30 Day OD&D Challenge - Owlbears and Other Oddities -(Part Two) Day Fifteen

Today's Our Topic is "Owlbears and Other Oddities, Part Two" as we continue our celebration of International Original Dungeons and Dragons Month!

Today in Part Two we will talk about Displacer Beasts and Blink Dogs. Here is the way they were presented in the Greyhawk Supplement.

DISPLACER BEASTS A Displacer Beast somewhat resembles a puma, although it has six legs and two tentacles grow from its shoulders. It color is blackish, and its eyes glow a hellish green. They always appear to be 3’ from their actual position, so for purposes of hitting them, or when they must make saving throws, they are treated as a man wearing a displacer cloak as far as penalties and bonuses are concerned. Their magical resistance is high, equaling that of a 12th level fighter. Its primary weapons of attack are the two tentacles which are armed with rough, homey edges which inflict horrible wounds. There is great enmity between Displacer Beasts and Blink Dogs.

So right off the bat we see that Displacer Beasts and Blink Dogs are mortal enemies. That sets up some interesting ideas right there when your PCs are involved with either one of them. They are very nasty to fight as many a PC has not lived to regret. They have six legs and they have two tentacles (mixing some Burroughs and some Lovecraft together). They never appear to be exactly where they are, hence the armor class. Each tentacle does 2d4 and they attack with both at the same time. Our house rule changed the damage to 2d6 per tenacle. If both tenacles hit on the same round you are considered to be held and will have to break free. As long as you are held, you take damage every round.

BLINK DOGS: Blink Dogs closely resemble African wild dogs, hut they have high intelligence and the ability to employ a limited teleportation. They travel in packs, and when in combat they will teleport around their opponents) in a random fashion at random intervals (die 1-8 for direction, 5 out of 8 indicates the creature is teleporting. When reappearing they will come from 1’ to 4’ from their opponents), being able to attack in the same turn they teleported. This teleporting is known as “blinking.” An inborn instinct prevents a blink into a solid object. The entire pack will blink out if seriously threatened, and they will not reappear, Blink Dogs are basically lawful and will always attack Displacer Beasts.

Here is how we changed blink dogs, when rolling each round to see if they teleport we changed it from 1-5 out of 8 to 1-6 out of 8 to teleport each round. The other change we made it that they are super quick and that combined with the teleport changes the armor class from AC 5 to AC 3 on any round where they teleport, if they do not teleport AC remains as AC 5.

Displacer beasts are the faster runners, but blink dogs are quicker reflexes.  When blink dogs blink out and leave how far away they re-appear is unknown. As noted they have high intelligence and may be sentience although this is unknown at this time. It is known that they will employ sophisticated tactics when fighting Displacer Beasts.

Tomorrow for Part Three we will take a look at Hell Hounds and Phase Spiders.