RQ:G Basilisk

[HreshtIronBorne]

So, my party will probably walk into a basilisk in The Rubble pretty soon. I am wondering about their stats other than the specific stat block in the adventure. 

 

Are they chaos creatures?

Is their Death Stare stoppable, i.e. with Countermagic or something?

Would a Storm Bull walking into a room with one even get a chance to react? What about with Detect or Find Enemy?

In some writeups they have acid blood and poison and are even scarier than just a Death Stare.

 

Also, for any of you that might have an inkling about the adventure in question, what would you say the Armor or HP of a "Large Metal Cage" is? In case said Strom Bull wants to smash it. 

[AndrewTBP]

IIRC they are sorcery creatures. The Death Stare is invisible, which also means sorcery to me (probably a RQ3 memory). 
The adventure mentions Detection Blank but that’s currently unavailable. So I’d let Detect Enemies & Find Enemy work as usual. 

[metcalph]

2 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Are they chaos creatures?

They are described as such in RQ2 and RQ3 and Cults of Terror associates them with Vivamort.  Amusingly Cults of Terror also  says stas will be given in the miscellaneous section of the cult, but no such stats appear.

2 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Is their Death Stare stoppable, i.e. with Countermagic or something?

RQ3 and RQ2 both state the Basilisk's glance penetrates magical defences as if it were a divine spell with a POW of 3 (ie a three point rune spell) but that this can vary from basilisk to basilisk.

2 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Would a Storm Bull walking into a room with one even get a chance to react? What about with Detect or Find Enemy?

The glance takes a melee round and must succeed in a POW versus POW attack to kill.

 

[Shiningbrow]

34 minutes ago, metcalph said:

The glance takes a melee round and must succeed in a POW versus POW attack to kill.

So, less of a "glance", and more of a stare 😛

[PhilHibbs]

9 hours ago, metcalph said:

They are described as such in RQ2 and RQ3 and Cults of Terror associates them with Vivamort.  Amusingly Cults of Terror also  says stas will be given in the miscellaneous section of the cult, but no such stats appear.

The editor turned to stone when attempting to transcribe the stat block into the book's layout.

[soltakss]

16 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

So, my party will probably walk into a basilisk in The Rubble pretty soon.

Fun, fun, fun.

16 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Are they chaos creatures?

In my Glorantha, yes. Officially, probably.

16 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Is their Death Stare stoppable, i.e. with Countermagic or something?

It used to be. I think it counts as a 2 or 4 point spell, but it is hard to remember. They can back it up with MPs though.

16 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Would a Storm Bull walking into a room with one even get a chance to react?

If they make a Sense Chaos, sure.

If they make a scan before they get glared at, sure.

Although, in the Tower of Lead I had a Basilisk hidden in a secret room with a little peephole that it could look through and ambush trespassers. That was funny, as one of the PCs made a critical Spot Hidden (Scan), saw a peephole with an eye behind it and decided to peer through it anyway. The look on his face when I said he could see a Basilisk's eye was priceless. One Divine Intervention and flurry of violence later he was very cautious and proceeded to check every window and keyhole with a mirror on the end of a stick first. He scouted ahead and came to a throneroom, looked in and saw three empty thrones on a dais and was about to go in when the player saw that I was trying to contain a fit of giggles. The other players pointed out that they were in a Vampire stronghold and he had just seen three empty thrones when vampires don't have reflections. he looked again to se the Vampire Queen, her two Second-in-Commands and half a dozen Vampire flunkies in audience. Damn those giggles.

16 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

In some writeups they have acid blood and poison and are even scarier than just a Death Stare.

Why not? Acid Blood is always funny and a death stare is great until it is blocked. Having Shield up might protect you from the glare but your precious iron weapons might still get eaten away.

16 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Also, for any of you that might have an inkling about the adventure in question, what would you say the Armor or HP of a "Large Metal Cage" is? In case said Strom Bull wants to smash it. 

Probably 9 points of armour and the same hit points. I'd just have a STR vs 21 to bend the bars, or 25if it's supposed to be hard.

13 hours ago, metcalph said:

RQ3 and RQ2 both state the Basilisk's glance penetrates magical defences as if it were a divine spell with a POW of 3 (ie a three point rune spell) but that this can vary from basilisk to basilisk.

That works as well. I'd give powerful Basilisks a higher point glare and weaker ones a 1 point stare. A POW 25 basilisk is always good for a laugh.

 

Edited January 26, 2021 by soltakss

[Shiningbrow]

10 hours ago, soltakss said:

Although, in the Tower of Lead I had a Basilisk hidden in a secret room with a little peephole that it could look through

Sheesh dude! Animal cruelty, much??? No wonder it was giving death stares...

Edited January 27, 2021 by Shiningbrow
added humour

[soltakss]

12 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Sheesh dude! Animal cruelty, much??? No wonder it was giving death stares...

I know, but it's mate was a cockatrice that could freely roam the Tower of Lead and the Statue Garden, so I felt much better about that.