Gunslinger Knights
A stony crushcorpse's body is a mixture of meaty flesh and hard mineralized plates, overall looking like a human-sized animal that was mashed into a roughly spherical shape. It can slowly move by extending fingerlike fleshy digits from between its outer rocky plates. Some arrangement of its internal organs allows it to throw itself into a spin, rolling quickly in a horizontal direction or even up moderate slopes.
A crushcorpse can grind and vibrate its outer stones against each other, producing harsh noises and patterns that almost sound like a language. Some have even been heard producing guttural sounds that resemble human words and phrases they've heard.
Motive: Hungers for flesh, destruction
Environment: In, near, and after Fundament Storms; alone or in clusters of three or more
Health: 12
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (4 points) (see below)
Armor: 3
Movement: Immediate; short when rolling
Modifications: Speed defense as level 3 due to speed; perception as level 3
Combat: A crushcorpse can strike a foe in immediate range with a cluster of stinging digits that inflict a minor wound (2 points) and inject a digestive substance that inflicts 2 additional points of acid damage. Instead of stinging, once every other round a crushcorpse can move up to a short distance and crash into one to three foes, who are knocked prone if they fail Might defense rolls.
A crushcorpse may instead target a crafted steed with its ramming attack. A hit means the Knight takes damage and must succeed at a Might defense task or their steed moves one step down the object damage track.
A crushcorpse recovers 1 health at the start of each turn. A fire attack that inflicts damage (after accounting for its Armor) stops this regeneration for a few rounds. Even after a crushcorpse is killed, the least-damaged parts of it can slowly heal over several hours and split into several smaller creatures that wear a portion of the larger crushcorpse's outer stones as a shield or shell (burning the corpse prevents this spawning). These surviving crushcorpse crabs need to eat and grow for a few weeks before they metamorphose into their adult form. A crushcorpse crab has all the memories of the full-size crushcorpse it grew from.
A crushcorpse becomes lethargic in dim light or darkness (anything less than sunlight or full moonlight), hindering its actions.
Interaction: Crushcorpses can communicate with each other like wolves and other pack hunters do. Although some of them can imitate voices, this seems more like a parrot repeating something it's heard than an understanding of human speech.
Use: Several rolling boulders destroyed a house, small bridge, or similar structure.
GM Intrusion: As part of its attack, the crushcorpse
knocks the character prone or off their steed
(if they weren't already) and stands on them with its full weight. The character is stuck and takes automatic damage every round until they use an action to succeed on a Might or
Speed task to escape.
A mounted Knight who is
knocked prone is knocked over along with their steed; they must also succeed at a difficulty
3 riding task or be
knocked off their steed.
GM Intrusion:
Two or more crushcorpses coordinate their ramming attacks against the character (or their steed) at the same time, hindering the character's defenses against them.