Guardian Gargoyles

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Gargoyles are well known to adventurers as chaotic, evil monsters with horns, fangs, claws and wings. They are clearly unnatural, as they are immune to normal weapons, thus making them even more fearsome to humans without such weaponry. Their fundamental natures are of great curiosity to sages. They are similar to constructs, and like golems and living statues they can appear as inanimate statuary when staying still. Yet it is quite rare for a powerful mage to go to the bother of creating them - the money, time and resources for creating a construct often seem better spent on more powerful minions. 

The evidence is that gargoyles are indeed constructs, but ones twisted from their original forms by forces of Chaos. They can now reproduce, unheard of for nearly all other constructs, albeit asexually (there are no male or female gargoyles, just ugly ones). Although they can be created by powerful mages, usually they are considered too selfish and unpredictable to be reliable guards. Powerful leaders of Chaos such as nagpas can still press them into service. 

Guardian gargoyles are the original gargoyles, the uncorrupted ones. They are quite rare but they are much more conventional as constructed creatures. They are carved from stone and animated by powerful magic. They are typically positioned perched on the tops of grand buildings such as cathedrals, temples, universities and city halls, staying perfectly still and appearing to be an ornate part of the architecture.They still have monstrous appearances, having bestial faces, bat-like wings and taloned hands. Guardian gargoyles also have a few features not seen by their chaotic cousins, namely the ability to detect invisibility in a 60ft range and also they constantly have Detect Ethereal creatures in 60ft range. Like normal gargoyles they can fly, though given their stoney weight this flight is more magical than aerodynamic. They also have one trick they will use in a pinch - once a day they can spew out gutter water from their mouths at an opponent's eyes temporarily blinding it.

They have a capacity to take orders, and are particularly good at instructions on who to let pass and who to prevent entering, being able to discern race and class (though not a creature's alignment). Guardian gargoyles are popular in both Alphatia and Glantri, guarding the rooftops of wizards' towers and arcane schools. 

Guardian Gargoyle
Armour Class	4
Hit Dice	6*
Avg. HP	30
Movement	90ft/fly 180ft
THAC0	14
Attacks	2 claws/1 bite
Damage	1d6/1d6/2d4
No. Appearing	1-10
Morale	12
Save As	F12
Treasure	none
Alignment	Neutral
Intelligence	7-8 (Low)
Size & Type	Medium Construct
XP Value	500

Features:

• Immune to non-magical weapons (similar to normal gargoyles & golems)
• immune to poison, disease, charm & sleep as constructs
• Detect Invisible & Ethereal 60ft range at will
• Surprises opponents on 1-3 on d6 when staying still and blending in with architecture
• 1/day gutter water spew - target within 20ft must save vs death ray or be blinded for 1 turn

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My thoughts about Gaz8: The Five Shires and high-level Halflings

 

Art by Clyde Caldwell, source

I like this one. Interestingly it is written by Ed Greenwood, who of course is famous for being the creator of the Forgotten Realms. It's interesting that TSR also asked him to work on other worlds such as Mystara here, and I think he rose to the challenge well. 

It's difficult to write about D&D halflings without thinking about Tolkein's hobbits. The name of the nation, the Five Shires, is a clear homage to the Shire where Frodo and Bilbo Baggins lived and where Tolkein's most famous adventures (The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings) started. So are these halflings just hobbits with a name changed for copyright reasons? Not exactly. There are similarities, with the rolling countryside and sylvan forests. But these halflings are tougher and are more willing to both defend themselves and explore the wider world. In fact there is a halfling militia, halfling commandos/vigilantes known as Fangs and halfling pirates on whom there is a whole chapter. This differentiates them from Tolkein’s hobbits sufficiently to grab my interest. 

And they do need to defend themselves. The biggest and most obvious threat is the orcs of the Cruth Mountains. Throughout the history of the land the orcs have raided, invaded and occasionally tyrannised the halflings. However, they have also had major problems with both humans and dwarves. The dwarves are no longer a substantial influence in the area. The most significant human threat is from the Black Eagle Barony in the east, just over the border in Karameikos, though pirates on the Sea of Dread (from Ierendi and possibly Minrothad and other coastal realms) have also been an occasional problem, particularly around maritime trade. Halflings have also had horrible experiences with mages of Glantri, whom they now fear and distrust. Although it can be assumed that orcs and halflings are automatically enemies, the halflings of the Five Shires have enough friendly and business interactions with humans that many more opportunities for intrigue and diplomacy can be found. Is that merchant from Karameikos actually a spy for the Black Eagle Barony? Is it possible to persuade the pirate captain to leave the coast of Seashire alone? The wandering Glantrian wizard has generated a lot of suspicion but is he responsible for some disappearances in nearby villages? 

And despite mostly being peaceful villages and rolling countryside, the Five shires have their own collections of carnivorous monsters, particularly the Deep Glaurant. Unlike some gazetteers, the opportunities for adventures and dungeons are plentiful in the Five Shires, and I am glad for that, even if the resident halflings have reservations.  

High level Halflings

One of the aspects of halflings explored in this gazetteer is what happens with halflings after 8th level. According to the B/X rules, halflings can reach a maximum level of 8 (Sheriff, or in this gazetteer Knight-Guardian). This is a severe restriction even in Expert-level campaigns where halflings will find themselves left behind while human characters are continuing on to name level, and even elves and dwarves have a bit more growth available. There are two possible answers to this. Firstly the attack ranks and accompanying abilities detailed in the Companion Rules are a solution for those halflings that prefer to keep a martial focus and develop their weapon skills. Secondly this gazetteer introduces the Halfling Master, a sort of prestige class that gives halflings that qualify powers similar to druids. However, at least according to the Gazetteer these halfling masters are guardians of the Five Shires, not wandering adventurers. If DMs stick to this idea then perhaps becoming a Master is not a good option for a halfling PC hoping to join his high-level adventuring companions in far off lands and deep dungeons. If the DM drops this requirement then Masters could become a bit too popular, eclipsing the martial halflings progressing through attack ranks. I have not quite decided on my prefered way of handling this. 

This does sort of reflect my post on high level elves where borrowing ideas from Gaz5: Elves of Alfheim, I went with the idea of high-level elves progressing as either Elven Lords (with relatively simple advancement) or Elven Wizards (who require specialist training in Alfheim to progress to the next level).  What if halfling masters could wander from the Shire and join their human and elven adventuring party, but when they are ready to level up they need to spend time (two months or so) in the Shires, training with their fellow masters?  If they don’t or cannot return to the Shires then their progression is paused. This seems like a reasonable compromise though I have not playtested it. 

Long-running followers of this blog might remember I created the Halfling Defender class long ago, a sort of fighter/cleric for halflings. But that was for Kaelaross, long before I got hold of this gazetteer. I have barely noted its existence since writing about Mystara, and as such I don’t think I’ll use it, at least not in Mystara. In some ways this is a bit of a pity. Dwarves have the standard dwarf warriors and also dwarf clerics (a class from Kaelaross that I have brought over to Mystara) while elves have their standard elf spellswords (casting magic user spells while wearing full armour) and the elven ranger. Halflings, at least at low levels, seem to just have one class to choose from. But seeing as Halfling Masters fulfil the role of halfling clerics, Halfling defenders now seem rather redundant. I shall ponder this but for the moment defenders are out, masters are in. 

Pre-Cataclysmic Cultures of the Great Waste

There are ruins in the Great Waste of Sind. They are not prolific, but the sages of Sayr Ulan, the main city of Sind, believe that these ruins predate the Great Rain of Fire that devastated the  ancient civilizations of Blackmoor and Arvoria, causing the collapse of the first and forcing the survivors of the second underground. The Great Rain of Fire caused massive dramatic climactic upheavals as Mystara was tilted on its axis. What was the north pole became southeastern Brun and the pole shifted to where it is now, where a continent-sized hole in the crust leads to the Hollow World. 

Before the Great Rain of Fire the area that would become the Great Waste was the Kallinth Forest, a great woodland, mostly conifers to the east but shifting to deciduous woods such as oak and elm towards the west. As well as plentiful wildlife the Kallinth forest host several different tribes of humans as well as sylvan creatures such as dryads, centaurs and pixies. Some of the tribes stayed nomadic, wandering the forest but others, most notably the Kallinthians (naming themselves after their forest home), the Hyskians and the Darvonians settled into early cultures with cattle and horse farming in cleared areas. 

The Kallinthians

The semi-nomadic Kallinthians espoused moderation and common sense in their approach to life. Of the three, the Kallinthians were the closest to nature, and also were friendly towards tribes of elves and centaurs in the forest. They  dwelt in the eastern part of the forest, around what is now Sind. 

The Hyskians

These were the most volatile and ruthless of the three tribes, and their clerics would worship the primal forces of Chaos. They also had great mages and were pioneers in their explorations of magic, some of which would be considered dark sorcery. It is believed that their most powerful sorcerers opened up portals to the Planes of Chaos, one of which is still found in a ruined temple in the Great Waste (see B4: Master of the Desert Nomads, the section on the Buried Temple). Some of these mages would use corrupted forms of magic to extend their lifespans, and inadvertently turned themselves into the first nagpas, vulture-like creatures with magical powers, though the Hyskians are not the only culture to have spawned these vile sorcerous monsters.    

The Darvonians

The Darvonians were great craftsmen, pioneers of bronze and copper as well as pottery and architecture. Some suggest they learnt this from the dwarves or gnomes, though their own legends speak of being gifted this knowledge by the scorpion god Ixitak (possibly the avatar of an immortal). They also used cuniform writing on clay tablets and became a structured society with laws. 

Their most devoted clerics were sometimes transformed by Ixitak into Scorpion-men, monstrous looking centauroid beings with the lower bodies of giant scorpions and the upper body, arms and heads of humans. Despite their scary appearances, these scorpion-men remained benevolent and lawful at least until the Great Rain of Fire. 

The Great Rain of Fire

The first effect to be noticed in the Kallinth Forest when the Blackmoor device exploded was the massive earthquakes as shock waves rippled out from the epicentre of the explosion and travelled across the planet of Mystara. Many were killed as buildings collapsed, crushing people in and around them. Others fell into the crevasses that suddenly opened up across the lands. Further to the east a chunk of Brun was torn from the south coast; The parts that did not sink beneath the waves would become the Ierendi Islands. To the east the previously modest Black Mountains had been pushed up into taller, more jagged and volcanically active peaks.   

Then came the actual rain of fire, the fallout of the explosion. Flaming hot debris fell from the sky, catapulted from Blackmoor. Conflagrations fell amidst the devastated towns and farmland, setting buildings, crops and people on fire. The people were in abject terror, convinced it was the end of the world and they were all going to die. For some of them this was true. 

This all happened within a space of three days as the ground convulsed and the sky pelted the land with fire. Afterwards there was an eerie calm. The survivors had no idea what had happened. Were the immortals angry with them? They noticed that the stars in the sky had changed position - even the heavens had been shaken. There were various attempts to rebuild shattered towns and livelihoods . 

Then the climate shifted. The change in Mystara’s axis meant that temperatures became warmer, the rains stopped falling on the forest and after a year or two the process of desertification began. The smaller plants died first, then the trees, then grazing animals and after three years the human survivors of the Great Rain of Fire realised that the disaster had not concluded yet. 

The Migrations and Aftermaths

As the land dried up and became a desert waste, the Kallinthians, who were already used to migration, set off east into what is now Atruaghin and Darokin. Their connection to nature and balance may have been shaken by the cataclysm but still remained. Their flexibility and adaptability allowed many of them to survive though no longer in their homeland. Their culture disappated but many of their lineages blended in with the human tribes that would become the Atruaghin clans. 

The Hyskians did what they had to do to survive and moved west through the Black Mountains which were now far more formidable. Not all the Hyskians survived that journey west, but those that did found themselves in the great basin that would eventually become Hule. Their belief in Chaos has remained, and Hule these days is still a chaotic hagiocracy. There was a split, as some Hyskians decided to stay and endure the changing climate. Many of them became the ancestors of the human desert nomads that now roam the great wastes.

The Darvonians suffered the most. They had become so reliant on a stable, predictable society that when the Great Rain of Fire struck, they had no way of coping with the complete upheaval of the world around them. Some of their clerics and even the blessed scorpion-men lost their faith and renounced their patron Ixitak. They instead turned to Chaos. Some of them joined the Hyskians in Hule, while others were offered a new transformation to help them survive in the desert. A mysterious being (actually a Chaos Prince) called Serathis transformed those who swore loyalty to him into Manscorpions, vicious and corrupted versions of the noble scorpion-men of Ixitak. A lucky few found the newly formed Asanda river and settled along its banks. Although not the true founders of Sind, they would merge with the Urduks, a tribe migrating from the east that would also settle in the fertile Asanda valley who would be instrumental in the settling and growth of Sind. 

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Author’s Note 

I was considering moving B4: The Lost City to this region but I think at the moment it is well established to be in the Emirates of Ylaruam, as indicated in the Mentzer Expert set. The culture of the Cynidiceans seems closer to Mesopotamia or maybe ancient Turkey than ancient Egypt (which is the inspiration for the Nithians of northern Ylaruam). Nonetheless I believe it is simpler to go along with canon on this one. There is also the level difference - B4 is for levels 1-3 while the adventures set in the Great Waste are for levels 6 to 10, both official ones and my own humble attempts. In terms of the flow of the campaign, B4 seems more suited to Ylaruam. 

The principal published adventure set in the Great Waste is of course X4: Master of the Desert Nomads. The sequel, X5: The Temple of Death is really set in the land of Hule to the west of the Great Waste. There are two main ruins in X4: the Buried Temple and the Abbey of Evil. The Abbey of Evil feels too new to be linked to the ancient cultures discussed here. My suggestion is that it was originally founded by Sindhi Mystics and built about 100 years ago, but they were infiltrated and then killed by the Bhuts about 10 years ago. 

The  Buried Temple dates back to those pre-cataclysmic centuries and is actually my main inspiration for this blog post. My two dungeon posts set in the Great Waste, The Pillared Halls of Serathis and The Tower of the Nagpas have both drawn from B4, especially the section on the Buried Temple. This post is my attempt at explaining and giving historical context to the Buried Temple as well as my own two dungeons of the Great Waste. I hope it proves satisfactory.