Friday, April 15, 2011

M is for Mascaron

The middle of the alphabet is rich in architectural dungeony things. There are almost as many good M's as L's, like Madhouse, Malt House, Mall, Mantel, Martyrium, Mastaba, Mausoleum, and Maze.

Mascarons are stone carvings of grotesque faces—some human, some beasts, and most a mix of the two. The majority of mascarons in a dungeon are ordinary (if unusual looking) stone carvings, but some are magical.

This mascaron's eyes rove continually, wildly, and not in the same direction. It will jibber and try to bite anyone or anything that comes close:

This one truthfully answers one question posed by any Lawful character:

This one tries to loudly spit on anyone passing below (then look innocent):

Animal noises emanate from this one, although it never moves:

This one hurls foul insults (in a long-forgotten language) at anyone who passes. If the PC's somehow manage to communicate with it in its own tongue, it will reveal the location of treasure in exchange for the PC's telling it salacious stories. When it doesn't know any more real treasure locations, it will invent treasures to keep the PC's interest. It leers, and ogles any female party members regardless of their charisma.

The Creative Commons images above were created by wallyg, takomabibelot, Landahlauts, and Xavier de Jaureguiberry.

(This is for the A-Z Blogger Challenge.)

3 comments:

  1. Awesome post! This one begs to be printed out:

    http://jrients.blogspot.com/2011/04/attention-all-osr-bloggers-do-this-now.html

    *copied* *pasted* *printing now*

    Definitely using this in my game.

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  2. don't tell me you've given up on this? I'd love to see what's coming in the second half.

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  3. Magical mascarons or grotesques? Love it. Thanks for sharing this idea, Paul. The examples beg for use and the concept for multiplication!

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