Wednesday 19 April 2023

Hex Crawl 23 #108: Dust Devils

 One hex southeast, five south of Alakran.

 

In any of these flat or sandy desert hexes, if the temperature is 70F or higher in the day, a weather roll of 1-1-5 is 50% likely to give rise to dust devils in view. These miniature cyclones are mostly harmless, capable of knocking two- or four-footed beings down (STR save at DC 15) if they're not quick enough to move out of the way of the cyclone's random 60 ft. speed path.

However, there is a 1 in 6 chance that a naturally occurring dust devil turns truly diabolic and acquires a hostile will and stats similar to those elemental forces roused up by the power of a blue dragon. Figure this to be a single creature, half size, half damage, 2 CR.

Veterans of older editions of D&D may recall the vortex monster which made its debut in the Fiend Folio. This low-level curiosity is mainly notable as an illustration of my contention (and others') that early AD&D drew heavily on science fantasy. Although the lore has them hailing from the Elemental Plane of Air, they are not made of air, but have the form of a grapefruit-sized sphere which creates their signature wind -- a design solution more in line with real-world physics than fantasy forces, in my view anyway.

No comments:

Post a Comment