Monster Monday: Stirge

in #hive-1894973 years ago

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Hello everyone!

I know it's been a little since I post RPG-related stuff, but I'm still trying to explore what Hive Blog has, and how can I interact with more people. I see that the interaction with Tabletop community has decreased a little, and I hope it could recover itself to a better state, with help coming from all of us.

This one probably be a short post. It's about little creatures called Stirge.

What is Stirge?

Stirge are parasitic creatures I like to use on low-level characters. They look like a Colugo with a tapir face. D&D says they're kinda mash up of a bat and a mosquito, but it's up to you:

This is a Colugo

This is a Stirge.

I have to admit that they have physical features similar to bats. Also, they don't have the Sunlight Sensitivity feature, what makes them better than using a bat.

Why Is The Best Use?

As you can understand easily, their best use is in a cavernous environment, or maybe an abandoned mansion or some sort of dungeon complex. They have 2 (1d4) HP. BUT. They drop themselves down to their enemies, make a melee attack with +5 bonus, and deal 1d4+3 piercing damage. AAAAND they suck your blood like a leech! That means, they attach their enemy and start of their each turn, they deal 1d4+3 damage due to enemy's loss of blood. If you want to detach a Stirge, you have to spend your action, which is a big penalty at low levels. A stirge can detach itself after draining 10HP, or after the creature dies. But draining 10HP is generally means death, if the party is only level 1. Probably a party who don't know about these creatures will swear bad words on you, without knowing that they only have 2 HP :) You can flavour the combat with "if you cannot properly attack to that creature, you may hit your friend" condition, but it only increases the mess. The lesson is, do not underestimate little creatures :)

That's all for now today. I hope you like this creature and its use. I have to say that it's pretty funny, creative combatants do lots of fun stuff against these kind of enemies! Have a nice week!

EDIT: Sorry I had to edit my post, because codes messed up badly :(

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Yep, hordes of tiny creatures and swarms acan be the doom of many parties ^^

Stirges are fun little critters, been around since the early days of D&D.

They are best used in large flocks, and if I'm feeling really mean I'll throw in a variant to really mess their day up. Vampire stirges that gain the HP they drains, ones that carry diseases (a bit like mosquitoes), ones with anaesthetic in their feeding tubes so they can feed from sleeping victims or (even worse) have a chance of rendering their victims unconscious or paralysed during combat. I've also found they work well in combination with other flying monsters, things like gargoyles, so the players have to make really tough choices about how to use their actions.

I love how you include the places and situations which we can use this creatures as well as some tips.. As a newbie writer and wanna be dm, this helps a lot ^^

So we gotta blow your DM-ginity ASAP! I'm glad you liked it. I always like to keep things easy and simple. It's not a big strategy, but little bit of tactical and fun :)

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