst, releasing a cloud of spores or drugged vapor.  All those in melee with the beast must save vs poison or suffer one of the following effects:

Roll	Emission	Effect
1	Spores	Grow blisters and boils in 1-6 days. -1 DEX&CHA/week
2	Choke	Overcome by coughing and sneezing for 1-6 rounds – no action possible
3	Stupor	Drugged stupor for 1-6 rounds – character’s action is always last in round despite initiative, no spellcasting, attacks at -2
4	Fear	Overcome by terror, run in random direction 1-6 rounds
5	Hallucinate	Companions appear hostile 1-6 rounds – attack closest
6	Blinding	Blinded for 1-6 rounds or until eyes are washed with wine or similar. Attacks at -4

Note that in the case of a character being infected with spores, the blisters will begin to appear in a patch of exposed skin 1-6 days later, and from that point will continue to spread until cured – eventually covering the victim’s upper body completely.  Sadly, a non-ogre body is simply incapable of properly supporting the growths and the victim will begin to suffer excruciating pain from the swollen flesh, in addition to gaining a hideous appearance as the infection spreads week to week.  These boils and blisters will emit spores when disturbed by violent impacts (eg when being driven into the wilderness by a mob of terrified villagers) but unless the infected character has a habit of eating humanoid flesh (as ogres do) the only effect of the spores will be to spread the infection to others.  When DEX reaches zero, the character will die, and if untended the body will quickly dissolve into a mound of fungal fruiting bodies that bubbles and stinks at it continues the fermentation of any organic matter that accumulates, but is otherwise inoffensive.

Rotter: As with Blisters, it will immediately be clear that there is something terribly wrong with a Rotter when it appears – if nothing else, the sickly-sweet stench of rotting flesh that fills any space containing a Rotter will be a sign of something amiss.  Once again, the powerful metabolism of the ogre comes into play – a Rotter cultivates an advanced state of decay in its hands and forearms, especially prizing a variety of cave-grub that feasts on the flesh of corpses.  The Rotter uses this rot to good effect in combat.  First, the hideous stench of rot is such that all characters entering melee with the Rotter must save vs poison or be nauseated – nauseated characters suffer -2 to attack rolls.  In addition, the Rotter will not use weapons, preferring to pummel opponents with its grub-infested, rotting fists.  Those struck must save vs poison or be infected by rot and grubs – infected wounds fester, and the blight will spread to any other wounds the character takes – this prevents all natural healing and magical healing has only half the normal effect.  Even if all damage is healed (i.e. the character is returned to full hp) the grubs and rot will merely be encysted within the characters flesh, unnoticed until the next time he or she is wounded, at which time they will burst forth with a putrid reek with similar effects.  This lasts until magically cured.

Monster - Owl Bears

Ah, the Owlbear.

Its chilling screech has sent shivers down the spine of many an adventurer – voracious, implacable, a maul of Owlbears can ravage remote farmland, depopulate entire dungeons, and yet somehow fail to accumulate anything better than treasure type C.  But then, I guess sheep and miscellaneous goblinoids aren’t known for their wealth.

When I was young and callow (as opposed to old and bitter) I decided that it was silly to presume that all the monsters in the book existed in any given setting.  This seems obvious now, but when I was 15 this was a bit of an epiphany.  In the years following my revelation, I experimented with different “ecologies” – some of which were more successful than others. 

One unsuccessful offering involved an archipelago of island states roughly like the Bronze Age Aegean…except for the alarming frequency with which numbers of huge spiders and giant toads appeared on the wandering monster tables. (I don’t really remember what I was thinking, other than that the basic idea was that the huge spiders replaced wolves and the toads were like tigers or some other big cat – ambush hunters).  That could have been a pretty awesome setting if I’d thought it through in more detail, but as it was it was just off-putting and nightmarish.  (wait...maybe it WAS awesome!)

In one of my more successful ventures, though, I ignored ogres and trolls and in every adventure there was an Owlbear instead.  After a time, it became the campaign schtick, and I developed variants on the Owlbear to the amusement and dismay of my players.  I present a small selection of the more successful strains of this glorious beast (as originally developed for a B/X campaign) for your delectation.

Delicious?  Perhaps not.  But that’s not what they think of adventurers!

(Edit: More exotic variants are available in my later follow-up post here)

	Screech Owlbear	Great Horned Owlbear	Burrowing Owlbear
AC:	5	5	5
HD:	5*	6	3
Move:	120’ (40’)	120’ (40’)	120’ (40’)
Attacks:	2 claws/1 bite	2 claws/1 bite or 1 gore	2 claws/1 bite
Damage:	1-8/1-8/1-8	1-8/1-8/1-8 or 1-10	1-6/1-6/1-6
No. Appearing:	1-4 (1-4)	1-4 (1-4)	2-8 (2-8)
Save As:	Fighter: 3	Fighter: 3	Fighter: 2
Morale:	9	9	9
Treasure Type:	C	C	C
Alignment:	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral
XP Value:	300	275	175

	Electric Owlbear	Drop Owlbear
AC:	5	5
HD:	5*	2
Move:	120’ (40’)	120’ (40’)
Attacks:	2 claws/1 bite	2 claws/1 bite
Damage:	1-8/1-8/1-8	1-6/1-6/1-6
No. Appearing:	1-4 (1-4)	2-8 (2-8)
Save As:	Fighter: 3	Fighter: 2
Morale:	9	9
Treasure Type:	C	C
Alignment:	Neutral	Neutral
XP Value:	300	175

Screech Owlbear: Like its more ordinary cousin, the Common Owlbear, the Screech Owlbear stands 8’ tall and weighs in at 15,000 cns.  Like its cousin, when both claws hit the Screech Owlbear will crush an opponent for 2-16 hp damage.  In appearance, the bear-like body is covered with downy brown feathers as usual, but the owl-like head has a larger than usual beak (with the usual wicked edge), and the owl-like eyes are large, surrounded by black and white rings that initially give it a slightly comical surprised appearance.  Below the beak, half hidden in the feathery ruff, is what appears to be a mass of fleshy wattle, and this is where the Screech Owlbear gets its name: 3 times per day, the Screech Owlbear can inflate this wattle and emit a long, shattering screech.  The special effects of the screech are felt within a cone-shaped region just as for dragon breath – those in the area of effect must save vs dragon breath or be stunned for 1d6 rounds and deafened for 1d6 turns.  Stunned characters cannot act, and are treated as though surprised for purposes of defence.  Deafened characters cannot hear clearly – move silently works automatically against them, and they are surprised twice as often.

Great Horned Owlbear: This variant is much larger than its cousins, standing 10’ tall and having much bulkier shoulders.  In addition, the head is adorned with a pair of wide, wicked horns like those of a bull.  In combat, the Great Horned Owlbear may choose between a “traditional” attack of using claws and bite (if both claws hit, crush for 2-16) or goring.  In addition, if sufficient space is available (at least 10’) it may opt to lower its head and charge, doing double goring damage on a hit.

Burrowing Owlbear: This variety of Owlbear is smaller than others, standing 4-6’ in height, but is nonetheless a potent adversary.  The typical attack is with a pair of slashes from large, mole-like shovel claws followed by a bite.  These creatures are too small to hug in most cases, but if the victim is small (eg Dwarf, Halfling or smaller) two hits with claws will be followed by a hug doing 2-12 hp damage. Unlike the Common Owlbear and its other, larger cousins, who live mainly in small groups (usually a bull alone, a mated bull and cow, or a cow with juveniles) Burrowing Owlbears form larger family groups, with several generations living together.  Further, rather than ranging afield from a central lair, these creatures create intricate burrow networks in which they live, digging with their spade-like claws.  They are very good diggers, and when dungeons or badlands have been infested with a colony the tunnel network may emerge in many places, allowing the Burrowing Owlbears to surround and take down even quite powerful opponents.  Although a group usually doesn’t exceed 8 individuals (plus any eggs being incubated and helpless young) there are rumours (usually dismissed as tall tales) that in truly wild places colonies of a score of the things have occasionally been sighted.  

Electric Owlbear: At first seeming just like the Common Owlbear, observant adventurers will notice key differences: rather than brown, the feathers are mainly black – the blueish iridescent black of ravens – with flecks of white and a lighter blue on the belly, while the claws have a definite coppery tone to them.  The Electric Owlbear attacks just as the Common Owlbear, but in addition to the ordinary claw/claw/bite (and crushing hug) there is a surprising side effect – the Owlbear’s body accumulates charge, and on the first claw hit an additional 2d4 electrical damage will be delivered (save for half) – this is doubled if a hug is delivered in the same round.  The Owlbear recharges in 2d4 rounds.

Drop Owlbear:  Drop Owlbears are small cousins of the Common Owlbear, similar to Burrowing Owlbears.  In fact, they are nearly identical to the Burrowing Owlbear, except that they live exclusively underground and have developed a specialized hunting technique: ambush.  Drop Owlbears are expert climbers, and use this ability to access their burrow entrances, which are always in the ceilings of caves and tunnels.  These burrow entrances are concealed by mats they form out of a combination of their sticky saliva and excavated gravel, and are extremely difficult to detect (treat as secret or concealed doors).  When prey passes underneath, Drop Owlbears will drop from their hidden burrows to surprise their victims (1-4 on 1d6).

[For a follow-up project, I'm tempted to write an adventure featuring the Bearenstein Owlbears...]