Troglodyte egg

[Aurich]

Hoi.

I'm a rather new DM running a homebrew scenario.

I made my party find a Troglodyte egg.

I'm guessing they will keep it to hatch it.
But what can i expect from them afterwards?

Looking for experiences on what i can expect what players would do with such a find.

Regards,
A.

[Grim Portent]

Depending on how you play Troglodytes if it hatches it'll probably wind up as a pet or a baby for the party. Troglodytes being on the dim side I would lean more towards an owner/pet relationship than a parent/child one being the more natural result of hatching a trog egg.

Troglodytes are reptiles with an inclination towards laziness and gluttony, so they probably hatch as miniature adults which minimises the amount of effort the actual adults have to put in to keep it alive. It will probably be able to run around and hunt (and torment) bugs and small animals, but it'd probably prefer to steal food from the party and then nap when possible. Since they don't like sunlight it will probably spend a lot of time in peoples bags while it's still small enough to do so.

If it bonds with the party it will treat them more or less fine, it's not among other Troglodytes so it shouldn't get some of their worse habits like fighting over metal equipment but should still be group oriented enough to view the party as it's family.

When angry or scared it will stink badly enough to wake the dead, so tantrums are going to be unpleasant.

It will also be pretty stupid, and likely secrete some pretty unpleasant stuff. It will probably be able to learn Common eventually, or Draconic much more easily, but by default Troglodytes only speak their own language, which is partially based on secreting smelly substances and so not suited to being spoken by most races.



TLDR; If Lizardfolk are the stone age humans of the reptilian humanoids, Troglodytes are one of the more primitive hominids. Smart enough to make and use very basic tools, but without much capacity for abstract thought or complex language or society. It can probably take care of the essentials on it's own, but will probably happily latch onto the party as it's tribe/family.


In my personal experience the default response to finding an egg or a baby creature is to want to adopt it, owlbears, orcs, kobolds, giant spiders and so on are all things I've tried to adopt or been GM for when my players have tried to adopt them. The thing is finding a balance between making the creature's natural behaviour be useful and/or annoying, and making it malleable to player rearing. If the creature winds up being impossible to raise as a friendly being then the whole thing is a waste of game time, so it needs to strike a balance between cute mascot, naive liability, and minor pain in the ass.

[firelistener]

The Monster Manual is your best resource for stuff like this.

Troglodytes are chaotic evil and described to be entirely motivated by their primal hunger for any food they can find. So even if you wish for your newborn trog to be a blank moral slate, it should still be a hungry little monster that wants to eat the flesh of the adventurers.

They're also underdark creatures and sensitive to sunlight, so it should try to run and hide underground if they bring it to the surface.

Then they also have their stench. The hatchling should smell horrible and make everyone roll the constitution saving throw since it will be secreting its horrible oil.

If the party still wants to hold onto it after all that, maybe you can have some NPC wizard or arena owner offer to buy it off their hands. I'd strongly recommend against letting them try to train it or anything like that. You'll find yourself having to do a lot more role play for the creature as DM, and playing babysitter for a monster isn't as fun for players as it sounds in my experience. My primary recommendation is for you to offer them a good chance to get rid of it before it hatches, honestly.

[da newt]

Reptiles tend to hatch mostly self sufficient as parenting isn't common.

W/ 6 INT they are smarter than animals, but just barely (Orc and Lizardfolk have 7 INT, Ogres have 5, skeletons have 6). It will STINK and be sunlight sensitive. I'd allow it to understand common on a basic level with time, but be unable to speak other than a few key words.

Your biggest decision will be, how long does it take to reach adulthood - what is their life expectancy? Lizard folk mature around 14 yrs and live to 60. I'd think Trogs would be a bit quicker, so maybe 10 yrs to full size live to 40 ... so I'd use it grows 2x as fast as a human (but hatches being able to walk and hunt bugs, worms, little stuff).

They habitually live in groups, so I'd assume it will naturally glom onto the party, but loyalty isn't really their thing.

[Unoriginal]

Troglodytes are sapient beings, and their INT score as well as their alignment is due to their society and education-deprived environment, not something innate (though some do get blessed by their demon-god).

What would come out of the egg would be an humanoid baby, not a pet, and should be treated as such.

Also INT 6 isn't "barely more intelligent than animals". Some animals can go to INT 7 and still not be sapient (though most don't go above 4), while it's possible for a fully literate human to have INT 7 (as those who played Dragon Heist may have discovered).

[noob]

Troglodytes are sapient beings, and their INT score as well as their alignment is due to their society and education-deprived environment, not something innate (though some do get blessed by their demon-god).

What would come out of the egg would be an humanoid baby, not a pet, and should be treated as such.

Also INT 6 isn't "barely more intelligent than animals". Some animals can go to INT 7 and still not be sapient (though most don't go above 4), while it's possible for a fully literate human to have INT 7 (as those who played Dragon Heist may have discovered).

I still think making animals go above 2 int was a wrong decision: it means that many animals are as smart as (or smarter than) people able to understand language, speak, read and write (despite the complexities of written language being overwhelming relatively to everything an animal will need to do including what a pack hunter will need to do).
It is like they did that only because older editions did it. (like 99% of what 5e does)

[Unoriginal]

it means that many animals are as smart as (or smarter than) people able to understand language, speak, read and write (despite the complexities of written language being overwhelming relatively to everything an animal will need to do including what a pack hunter will need to do).

Would it be too cynical to say "just like in real life"?