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Movement: 45' (20')
Armor Class: 8
Hit Dice: 5
Attacks: 1 (tentacles or special)
Damage: 1d3
Save: L5
Morale: 8
The legends of Medusa have there basis in a bizarre creature perhaps brought to Earth from a distant world or perhaps designed by the Olympians or titans from the DNA of some sea-creature. The only known gorgon or medusa dwells in a cave complex in mountains near a ruin city of an unknown civilization in the Libyan. The desert around the cave is dotted with statues in lifelike poses evocative of horror.
The medusa is vaguely tree-like in appearance (an upright cylindrical body covered with tendrils), but it possess a single, glowing eye-like structure. This structure is actually a light emitter that produces a beam in a pattern with effects on the nervous systems of vertebrates. Anyone looking at the medusa when the beam is fired must save versus Stun Attack or be paralyzed by neural lock for 1d6 turns (save means movement at half for 2d6 rounds).
It's tendrils release a thick goo which, combined with silicates in the environment can petrify the organic mass of a human body in 1d6+4 days. The medusa feeds off organic material displayed in this process.
Mutations: Prehensile tendrils, toxic weapon.
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| Images from Medusa vs the Son of Hercules(Perseus The Invincible) 1962 |
11 comments:
I always love truth-behind-the-legend write-ups like this. This is a very creepy Gorgon, indeed; mind-bendingly Lovecraftian!
Great write-up, and the images have some nice visual resonances with the Space: 1999 monster in the episode "The Dragon".
I like the "science" behind the "myth." Very nice.
A different twist on the stone effect I expect from Medusa.
Excellent Trey. I'm looking forward to this book coming out.
Thanks guys!
Boy, there must ton of 'Star Beasts' among the material planes monsters so good that DM's in a lot of old school games were using them.
Here's a slightly different ecology on that beastie I did months ago.
http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/2013/05/ecology-of-star-spider-for-your-old.html#comment-form
@Needles - I should have known if it was a image from an obscure genre movie you would have beat me to it!
Actually it was Dave Hargrave who beat both of us to it by quite a bit of time! Use these things sparingly they have a tendency to shorten the lives of adventurers by a considerable amount of time! Anyhow rock on!
This one is great!
I've been digging through sword-n-sandal flicks for my October blog nonsense, and this one would've been snazzy.
You've saved me the effort!
Well, I may wind up stealing a few from you. :)
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