Gorgon and Mighty Gorgon

Fortress creatures
Level 1
Gnoll
Gnoll Marauder
Level 2
Lizardman
Lizard Warrior
Level 3
Serpent Fly
Dragon Fly
Level 4
Basilisk
Greater Basilisk
Level 5
Gorgon
Mighty Gorgon
Level 6
Wyvern
Wyvern Monarch
Level 7
Hydra
Chaos Hydra
Towns

Statistics
Gorgon
Cost per troop  525
	Attack 10 Defense 14 Damage 12–16 Health 70 Speed 5 Movement Ground Size 2 Growth 3 AI Value 890
Mighty Gorgon
Cost per troop  600
	Attack 11 Defense 16 Damage 12–16 Health 70 Speed 6 Movement Ground Size 2 Growth 3 AI Value 1028
Special abilities:
• Death stare
Portraits

Gorgons and Mighty Gorgons are the level 5 creatures of Fortress. They are recruited from the Gorgon Lair.

"The sturdy gorgons attack with their acidic breath. The Mighty Gorgon has a death stare with a 10% chance per attack of killing 1 creature in a troop outright per 10 Mighty Gorgons." ^{RoE manual}

Special Ability: Death Stare

Mighty Gorgons have special ability death stare, which may occur after the stack has attacked, including retaliations. When the stack attacks, the successful death stare occurs before the enemy has a chance to retaliate. Every gorgon in the stack has 10% chance to cause death stare. Successful stare instantly kills the 'top' unit of a stack, leaving the new 'top' unit with full health. The stare cannot kill more enemies than 1/10th from the number of Mighty Gorgons in a stack rounded up. In other words, the stare of 1–10 Mighty Gorgons may only kill one enemy, while a stack of 11 might kill two.

Unlike most "magic" abilities, this works on Black Dragons, but not on the undead or the unliving (such as golems and elementals).

Calculation

PR% = 1 - 0.90^N

PR% = Chance to kill at least one enemy creatures
N   = Number of Mighty Gorgons in a stack

Creatures immune to death stare: Elementals:

  Air and Storm Elementals

  Water and Ice Elementals

  Fire and Energy Elementals

  Earth and Magma Elementals

  Psychic and Magic Elementals

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Undead:

  Skeletons and Skeleton Warriors

  Walking Dead and Zombies

  Wights and Wraiths

  Vampires and Vampire Lords

  Liches and Power Liches

  Black and Dread Knights

  Bone and Ghost Dragons

 Mummies

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Gargoyles:

  Stone and Obsidian Gargoyles

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Golems:

  Stone and Iron Golems

 Gold Golems

 Diamond Golems

 Steel Golems 

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Mechanicals:
  Automatons and Sentinel Automatons 
  Dreadnoughts and Juggernauts 

Heroes with a specialty

• Alkin the Beastmaster has gorgons as a specialty, which increases the attack and defense skills of any Gorgons or Mighty Gorgons for each level attained after 5th level, and gives them a speed bonus of 1.

User commentary

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Mighty Gorgons are among the best level 5 creatures in the game, and certainly one of the highlights of the Fortress town. They can defend your Ranged attackers, or with a prayer or haste or even a cape of velocity can go for blow with creatures far stronger than them because of their good defense stat, high health and incredibly effective death stare ability. Ideal strategy is to get them on the strongest troop stack possible (Archangels, Titans, etc.) and watch them level opponents far stronger in stats. Because of how death stare is capped, it's best to separate Mighty Gorgons in stacks of 11, 21, 31 etc. or at least 12, 22, 32 etc. whenever possible, rather then even multiples of 10. Generally, a stack of 10N+1 Mighty Gorgons has an about 30%-40% chance of killing N+1 enemies with the death stare, while for 10N Mighty Gorgons it's obviously impossible. Mighty Gorgons are possibly the creatures to whom Berserk is more harmful than to any others. It is a pure disaster, since they will kill their allies via death stare, during both their own attack and retaliation.

See also:

• List of creatures