Creatures that Should Turn to Stone in the Sun

There was a plan to go and find instances in folklore to provide some sort of evidence of source material for why these creature should turn to stone. but instead I am not going to cite anything because this is a blog and I can do what I want.

Goblins

Obviously, right. They are goblins. The more weird and folkloresque they are the better. There is also a famous Dutch fairy tale about goblins turning to stone in the sun.

Trolls

 

Bugbears

First of all they should have pumpkin heads cause that's weird. And, if they have pumpkin heads then they should have weird spooky folklore properties. And turning to stone in the sun is one of the weirdest spookiest folklore properties a spooky monster can have.

 

Sea Hags

Yeah dude, they are all wet and gross. They totally dry out and turn to stone in direct sunlight. I imagine this as more like Dracula in Bram Stoker's Dracula like they can be out in limited sun and in the shade but if they are exposed to the sun at noon then they will turn to stone.

Beholders

This is probably because I have sensitivity to sunlight; so it makes sense to me that something with a bunch of eyes would be sensitive to sunlight. The idea of having all those eyes and no sunglasses seems like agony to me. So yeah theses things should turn to stone.

Thaddeus Wangshingle and Winslow Mudfish

The other day I came across some old character sheets from 2005 to 2006. I played a thief named Winslow Mudfish and my friend played a cleric named Thaddeus Wangshingle. They started out in small town and tracked a group of mysterious men in black plate mail to the city of Karameikos. There, they thwarted an invasion and eventually wound up getting sucked into the Abyss, where they both perished.

Here is Winslow Mudfish in all his glory. A simple small town thief, who would go on to achieve both great and not so great things.

The most mysterious item he ever got was "The Jawbone of the Gods."
I never figured out what it did.

In the Abyss Winslow got transformed into a bugbear and got a new character sheet.

There are a lot fewer notes on the Abyss.
The Abyss does not contain a lot of NPCs with adventure hooks apparently.

Here is Thaddeus Wangshingle. I believe this drawing depicts Thaddeus after he lost all his equipment being teleported to the Abyss and not his sartorial choices in Karameikos.

The Dread Rod in the lower right corner of this page is the item that finally did everyone in. It wound up completely corrupting Thaddeus. The party wanted to throw it into a portal to the elemental plane of fire to destroy it, but Thaddeus had other plans and rebelled against us.

Here is Thaddeus completely corrupted by the Dread Rod. He started calling himself "Deus Judas," which was also the name the Dread Rod called itself. Honestly, he looks a little less evil here than the hirsute bondage daddy that was his previous incarnation. 

You don't need as much other equipment when you are the human form of the Dread Rod, I guess.

In the end the party fought Thaddeus and some demon, whose name escapes me now. The party won just barely. Winslow Mudfish, seduced by the power of the Dread Rod tried to grab it as it hurled towards the elemental plane of fire. He did reach it, but could not extricate himself from the pull of whatever gate connected the Abyss to the elemental plane of fire. He was sucked in and burst into flames clutching the Dread Rod in paroxysms of agony and the ecstasy of power.

The rest of the party, Norvin the dwarf, guy we found in a cage, and elf with two swords made it back to Karameikos, teleporting into a fountain in the middle of the city.  The End.

Oh yeah, I forgot, They were completely naked when they returned to the prime material plane.

The Bugbears of Portown: Rumor and Ecology

Those are not his friends

The boys were cornered and grossed out. When they encountered the tall pumpkin-headed humanoid n the cave they had sought to avoid it. It behaved strangely gurgling and writhing. Then it began to retch.

The creatures jaw must have unhinged and the top of its head folded back. Mucus sputtered out from its esophagus into the air. A hand reached out from its mouth, covered in what was probably bile, clawing at the air.

After an interminable moment a goblin pulled itself out of the large creatures mouth and ran towards us, slipping on its own mucus (or was it bile) trail.

The boys beat it to death and then slew the larger thing while it was in the process of spawning another goblin. They defeated the creatures but we could not unsee what we so desperately wanted to unsee. So, in a way, the bugbear won.

            -Fan Fiction of the Thaumaturgist.

The bugbear was probably once a normal goblin. As far as the scholars know some goblins become cannibalistic and begin eating other goblins. However goblins do not possess the normal need that most other creatures have, being sustained by the chaos that flows through them. The best guess that anyone has is that the chaos somehow melds and mutates the devourer and the devoured together. It is unknown if the bugbear is regurgitating the goblins it has eaten or if new goblins are being formed and spat out when it is agitated.