Troglodyte Grunt

n.b. Welcome to Troglodyte Tuesday! This is a feature in which I present (or re-present) monsters I have created or adapted for use in my own 5E D&D campaigns, including lore, tips for running them and a stat block. Despite the name, this feature will present monsters other than troglodytes, though the first few weeks will be focusing on a variety of trogs I created in the last year.

You may be asking what’s so special about these troglodytes? And I’d have to honestly answer “not much,” except that they are my take on the version that appears in the 5E Monster Manual and SRD. I think of “troglodyte” as the umbrella term that covers all the various trogs I have shared on this site like the Troglodyte Juggernaut and the Troglodyte Meatseeker, so the “Grunt” is simply the name of the most common type of trog and the lowest in the chaotic hierarchy of these subterranean people.

So what is different from this version and the RAW version? Well, aside from having to saving throw proficiencies, these trogs (like all trogs I’ve created) are resistant to poison to emulate their ability to live in some toxic environments without being completely immune to its effects or other sources of poison (though the +4 to Con saves probably helps in that area too), and the heavy morningstars they use (like all morningstars in games I run) do both bludgeoning and piercing damage. As such, they use whatever damage type is most advantageous between the two when they hit.

Another thing the lore presented below includes, is a sense of the numbers found in their communities, something that seems to have gone away in contemporary D&D descriptions of monsters.

Below you will find descriptions of the creature, a full stat block, and a link to PDF version of the full description and 5E stat block.