#19: Cave Locust. This is another of old-school D&D’s weird bugs, and another example of a superficially ordinary monster that has a lot going on. Cave locusts have five special features: stone camouflage, a random encounter-inducing shriek, a jump that can turn into an accidental attack, debilitating spit, and poison immunity. This makes it a surprisingly dynamic creature, where a lot of the outputs of encountering it are distinct from the conventional combat encounter.
They have poison immunity because they eat fungus, so we can put them in the vicinity of our previously established fungal creatures. They might be natural predators of the Mother Fungus, and thus implicit rivals of the gecko kobolds and other creatures who seek to exploit or symbiotically ally with the Mother Fungus.
#52: Griffon. Like the hippogriff and the pegasus, the griffon is a member of the amply populated “flying animal mashup” category. Their urge to attack horses is their main distinguishing feature.
…It doesn’t say they only attack mundane, land-bound horses, so perhaps they are predators to the hippogriffs and pegasi as well. At 7 HD, they are much bigger than either of those creature types, so they’re plausible as apex predators. Maybe shared fear of the griffon is the only thing keeping those rivals from attempting to drive the other out of the area.
The Overhaul gives us a nice body variation table, similar to what we used for the chimera. We get lizard body (armor as plate) and peacock wings (half-speed flight). The peacock wings make it a slow and ungainly flyer, so it has to rely on ambush tactics to catch its swifter prey. Imagine an armored peacock the size of a garbage truck screaming in out of nowhere to try to eat you. I would be terrified too, and I’m not even a horse.
#120: Trader. Do you like duplicative stat blocks for barely distinguishable groups of humans? Because the OSE bestiary has duplicative stat blocks for barely distinguishable groups of humans. Our traders are only thinly sketched here, but appear to be lower on the tech tree than the merchants we met before (they trade in "carved wooden items, furs, spices").
But they do have mules, which are canonically important to our dungeon! So I’m giving these guys a pass. We’ll put them inside the dungeon, to add some contrast with the merchants on the outside; they might have some useful supplies to offer adventurers.
#20: Centaur. Uhh… how far do we want to take this griffons-eat-horses thing? I can’t think of any reason why the griffon would turn its nose up at a creature that is mostly horse… although with bows, the centaurs are at least better equipped to drive the griffon off. The Overhaul plays up the centaurs’ wild, rebellious side (“we bribed them to attack our enemies, but they spent our money on wine”). They’re prisoners trying to escape, but the griffon’s presence is making it hard for them to make a clean break for it.
#54: Harpy. Another classic monster, and the stat block is what you expect, although they have magic resistance with a +2 save, a feature they seem to have lost through the editions (the 2014 MM omits it). The Overhaul is similar, but does note that they are “divine servants of vengeance.” This harkens back to their origin in Greek myth, where they were usually acting to enact divine punishment, not just to serving as generic monsters. Like the wights and gargoyles, this is another opportunity to turn a conventionally evil monster, which would make sense as a prisoner, into part of the warden staff for the prison. Absent direct oversight from the prison builders, the harpies are experimenting with how shitty they can be without attracting celestial punishment.
#56: Hellhound. OSE statblocks alternate between “yeah, what I expected” and “hold on, there’s some unexpected details here.” The hellhound is in the later category. They are “cunning, and very intelligent” but presumably not sapient, as other creatures keep them as pets. They have a variable HD range for some reason; it gives them more HP and more accurate attacks, but doesn’t change damage or anything else, so I’m not sure what purpose that serves. They can detect invisible things quite well, presumably reflecting their canine sense of smell and hearing, or their ability in myth (e.g., Japanese) to see through tricks.
The Overhaul variants are interesting. I rolled “Glass Hound. Invisible. Fire is also invisible.” So they’re trapped in the prison, they’ve broken containment, and they have started setting fires that burn like normal, but are invisible. Fire that you can smell and inhale, but not see, is a terrifying idea. How do you know you have actually put it out? This is not just a monster encounter, but an entire dungeon hazard for the PCs. Excellent.
The invisible fire is such a huge problem that it explains why there's a river flowing through this prison. It wasn't an accident; it was deliberately diverted here to douse the invisible fires.
#42: Gelatinous Cube. Deservedly one of the most famous and celebrated D&D monsters. This stat block is as expected. Like the basilisk, we could imagine the cube as a contained threat that was let loose in an attempt to stop other monsters from escaping. Like the blink dog, it can easily bypass bars and portcullises. It can devour other would-be escapees while making no effort of its own to escape.
The Overhaul gives them a “wet wrinkly steak” texture and “gets you really high if you lick it.” So weaker dungeon denizens are being paralyzed and then eaten/and or intoxicated by the cube. Some factions have even captured smaller ones to intentionally take advantage of the intoxicating effect. I was gonna escape from prison, until I got high.
#71: Manticore. Like the griffon and so many others before it, this is another airborne mythological combo meal. The manticore’s ability to snipe from long range sets it apart from those other creatures, but it also has a finite amount of ammunition, so it needs to choose its targets carefully. The Overhaul adds some good lore, including that manticores propagating as evil dreams when they die, which would give the prison builders a good reason for capturing them, rather than killing them outright. This manticore is prowling an area of halls with doors too small for it to exit, using crudely made arrow slits to snipe and poison passerby. It cares more for these pointless acts of cruelty than it does for actions that might bring about its own freedom.
#7: Bear. Just use bears! You can do the entire WLD gimmick in no time at all. Just use bears! Who will notice? I would notice. I would know. I would be disappointed with you. I would be disappointed in myself. I’m too deep into this exercise to JUB my way out of it now.
Anyway, OSE includes four types of bears, and they map to their real-world counterparts pretty well in terms of size and combat danger. No sun bear stats, sadly.
One feature of the Overhaul that I enjoy is how it treats mundane animals. The 5E.2014 MM packs all the normal beasts into short bits at the back of the book, and I get it; you don’t need a lore block explaining what a deer is. But if they’re worth so little attention… why include them at all? The Overhaul, in contrast, is first and foremost a book for inspiring interesting encounters, rather than a book for referencing stats, and it has three tables of evocative bear variations. You could probably run several dozen bear encounters using the Overhaul with getting bored. I think you would be lucky to get one good bear encounter out of the 2014 manual.
To come full circle and return to our very first post in this series, our bears are here to GET THAT SWEET KILLER BEE HONEY. They’re probably immune or at least highly resistant to the stings. They’re “belligerent, secretive.” They’ve created a den within the prison that includes a “mummified carcass of an enormous bear.” They’re great! Just use bears!
#49: Gorgon. This is the Gygaxian gorgon, the metal bull that breathes petrifying gas. If you're really cool and smart like me, you know that this type of "gorgon" is actually a petroblepas. If we want to quadruple down on the stone theme, these creatures would be released for serious riot control situations, petrifying entire crowds of prisoners.
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