Pumpkin-heads

[Red Baron]

Has anyone used pumpkin headed bugbears, and did they end up being scary or comical?

[LouGoncey]

They are scary if they suddenly bow to you, take the top of their 'pumpkin head' off, and vomit out a soup of hot lava that burned one hireling down to the bones. Total freakout in my game.

[ravenheart87]

I had a bugbear tribe whose members wore pumpkins on their head for helmet. I've found it a nice way to have both the bearlike goblinoid and the pumpkin head for the same creature.

[scottenkainen]

During an all-too brief Blackmoor campaign. I had bugbears have swollen, bald, orange heads that looked vaguely pumpkin-like.

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

[Torreny]

Let‘s just say pumpkin patches were avoided like death itself.

[Malcadon]

I like the idea that Bugbears look more like a horror show monster then as large, bandy-legged teddybears. After all, "bugbear" (and "bugaboo") is another name for the boogieman.

I like my Bugbears to be a mix of horror show monsters and lurking shadows. I mean, they go largely unseen while taunting their victims with ghostly whispers and snatching stragglers into the dark and leading helpless people into traps. They can do this by becoming invisible in shadows. Once they reveal themselves, they look freakish and scary. A mix of pumpkin-heads and Dark Shadows (from FF), with large heads with glowing eyes, and lanky bodies cover in long black coats. When they move, they jerk and contort in unsettling ways. And they talk in harsh whispers, like Violator form Spawn. The point of this monster is not to be upfront scary, but to build on the horror and suspense through what is not seen.

[Red Baron]

Feb 22, 2014 17:01:44 GMT -6 Malcadon said:

I like the idea that Bugbears look more like a horror show monster

Exactly.

A pumpkin headed bear fits right in to Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Its the right kind of freaky and dark.

The last thing d&d needs is another orc-ish humanoid.

[Malcadon]

Feb 22, 2014 17:25:21 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

The last thing d&d needs is another orc-ish humanoid.

Eggsactly!

[Red Baron]

And from now on all sorcerers look like that guy

[Torreny]

Feb 22, 2014 19:45:24 GMT -6 Malcadon said:

Eggsactly!

NO! (I counter with the history channel guy)

[jdjarvis]

Feb 22, 2014 17:25:21 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

Feb 22, 2014 17:01:44 GMT -6 Malcadon said:

I like the idea that Bugbears look more like a horror show monster

Exactly.

A pumpkin headed bear fits right in to Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Its the right kind of freaky and dark.

The last thing d&d needs is another orc-ish humanoid.

I agree, playing bugbears as just 3HD humanoid foes is loosing out on poetential. I let the buggers hide pretty much anywhere and pop out (time for surprisecheck) so you never know if the something is lurking beneath the stairs, in a drain, behind a barrel, or under the bed.

[Malcadon]

Feb 23, 2014 7:56:44 GMT -6 jdjarvis said:

I agree, playing bugbears as just 3HD humanoid foes is loosing out on poetential. I let the buggers hide pretty much anywhere and pop out (time for surprisecheck) so you never know if the something is lurking beneath the stairs, in a drain, behind a barrel, or under the bed.

Yeah, one annoying issue with stats is how they can reduce a monster down to dry numbers and to faceless cannon-fodder, being in an intermediate spot between Gnolls and Ogres. When you have the same old ugly brutes, even at different power levels with some differing abilities, they all feel the same after awhile.

Player: "Oh wow, it is a jackal-head monster..."
Monster: *growl*
*hack n' slash*
Player: "Well, now its dog food!"

(later...)

Player: "Oh no, not a big bandy-legged Wookiee..."
Monster: *growl*
*pull arm out of socket*
Monster: *WHELP*
Player: "Oh was that yours? Here, let my give you a hand!"
*SLAP*

The key to getting out of that rut is to make the different monsters... well... different.

Feb 23, 2014 0:04:15 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

And from now on all sorcerers look like that guy

Is there any other kind?

[Falconer]

Just pointing out for the record that, although OD&D’s pumpkin-headed bugbear was abandoned in AD&D, it was kept in Runequest in the form of the jack o'bear.

[Red Baron]

Feb 24, 2014 15:30:44 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Just pointing out for the record that, although OD&D’s pumpkin-headed bugbear was abandoned in AD&D, it was kept in Runequest in the form of the jack o'bear.

Cool picture. And its shoots green lasers!

[librarylass]

Feb 19, 2014 9:09:43 GMT -6 scottenkainen said:

During an all-too brief Blackmoor campaign. I had bugbears have swollen, bald, orange heads that looked vaguely pumpkin-like.

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

This is my tendency too, partly influenced by this seriously cool bugbear art in Pathfinder which depicts them with bald, yellow-orange heads and glowing eyes:





Combined with the actually-pumpkin-headed OD&D illustration, which is my second favorite depiction.

[Red Baron]

Humanoids that look like Schwarzenegger are dumb.

Bugbears aren't scary because they're huge (Although bears are pretty durn big, so they might be an exception to that Schwarzenegger thing). They're scary because they're decently clever, they aren't subject to multiple fighting men attacks, and they've some sick pumpkin-bear hybrid. The owl bear is kind of understandable, but a pumpkin-bear is just screwed up. Its such a strange and unnatural combination that its extremely unsettling.

And there are 60 of them.

[librarylass]

For me being huge is a vital part of why a Bugbear is scary-- more specifically being so huge that there's no way you should have overlooked it, yet somehow you did. "Sweet Crom," the party should say, "how did something that bulky manage to get the drop on us?"

[Lord Cias]

Feb 22, 2014 17:01:44 GMT -6 Malcadon said:

I like the idea that Bugbears look more like a horror show monster then as large, bandy-legged teddybears. After all, "bugbear" (and "bugaboo") is another name for the boogieman.

Like this?

[Porphyre]

Feb 27, 2014 22:13:15 GMT -6 librarylass said:

For me being huge is a vital part of why a Bugbear is scary-- more specifically being so huge that there's no way you should have overlooked it, yet somehow you did. "Sweet Crom," the party should say, "how did something that bulky manage to get the drop on us?"

For those who know it, they always remind me of Tommy Rawhead & Bloody Bones in the Courtney Crumrin comic: 8 feet-tall crouching, yet able to hide in your cupboard...

[Red Baron]

I found some great bugbear miniatures over at Old Glory.

They seem a bit pricey, but I'm ordering them anyways.

www.oldgloryminiatures.com/proddetail.asp?prod=GHS-01

[foxroe]

Something like this unfolding itself from the shadows (much creepier than the Maurice Sendak version):

[Merctime]

Lately I'm wanting to envision Bugbears as basically that: The tall, body of a bear, somewhat less bulky and more proportionately 'man-sized' if you will, but at the base of his neck with a fluff of fur (somewhat like a lion's mane, but circular) from which a big, green, ant's head pokes out... Replete with really big, buggy eyes that are multi-faceted like a fly's are. He even has pincers at his mouth!

Hehe... Just tossing that out there. The ol' pumpkin head is cool, too, though

[foxroe]

This is kind of a neat idea for a pumpkin-headed bugbear. Adventurers stumble upon an eerie pumpkin patch that suddenly erupts into 10' tall pumpkin-headed shambling mounds.

I like the mythical/faerie-tale take on bugbears being the creepy thing parents warn their children about to keep them in line, rather than the "hairy goblin-giants" of Supp.I.

Hmmm... are there any mythical references to goblins having unusual heads (like pumpkins) I wonder?

[Red Baron]

Oct 26, 2014 23:21:49 GMT -6 foxroe said:

This is kind of a neat idea for a pumpkin-headed bugbear. Adventurers stumble upon an eerie pumpkin patch that suddenly erupts into 10' tall pumpkin-headed shambling mounds.

Each year, on Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises from his pumpkin patch and flies through the air with his bag of toys to all the children.

[foxroe]

Oct 27, 2014 12:20:36 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

Each year, on Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises from his pumpkin patch and flies through the air with his bag of toys to all the children.

If by "toys" you mean rusty bone saws and shrunken heads....

BTW, I'm diggin' those minis.

[scottyg]

Not to be a buzzkill, but D&D bugbears were never meant to literally have pumpkin heads. They weren't abondoned, etc. in later editions. That was a complete misunderstanding by the artist. Gary used pumpkin as a description for the general shape of their heads. Not that the more literal pumpkin heads aren't cool, it was just never the intent.

[foxroe]

Nov 3, 2014 16:46:29 GMT -6 scottyg said:

Not to be a buzzkill, but D&D bugbears were never meant to literally have pumpkin heads. They weren't abondoned, etc. in later editions. That was a complete misunderstanding by the artist. Gary used pumpkin as a description for the general shape of their heads. Not that the more literal pumpkin heads aren't cool, it was just never the intent.

You're such a party-pooper!

Yeah, but I'm really digging the imagination exercise. I'm thinking my bugbears are going to be 15' tall, 3HD, demon-possessed scarecrows from now on...

[scottyg]

Me too, the literal pumpkin head bugbears take it to another level of creepy.

[foxroe]