Peculiar Curios: Chicken Hut

My favorite feature in Dragon Magazine was the Bazaar of the Bizarre. Magic items are one of the things I love most about Dungeons & Dragons, and the distinct lack of kick-ass magic items in D&D 4E makes me pretty sad. Much like I miss the awesome write-ups of monsters from the 3.5 era of D&D, I miss items that have personality and history attached to them. So I’m going to be providing some of that here.

This week’s entry is one of the best-loved inventions from my home campaign. Our first Big Bad, Babagya, was, as mentioned in previous posts, Baba Yaga from Slavic myth. She was a horrifying witch woman who stole babies and ate them, flew in cauldron she rowed through the air with her broomstick, and lived in a hut that walked around on chicken legs. As the campaign progressed and Babagya began to grow away from her source material, the player characters discovered a culture of nomadic dwarves that built houses with chicken feet, and managed to win one of these amazing prizes for themselves. Since then, it has become one of the party’s favorite NPCs as well as one of their favorite items, and I kind of think of it as the mascot for my campaign.

The chicken huts are works of alchemical and magical art. Roughly as intelligent as a four-year-old human, they are capable of independent movement and don’t need to be personally directed to each destination. Simple directions will usually suffice. They allow their tenants to cross huge distances with all of the comforts of home; you can read a book while crossing dozens of miles. They never tire, don’t need to eat or drink, and are happy, willing servants of the people who live within them.

The dwarves that create these marvels have never sold one for money, though they have been known to accept challenges that would reward the winner with such a home. These challenges are never easy, and are almost always skewed in favor of the dwarves. Those few who can claim to have won a chicken hut truly deserve one.

Average Chicken Hut
Gargantuan  Vehicle
HP 400; Bloodied 200 AC 4; Fortitude 20; Reflex 2; Will 4 Speed 12
Pilot and Crew
As a semi-sentient vehicle, the Chicken Hut does not require a pilot or crew to operate. However, it does need clear and simple instructions to get from one place to another (requiring a DC 15 Diplomacy check).
Load
Fifty medium creatures; forty tons of cargo.
Out of Control
An out of control Chicken Hut bucks and flails about, causing anyone inside it to fall prone unless they make a saving throw every round. After ten rounds, it begins running in a random direction until control is regained.
Floors
An average Chicken Hut consists of a single main floor with a porch. The roof tends to be flat and shingled. A chicken hut is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Outside, it appears to be a 4 square by 4 square structure. Inside, it is a comfortable 8 square by 8 square structure.
Chicken Legs
For every ten damage the Chicken Hut takes, its speed is reduced by two squares. When its speed is reduced to zero, it moves randomly, out of control.
Alignment  Unaligned    Languages Dwarven

 

My Group’s Chicken Hut
Gargantuan Vehicle
HP 400; Bloodied 200 AC 4; Fortitude 20; Reflex 4; Will 4 Speed 12, fly 8 (clumsy)
Pilot and Crew
As a semi-sentient vehicle, the Chicken Hut does not require a pilot or crew to operate. It is smart enough to understand basic directions and get from one place to another without difficulty.
Load
Sixty medium creatures; fifty tons of cargo.
Out of Control
An out of control Chicken Hut on the ground bucks and flails about, causing everyone inside it to fall prone unless they make a saving throw every round. After ten rounds, it begins running in a random direction until control is regained. An out of control Chicken Hut in the air moves in circles at half speed. Each round, it has a 50% chance of descending. It descends 5 squares for the first 10 rounds it is out of control. After 10 rounds, it descends 10 squares per round. An out of control chicken hut that hits the ground after descending more than 20 squares is destroyed.
Floors
The Chicken Hut is a single main floor with a porch. The roof is flat and shingled, with a ballista mounted there. The chicken hut is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Outside, it appears to be a 4-square by 4-square structure. Inside, it is a 14-square by 13-square structure. The ballista can be used to make a ranged basic attack with a +1 proficiency bonus, dealing 3d10 damage on a hit.
Chicken Legs
For every ten damage the Chicken Hut takes, its speed is reduced by two squares. When its speed is reduced to zero, it moves randomly, out of control.
Resources
The Chicken Hut never runs out of food or water. Those things are magically created in the larder, pantry and ice cellar. The chicken hut can also create a great variety of objects with various levels of success. The limits of this magic have not been fully explored.
Chicken Wings
For every ten damage the Chicken Hut takes, its fly speed is reduced by two squares. When its fly speed is reduced to zero it starts to fall out of control.
Standard Actions
Claws • At-Will
Attack: +21 vs. AC
Hit: 1d10 + 11 fire damage. On a critical hit, the target also takes 10 ongoing fire damage.
Alignment      Languages Dwarven, Common

Picture Jacked from Tumblr, but it doesn’t say from whom.