Magic Resistance. The gurgotch has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Trampling Charge. If the gurgotch moves at least 20 feet straight toward a creature and then hits it with a gore attack on the same turn, that target must succeed on a DC 17 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If the target is prone, the gurgotch can make one stomp attack against it as a bonus action.
Multiattack. The gurgotch makes 3 attacks with its gore, stomp, trunk or tail, but it can only make 1 attack with each. An opponent attacked by the gurgotch's tail cannot be targeted by gore or trunk attacks. Its tail attack can only be combined with a stomp attack.
Gore. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d10 + 6) piercing damage.
Stomp. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., on small or medium opponents, or prone opponents of any size. Hit: 17 (2d10 + 6) bludgeoning damage.
Tail. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft. Hit: 10 (1d8 + 6) piercing damage.
Trunk. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: No damage on hit, but target must make a DC 17 Dexterity or Strength saving throw (target's choice). The target takes 3 (1d6) bludgeoning damage on a successful save, but on a failed save the target suffers the following:
Breath Weapon (Recharge 6). The gurgotch exhales a 20-foot-radius cloud of a noxious gas centered on a point within 20 feet The cloud spreads around corners. Gurgotches can center the gas cloud on themselves and are immune to its effects. Each creature within the cloud has its Dexterity score reduced by 1d6 and its Strength score reduced by 1d3 and must succeed at a DC 15 Constitution saving throw against poison or become tetraplegic (see below) for 1 minute. The target can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending its tetraplegia on a success. If the neurotoxin reduces the target's Strength or Dexterity to 0 it is paralysed as long as their Strength and Dexterity scores are reduced. Finishing a long rest or receiving a greater restoration spell ends the reduction, a short rest or lesser restoration removes 1 point of Strength reduction and 1 point of Dexterity reduction.
New Condition: Tetraplegia. Tetraplegia is a form of paralysis that affects every part of a creature below their neck but leaves them able to talk and move their head. The creature can't take actions or reactions requiring their body or limbs, but may speak and perform actions that only involve their head or neck, such as verbal-only spells and breath weapons. The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws and attack rolls against the creature have advantage.
Description
Commonly known as the demon elephant, a gurgotch is a being from the lower planes. Matte black like coal and ashes, it resembles a huge African elephant with great saucer-like white eyes, glowing and pupilless, and long curved tusks the hue of ebony. Their tail ends in three barbs like a trident.
Trumpeters of Paralysis. A gurgotch has a long tubular tongue whose tip can flare out like a trumpet-shaped flower. Grotesquely, the demon elephant can stick this tongue out of its trunk instead of its mouth and usually prefers to do so. The gurgotch can bellow forth clouds of a mysterious gas from this trumpet; this stinking vapor has the horrible property of numbing or paralyzing the spinal cord (or equivalent nervous system) of creatures who inhale it, often immobilizing the victims below the neck.
A few sages believe the gurgotch's funnel-trumpet of a tongue is a feeding orifice, claiming the fiend literally inhales nerve energy from its victims' spines to sup on their strength and coordination. There are demonic entities who sustain themselves on far stranger fare than meat and plants.
Unholy Invaders. Gurgotches are often part of Abyssal armies attacking other planes, serving as shock troops, living siege engines, or mounts for giant evil masters. If their demon allies are defeated they are often abandoned to roam the material plane causing mayhem.
(Originally created by Roger Musson; appeared in White Dwarf Magazine #14 (Aug/Sept 1979) as part of "The Fiend Factory", edited by Don Turnbull.)
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