Moving guard towers. Rooks by themselves are powerful but because of their shape, they are often equipped with crossbows on top or a crew of regular-sized animated chess pieces. If it is armed with a crossbow it effectively has a heavy crossbow except it can fire the crossbow with its bonus action. The crossbow is armed by a team of 15 normal-sized animated chess pawns. For every 5 points of damage, the rook takes by a medium or larger creature or a ranged attack roll a D4 that many pawns on top are destroyed. If the rook has 12 or fewer pawns the crossbow has -1 to hit. If the crossbow has 10 or fewer pawns it has -1 to hit. If the crossbow has 8 or fewer pawns it has to take 2 rounds to reload. If the crossbow has 5 or fewer pawns it has -1 to hit. If the crossbow has 1 pawn it has -1 to hit and takes 3 rounds to reload. The rook can also be armed with a top full of normal-sized animated chess pawns. The rook has 30 pawns on top and the same rules apply to killing them as to kill the crew of the crossbow. The rook can take an action for the pawns mounted on it to fire. For every 5 pawns on the top of the rook, there is an attack. The attack is a -1 to hit its range is 25/50 feet and deals 1 D4 piercing damage. If the rook has less than 5 archers on it it gets -1 to hit for every pawn less than 5.
Action Volley of Arrows. +0 to hit, range 25/50 feet, 1-6 targets, Hit: 2 (1D4) piercing damage. (Only if it has pawn archers mounted on top).
Action Melee Attack. Slam: +3 to hit, reach 1 ft., 1 target. Hit: 6 (1d12 + 4) [bleudgoning] damage.
If the rook is mounted with a crossbow it can take its bonus action to fire it. With a full crew, its stats are +0 to hit, range 100/400 hit: 1D10 piercing damage.
Description
The rooks are the most powerful common troops in an army of chessmen constructs. They often serve as bodyguards to the king, and to their home chessboard itself. Thus rarely to be found anywhere except the playing board. They are fast and can deal a large amount of damage thus being very dangerous to anyone who gets in their way. They can also be dangerous from a distance though because they are commonly mounted with giant crossbows and ranks of smaller enchanted chess pieces.
Lair and Lair Actions
Regional Effects
The region containing a legendary [monster name]’s lair is [enter the effect description], which creates one or more of the following effects:
- Any white chessman in the lair gets +3 initiative.
- Any Chess Pon promoted in the lair is promoted to a chessman that is the choice of the King.
- Any animated chessmen on the board gets complete dark vision.
If the King dies, these effects fade over the course of 2d6 days.
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