dailybestiary:

I like gargoyles.  They’re stony but they can fly. They’re demonic without being demons.  They’re urban monsters not confined to the sewer or the graveyard (a rarity), but they make equally good wilderness encounters.  And if you sic them on a party earlier enough in their careers (“So you have…what…two +1 daggers among you?”) they can be really scary. 

But mostly I just like gargoyles.

The Cathedral of Beasts is a gargoyle-covered basilica in the center of Froland’s largest city—and not all of the gargoyles are architectural in nature.  However, by long-standing agreement with the city constabulary, they do not prey on the average citizen.  However, anyone who sets foot on the grounds of the abandoned basilica is fair game.  Given that the baptismal pool in the center of the Cathedral of Beasts is a font of healing magic, the gargoyles feed on desperate risk takers more than one might think.

Stepping through a portal, a party of adventurers finds themselves in a desert, with the sun at the wrong angle in the sky and cerulean mountains on the horizon.  Any magic weapon they have not made of crystal seems subdued, almost sputtering.  And behind them, strange figures atop stony spires spread their wings…

Pearl divers have been disappearing.  The local merfolk are being blamed, and the sea dwellers are too haughty not to deny the charges, especially when made at trident point.  In reality, kapoacinths are the culprits, having claimed a nearby sunken galleon as their lair.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 137

Wikipedia says kapoacinths date all the way to Blackmoor.  Whoa.

For more on gargoyles, Rob McCreary’s entry in Classic Horrors Revisited has their psychology and some nice variants.

Gargoyles are found in mountainous regions throughout the world. They are often considered the ‘children’ of Yennba and Aenma, mixing the former’s stoniness with the latter’s love of the air. They will serve priests of either god, but their chaotic nature means they chafe under Yennba’s strict guidelines. While most are not evil, they are ravenous and predatory, and influence from fiends or wicked dragons has pushed certain tribes to savagery. 

In Gladia, they are known from the islands of Munab and Waster. The former are nimble and have clay-colored hides, and prefer to lair in the dry northern region. On Waster, they have darker skin often tinged with green, and willingly serve as guards for the lunar naga astronomers.