Fiend Factory 5E. White Dwarf 26: The Forest Giant

 Issue 26: The Forest Giant

 

The White Dwarf 26 Fiend Factory is titled “Dire Tribes”, and the four creatures discussed are, more or less, all what they used to call “tribal monsters”, in other words they are both intelligent and social.

I was going to go with the Shadow Goblins, by Barney Sloane, as my Monster Of The Week, but on closer examination, they’re just a bit too similar to the Dream Demon that I did last time – a small creature with an affinity for illusion magic.

I do, however, really like the level of detail involved and may well return to them as a “bonus” round. I used these guys in an adventure in a sunken temple once, and it was a very memorable encounter where the darkness spells of the shadow goblins and the light spells of the PCs ended up giving a kind of strobe effect to add to the fun.

But does the picture remind anyone else of Scorpius from Farscape?

 

The Asrai is by Roger E Moore, you know, the one who’s taken over from Roger Musson as White Dwarf’s Most Popular Roger.

Not this Roger Moore, I think

 

They’re based on a folklore figure, a kind of water fairy that melts away in sunlight. As such, although they’re an interesting background creature, there’s not a lot to stat up. I’d put them as a fey rather than an elemental, and could perhaps be folded into nixies or naiads in terms of abilities.

 

The Winter Kobolds, by Jonathon Hardwick, are also highly evocative, and I do like the work of the artist on this one (who seems not only to have illustrated the Fiend Factory but most of the rest of this issue of White Dwarf - probably Ian McCaig).

However, mechanically speaking, just give a standard kobold Damage Resistance to cold and a slight bump in Constitution, and the rest is flavour text, albeit it evocative flavour text. In modern D&D terms, they’d probably have an affinity to white dragons, I’d guess.

 

And so, I’m going to go with the Forest Giant (credited to M Newton and D Healey), partly because I haven’t done a giant yet, and I also haven’t done anything with druidic abilities (I think…) [Edit by future me: No, I haven’t].

 

Hill Giants in 1^st Ed, the weakest of the giants, have 8 Hit Dice, whereas they have 10 (d12) Hit Dice in 5^th Edition, so let’s make the Forest Giants just a little bit weaker than Hill Giants in terms of resilience, say 9HD. There’s not a great deal of mechanical difference between the three types, almost not enough to worry about three different builds.

Mechanically, it was just a case of taking the Hill Giant stats and making them a bit physically weaker, and a bit mentally stronger (but not as much as the Cloud Giants). The spell-casting abilities were surprisingly easy to transfer, although tree doesn’t exist in the 5e SRD, and I swapped it for awaken at once per day. Tree turns the caster (or recipient) into a tree form, which is … okay, but I thought having a tree servitor would be more useful.

I kind of picture the forest giants as being a little like the Ents as depicted by Tolkien artists Ted Nasmith or the Brothers Hildebrandt – a tree-like giant rather than a human-like tree, and so the entish ability of awakening trees also seemed apropos.

 

For the Sentinel, it was just a case of adding Druidic spellcasting and a few druid abilities, and the “Rancorous” version of the giant is, essentially, neutral evil in alignment. I wasn’t too sure about having the Eschel version be mechanically different; however, there’s an optional smaller version that can be used. Just drop in the spellcasting of the Sentinel for a female Forest Giant Sentinel. There’s nothing to say how big they are, but all other giants are Huge, so I made the base giant Huge and the Eschel, Large.

 And there we are:

Forest Giant

Huge giant, neutral (various)

Armour Class 14 (natural armour plus shield) Hit Points 94 (9d12 + 36) Speed 40 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 20 (+5) 10 (+0) 18 (+4) 10 (+0) 14 (+2) 12 (+1)

Proficiency Bonus +3 Skills Nature +3, Stealth +3 Senses passive Perception 12

Languages Common, Giant, Sylvan

Challenge 5 (1,800 XP)

Forest Awareness. The giant cannot be surprised while in forested terrain. Innate Spellcasting. The giant’s innate spellcasting ability is Wisdom (save DC 13). It can innately cast the following spells without material components.      3/day: animal friendship, find traps, locate animals or plants, pass without trace,                     purify food and drink     1/day: awaken  ACTIONS

Battle Axe. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 10 ft., one creature. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) slashing damage. Thrown Tree. Ranged Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, range 60/240 ft., one creature. Hit: 18 (2d12 + 5) bludgeoning damage.

  

Forest Giant Sentinel

Huge giant, neutral good

Armour Class 14 (natural armour plus shield) Hit Points 165 (16d12 + 64) Speed 40 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 20 (+5) 10 (+0) 18 (+4) 12 (+1) 16 (+3) 14 (+2)

Proficiency Bonus +3 Skills Animal Handling +5 , Medicine + 6, Nature +4, Stealth +3, Survival +6 Senses passive Perception 13

Languages Common, Druidic, Giant, Sylvan

Challenge 10 (5,900 XP)

Forest Awareness. The giant cannot be surprised while in forested terrain. Land Stride. The giant can move through nonmagical difficult terrain at no extra cost to movement. It can also pass through nonmagical plants without being slowed by them and without taking damage from them if they have thorns, spines, or a similar hazard. In addition, it has advantage on saving throws against plants that are magically created or manipulated to impede movement, such as those created by the entangle spell. Innate Spellcasting. The giant’s innate spellcasting ability is Wisdom (save DC 14). It can innately cast the following spells without material components.      3/day: animal friendship, find traps, locate animals or plants, pass without trace,                     purify food and drink     1/day: awaken Spellcasting. The giant is a 9th level spellcaster. Its spellcasting ability is Wisdom (spell save DC 14, +6 to hit with spell attacks). The giant knows the following druid spells: Cantrips (at will): druidcraft, guidance, resistance 1st level (4 slots): cure wounds, fog cloud, goodberry, speak with animals 2nd level (3 slots): barkskin*, beast sense, moonbeam, spider climb*, spike growth 3rd level (3 slots): call lightning*, dispel magic, plant growth*, protection from                                             energy, wind wall 4th level (2 slots): conjure woodland beings, divination*, freedom of movement*,              hallucinatory terrain 5th level (1 slot): commune with nature*, greater restoration, tree stride* ACTIONS

Battle Axe. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 10 ft., one creature. Hit: 14 (2d8 + 5) slashing damage. Thrown Tree. Ranged Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, range 60/240 ft., one creature. Hit: 18 (2d12 + 5) bludgeoning damage.

  

Forest Giant Eschel

Large giant, neutral (various)

Armour Class 14 (natural armour plus shield) Hit Points 68 (8d10 + 24) Speed 40 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA 18 (+4) 10 (+0) 16 (+3) 12 (+1) 16 (+3) 12 (+1)

Proficiency Bonus +2 Skills Nature +3, Stealth +2 Senses passive Perception 13

Languages Common, Giant, Sylvan

Challenge 4 (1,100 XP)

Forest Awareness. The giant cannot be surprised while in forested terrain. Innate Spellcasting. The giant’s innate spellcasting ability is Wisdom (save DC 13). It can innately cast the following spells without material components.      3/day: animal friendship, find traps, locate animals or plants, pass without trace,                     purify food and drink     1/day: awaken ACTIONS

Battle Axe. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one creature. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) slashing damage. Thrown Tree. Ranged Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, range 50/200 ft., one creature. Hit: 15 (2d10 + 4) bludgeoning damage.