Updating The Argos

When I finally got my mitts on the 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual, flipping through its pages there were a few monsters that I became enamoured with. They looked cool and interesting with nifty abilities. One that I immediately bought based on vibes is the Argos, an amoeba looking chap that is a riot of mouths and eyes but what drew me in was that it yielded a weapon. This thing is intelligent.

The Argos

The Beholder’s attempt to copyright infringe on Lovecraft’s Shoggoths.

Seeing how Wizards uses Pinkertons and Lovecraft is dead, we can see who has better lawyers.

I found the lore very interesting, as they’re made by Beholders as a biological weapon. The details of their creation isn’t too specific; however, the lineage is obvious with the Argos using d10 random spells per turn like its Beholder overlords. The Argos can transmute itself into rock and creates its own atmosphere, a necessary detatil for the Spelljammer campaign setting (Age of Sail but in Space!). The fact that they can turn into rocks to slow their metabolism down also means I can easily see them be fired upon enemies ships as boulders that then transform into deadly amoebas.

Previously on Dungeon Ball Z

Later editions of Dungeons and Dragons mention how reality warps around Beholders when they are asleep. This is supposedly how new Beholders are made; they are dreamed up out of the nightmares of a narcarisstic panopticon. In fact, in the usual creative bankruptcy of Wizards of the Coast, Aberrations now have the tendency to create others of their ilk out of dreams. Unfortunately, an interesting piece of unique lore gets sanded away from the rough edges of Beholders, one of the few monsters that they still claim with as part of their Intellectual Property.

Details of Argos conclude that they’re treated like hunting dogs by Beholders; they’re intentionally starved, even to the point of eating other slaves of Beholders but they are magically compelled to be incapable of raising a hand (tentacle? tendril? mouth?) against their creators. 3rd Edition decided to go with Gibbering Mouthers in the stead of an Argos which is far less copyrightable term; which begs the question of why.

For the keen eye or studied nerd, you might be aware of Argus, a giant whose body is covered in eyes. It was given the surname of Panoptes for All Seeing. The traditional spelling of this mythological figure is Argus but Argos isn’t an unusual transliteration. I get it, you’ve made an interesting creature and hope that no one had checked your homework in the age prior to the internet. That’s where I knew I would need to make changes to the creature, such as the creative liberities Dungeon Dad takes on some conversions. If you could not tell, Dungeon Dad is who inspired this attempt to update the Argos to 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons for your West Marches or Hexcrawl adventures.

Conscripted to a Faction

I had made an alien faction but hadn’t decided on who would be the mastermind, naming the faction Voidstalkers. For the faction, I made a naming convention of using outdated jobs as the titles for the Aberrations. All of the creatures were based off of some horror movie alien, whether that is the typical Gray as seen in Fire in the Sky (1993) as a Chirurgeon or the spindly invaders in No One Will Save You (2023) as Mendicants. Chirurgeon is the proto-name for surgeons, which if you have seen the terrifying sequence in Fire in the Sky, sells the Voidstalker namesake. Mendicant is a term for beggars and considering the events of No One Will Save You, those who did not give in to the invaders were faced with creatues I decided to name Mummers; creatures in the film that copy a target.

I have since moved away from Voidstalkers as an entire faction; I have decided that it is the term for any spacefaring alien, whether that is Mindflayers, Neogi or Beholders. After all, to most mortals strange, dark shapes in the sky move about, with only the occasional blotting out of stars to be a hint of their spaceborn ships.

Considering the trope that aliens are here to observe, I immediately knew who would be running this ragtag group of Aberrations based on horror movies aliens: Beholders. Personally, I use the Dalek’s personality from Doctor Who as my reference for Beholders, as they have right amount of jank and arrogance. The only reason that the floating eyeball monster has a scary reputation is due to decades of paying Big Artist to put Beholders on Wizard of the Coast covers.

Standard Use for Spacefaring

With Beholders placed at the top of the Voidstalker food chain, I knew I had an opportunity to insert the Argos into my game. One of things I like to do with my Beholders to amp up the creep factor is not make each of their ‘Eye Rays’ to be rays. Their gaze transforms whatever they’re looking at unless the Beholder decides to suppress that power. How it sees you affects how you are and the Beholder can see creatures of dust, stone, lighter than air or any other appropriate 'Eye Ray’ power. With the ability to change its environment by how it perceives reality and the Beholder’s natural ability to float can conjure up a very alien location. Hostile Architecture in this case is accidental, with Disintigrated smooth walls and vertical shafts, can make characters understand that they are unwelcome here.

The Argos’ origin with Spelljammer informed my decision on what outdated term felt right. I stumbled across Stevedore, an obselete way to say Dockworker, and that fits for what Beholders made Argos for. By producing oxygen, an Argos is only really used in spacefaring Beholder ships. Futhermore, they can harden and be launched from a catapult or cannon into enemy ships where the Argos can transform back into its mobile form to wreak havoc. Beholders expecting their Dockworkers to invade and attack enemy ships ‘at sea’ adds credence to the apex Aberration’s conquering tendencies.

Use on Your Players irResponsibly

With that, I have the Argos listed above if you are only interested in a quick and dirty stat block. It is slightly undertuned for its Challenge Rating. The reason is that the Argos casts a random amount of spells and the options are with quite a width and breadth in power. I don’t want hot dice to be the reason why this thing wipes the floor with your party; I want it to be because you used interesting and cunning tactics.

The Stevedore can easily pick and begin using weapons that might be deadlier than its Pseudopods, including simple sabotage of rigging onboard the party’s vessel. This is why I have a PDF page going in more detail about the Stevedore, including alternate rules, tactics employed, potential story hooks and harvesting bounties on my Patreon, such as if he Beholders starved the Argos before letting it loose.

For those who wish to avoid reoccuring charges, an inexpensive PDF is available in the Shop.