GLAUGUST 2025 - Key Swords and Lock Golems

For Glaugust, the first prompt I got was "Create something inspired by Kingdom Hearts without looking up anything about Kingdom Hearts". 

I am not a fan of Kingdom Hearts but I vaguely remember that's the games with keys that are swords and has Disney characters in it for some reason (or maybe that's from something else and I am going insane). 

 

From Hero's Armory

 

The Key Swords are ancient relics, given the power to open up flesh as well as they open up locks. They are +1 swords that can be used once a day to cast knock. When used to batter down a locked door, portcullis, iron bars, or anything similar (but only if they are locked) it will break it down with only 1d4 rounds of battering. When the Key Sword reduces a creature to exactly 1 hp they have their soul unlocked and will have a deep personal revelation about the nature of themselves (note, stabbing your friend until their depression is cured will definitely do more harm than good).

 

The Lock Beasts are ancient constructs, crafted to seal away the greatest of evils and most glorious treasures. They appear as large humans made entirely out of chain wrapped tightly together, at the center of their chest is a massive padlock which all the chains attach to. Use the stats of an iron golem as the base for the Lock Beast but remove all of their special abilities and instead give them the following traits

• On their turn they may lock any number of things instead of attacking
• If someone successfully picks the central lock the beast takes 2d12 damage
• If the knock spell is cast on them they are stunned for one round
• If the lock spell is cast on them they get +2 ac for the duration 
• There is one lock that, while the Lock Beast lives, cannot be unlocked by any means, the Lock Beast knows whenever the lock is messed with, if you can't decide there is a 50/50 chance it is either locking up a horrible monster or guarding fabulous wealth and treasure
• They take double damage from Key Swords 
• If someone attacks with a Key Sword and they aim for the padlock on a hit they can unlock the beast, killing it instantly but the Key Sword will be stuck in the lock, you can still use it as a +1 mace but it loses all of its other properties

Long ago there was a great civilization of wizards and, as you can probably guess, the wonders they made were only eclipsed by their mistakes, too horrible and numerous to name. As their time was coming to an end some of them realized that though they could not bring back their empires glory they could contain their failures and try to make the future better for everyone else. The Lock Beast's were their solution and it was working very well, sealing away the most cursed of treasures and deadliest monsters. Sadly some wizards used the beasts to selfishly hide away their treasures, worse still other wizards made the Key Swords so that they could plunder the treasures of others or (foolishly) try and harness the power of some of the sealed monsters.  

What the Lock Beast Guards
1 Scrooge McDuck levels of gold
2 lots of money and 1d4 magic items you really want to give your party but haven't had an opportunity to give 
3 a legion of robotic soldiers who will follow anyone that reactivates them though they often misunderstand what you want and only solve problems through extreme violence
4 horrible magical radioactive waste, gives your spells cancer, mutates anything that gets close, will irradiate the whole dungeon in a week and (to a lesser extent) the entire surrounding hex in a month
5 enough zombies to change the genre of your campaign 
6 a dragon that's also a vampire that's also an archangel

 

Where in the dungeon is the Key Sword 
1 sitting on a stone column, the room is full of traps
2 in the hands of another adventuring party, they will definitely try and open the Lock Beast in this dungeon with it, regardless of how many times they are warned that this is a bad idea
3 being held by one of the most powerful denizens of the dungeon who has wisely decided not to open the Lock Beast
4 somewhere among all the junk of some goblins (or similar) who have no idea as to its true worth 
5 inside of the belly of a powerful monster who ate its last wielder
6 broken into multiple pieces, somewhere in the dungeon is a way to recombine them

Monstrous - Dragon

The fourth of my posts on using the book Monstrous to make some cool monsters. 

For inspiration I am using one of the guilds of Ravnica from Magic: the Gathering. Text in italics is from the book, text in bold is my own.

 

 

By Erica Yang

 

 

Dragon - Orzhov - Gold 

 

Vainglory

Although Gold's empire has laid in ruins for ages, Gold's vanity remains undiminished. Gold harbors a deep pride in its nature in being gold itself, leading it to hoard beautiful golden items and goldsmiths held in gilded birdcages. 

Sly heroes can attempt to appeal to this vanity by doing one of the following:

• Convincingly praise Gold with elaborate honorifics specific to Gold's vanity and the history of its former empire
• Present Gold with a fabulous gift appropriate to Gold's hoard 
• Tell Gold a tale about the folly of charity 

One or two failed attempts give Gold the upper hand in attempts to parley with it when using Serpent's Tongue. Further failed attempts will awaken Gold's Slumbering Cataclysm. 

 

Serpent's Tongue

When Gold and a mortal parley, they ask each other a question.

Gold must answer truthfully and even unwisely if the mortal has successfully appealed to Gold's Vainglory. The mortal must make a new appeal to Gold's Vainglory for each additional question they wish to ask. 

The mortal must answer truthfully and even unwisely if they hold any precious metal other than gold, or if they have failed an attempt to appeal to Gold's Vainglory. 

Ruinous Breath

Everything Gold touches comes to ruin, even the food it eats and the air it breathes. When Gold has recently consumed uncountable riches, its expelled breath corrupts and corrodes charity and kindness. 

 

Ageless Scales

Gold is coated with nigh-indestructible scales of pure gold. No mortal weapon can pierce them.

However, Gold's scales are marred by a massive fang of pure silver, the mark of a gruesome battle lost to history. 

Slumbering Cataclysm

When violently awakened from its slumber or moved to great anger, Gold descends upon a mortal civilization and utterly destroys a place of extreme wealth before returning to its lair.

Gold repeats this destructive act on a new target every day thereafter. Its path of destruction can only be ended by slaying Gold or by giving it all the gold in land.

 

By waitbutwhy.com

To be fully honest I am not quite happy with this monster, I have been thinking for a while about what to add to the end of this post and I have decided just to post it, no use in waiting for good ideas that might not come. 

 

 

Getting back to reviewing Monstrous I think the dragon entry is pretty good, the ruinous breath part seems a little weird to me but its fun and flavorful and could probably lead to some interesting situations. The serpents tongue/vainglory is very interesting and gives a nice amount of procedure to dealing with the dragon socially which is actually quite nice. The dragon was definitely one of the better entries in the book.