Gargoyles

When I was a youth first DMing D&D with the Holmes version of Basic one of my favorite antagonists were Gargoyles. At 4HD and 4 attacks a round they were an unholy horror and one needed magic weapons to harm them as well.

They were too cool to simply use to wipe out parties. So younger and smaller gargoyles were employed and as such Gargoyles became a species of living breathing monsters where the big old grown ups required a magical weapon to harm while the younger ones had lower HD and an appropriate number of attacks (1 HD...1 attack, 2Hd...2 attacks). With the power of flight they were still a scourge that could really only be trumped as characters gained magical weapons and winged steeds (of which there was a variety in the first version of Basic). So gargoyles while able to hide among masonry and look like stone weren't constructs or creatures from another plane they were simply bad asses. Now and again they would dive bomb with rocks, flaming oil and could even been seen armed with bows now and again (only getting 1 attack if i recall) but they were still pretty dim so they weren't ruling kingdoms or putting a serious challenge agaisnt the world of men.

Players relished the opportunity to smash gargoyle eggs when they discovered a nest.

Edit: Full grown gargoyles couldn't be turned to stone for some reason I can't recall now but this did lead to them working with a Medusa as guards and having a pet basilisk in one dungeon. They preferred to nest in caves instead of mountain heights so that's what they were doing in dungeons.

As I matured and absorbed more official D&D gargoyles as a race of antagonists blew away on the wind, it might be time to return to fancies of the past.