With the holidays in mind, here's a creature that I actually built a stat block for several months ago. However, now with art by Vildevitus#2346 and the current season, it feels appropriate to post this now.
I've been meaning to do some lower CR creatures, and the gingerbread golem was a fun one to make. Naturally, as a golem and a construct, it received a whole slew of specific abilities and stats that I worked in. It's main ability came into play early when building the gingerbread golem - it's alluring scent. I somewhat looked towards playing up the connection to the tale of the gingerbread man, and wanted to include a reason as to why it would be chased. This ability does just that while also allowing the gingerbread golem to lead unwitting individuals into ambushes in the like. Naturally, it has golem antimagic with cold causing it to go 'stale' and slow it down while heat helps keep it 'fresh.' I also wanted to alter how putrefy food and drink would work on it since that made sense to me. To assist with the idea of it being 'uncatchable,' I gave it a high speed though it has to be careful not to go out of the range of people it's leading with its aura. Finally, I gave it uncatchable to give it some appropriate bonus feats and the ability to escape sticky situations.
Pathfinder 1e:
The PF2e version was pretty simple - I didn't need to make a whole uncatchable ability and could instead just give it a decently high Athletics skill to help it escape grapples. Given that Alluring Scent isn't a terribly dangerous ability, I went with a higher DC for it in this version of the creature and then created different effects for a failure or critical failure. Putrefy food and drink isn't really a thing in PF2e so I settled with making it harmed by acid, healed by fire, and slowed by cold for its Golem Antimagic. Finally, I gave it Can't Catch Me as a reaction, since I love making sure my monsters have fun and unique reactions to use, to help it evade those getting to close.
Pathfinder 2e:
Blue's D&D 5e Version:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Bittersweet: Over the past several months, children have been disappearing from a small, isolated town. They suspect the spirit of a witch who was executed years ago due to the disappearances starting on the anniversary of his death. Nobody has seen anybody strange lurking about and the children have been disappearing in the night without any sign of a struggle. The townsfolk relay all this information to the heroes when they hire them to find and rescue their children. If the heroes stay up to keep a watch on the remaining children, they encounter a small gang of gingerbread golems seeking to lure the youths away. After defeating them, the heroes can try to follow the tracks of the golems through the forest to a hidden gingerbread house where the children are being kept – as well as more of the golems that rabidly defend their home. If the heroes spend too long there, the owner of the home returns – the child of the executed witch who wants revenge on the village but not the innocent children.
Baked Bads: A local bakery is famous for both its delicious treats and the adorable gingerbread golems that often hang about, acting as mascots. However, when one of them goes berserk and injures a child, the baker is faced with serious repercussions, prompting him or those close to him to reach out to the heroes and seek their help. The baker swears that his own creations would never behave like that and believes that somebody spiked his latest batch of gingerbread golems. As more gingerbread golems begin to go berserk, the heroes must quickly investigate the mystery and find who is behind the bad batch of baked beasts.
A big thanks to Vildevitus for whipping something up for this real quick. I know I could have just found a picture on the internet of any old gingerbread man (and was considering using the Gingerbread Brute art from MtG for a while), but with these original monsters, I really want original art for them.
If you want to join in on the discussion of monsters I'm building, get some ideas and feedback on your own work, or just hang out with a bunch of TTRPG nerds, come join our Discord.
Have a monstrous Monday and a happy holiday season!
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