Taega
 DESCRIPTION Found most often in rocky, mountainous areas, taegas are giant-sized beasts with a humanoid shape and multi-eyed, quadruple-tentacled, triple-horned, oval-shaped heads. They do, however, appear much more threatening than they actually are. Simply put, they are slow and stupid. Apart from their moderately protective scaly, reptilian skin, they are rather benign as creatures go. Even their multiply-occular vision system which appears to serve some special function or purpose... doesn’t. In fact, it is slightly confusing for them and they attack (and save) as a 3 hit die creature. Taegas have a particular taste for human flesh, but so rarely kill a human that they are laughable in this desire. Instead, they are commonly forced to eat whatever they are able to catch and kill, which is usually stray cattle. Taegas are often captured and used in fighting schools to train novice recruits. | Oe/1E STATS FREQUENCY: Rare NO. APPEARING: 1-6 ARMOR CLASS: 6 MOVE: 6” HIT DICE: 5 % IN LAIR: 50% TREASURE TYPE: J NO. OF ATTACKS: 3 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-4/1-4/1-3 SPECIAL ATTACKS: Nil SPECIAL DEFENSES: Nil MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard INTELLIGENCE: Low ALIGNMENT: Neutral SIZE: L (20’ tall) PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Attack/Defense Modes: Nil BX STATS ARMOR CLASS: 6 HIT DICE: 5 MOVE: 60’ ATTACKS: 2 fists/1 bite DAMAGE: 1-4/1-4/1-3 NO. APPEARING: 1-6 SAVE AS: Fighter: 3 MORALE: 10 TREASURE TYPE: J ALIGNMENT: Neutral |
I almost feel sorry for the Taega. Is there some sort of "Prometheus and Epimethus" story concerning their origin?
ReplyDeleteI think since it is 20 feet tall, a Taega would have more luck stepping on opponents or picking them up and dropping them than from attacking them with its feeble claws and teeth. If I spring this on a group of my players, I'll have to figure out an excuse to roll damage behind the screen so they can't see that I am only using d4s and d3s. "And the giant monster bites you for... (rattle large pile of dice behind screen)... two points of damage!"
I steer well clear of Taegas. They're nasty. Blog on!
ReplyDeletehttp://francene-wordstitcher.blogspot.com
@ Limpey - I like that P/E idea. I'm thinking there should be a "tauga"... visually identical to a taega, but way more vicious/dangerous. So until the characters fight one, it would be hard to know which variety it was.
ReplyDeleteI almost get this total-opposite-of-a-Umber Hulk sort of feeling. Even just the description.
ReplyDeleteI like it!
This is a nice spin on the old "it's so harmless looking what's the worst that could happen" trope, I tried to work that in for Perytons. The art accompanying the Taega monster is terrific, it looks incredibly imposing and alien. A wonderful subversion to how harmless it is.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I would add is that inexperienced adventurers would need to make a Save vs Death Ray or flee in terror from this frightening beast.