D&D 5E Let's Read: Volo's Monsters

[Leatherhead]

I can see a bunch of groupies following a Dreamwalker around like a celebrity of sorts. Maybe the PC's have to bring home a wayward son who has fallen for the giant's charm before the Dreamwalker decides to make him into a body modification. Or alternatively, the Dreamwalker has some kind of mystic sword or whatever stuck in it's skin that the PC's need for whatever reason.

That said, I am a bit disappointed that the giant's body modifications have no practical effect. It would be interesting to see one of these with a working ballista or harpoon gun attached to their arm.

 

[Charles Rampant]

One of the more impressive sequences in the Fellowship of the Ring is the failed attempt to cross the Misty Mountains by way of Caradhras, with the malevolent will of the mountain driving back the Fellowship. We today look at the Storm Giant Quintessent, who will let you recreate that struggle.

I really like the art for the Quintessent. The armour is really cool looking and well detailed, the green fabric is both interesting and appropriately covering (rather than sexy, as so often the case with fabrics in fantasy art) and the pose conveys understated power. This is art that I’d happily steal for a court wizard, and it more than adequately conveys the dignity and worth of these beings.

The most powerful and solitary of the Giant variants, the Quintessent is a Storm Giant who refuses to go the way of all flesh, and who use their connection to the elements to become a kind of elemental force, dispersing their life essence into a thunderstorm, a mountain blizzard, or an oceanic vortex. They can reverse the transformation temporarily, allowing them to communicate with your party, or just try and obliterate them. As part of their high CR and status as powerful nature spirits of a kind, the Quintessent gets both Lair Actions and Regional Effects, which both emphasise elemental and weather magic.

I think that the Quintessent is best used like a Sphinx: someone important and scary for the players to meet, discuss the plot with, and then leave alone. The Quintessent is the kind of being that you can include on your regional map in the form of an icon - the “Everhowling Blizzard of the Mountains” - and include in your writing as a powerful but neutral entity in the events of your game. Alternatively, you can have the Quintessent serve as the Caradhras of your campaign, serving as an elemental obstacle for the players to meet and overcome in both the Exploration and Combat pillars of the game, before they can continue to the next stage in the story.

In combat, the Quintessent is a formidable opponent. Blessed with a good number of hit points and a fairly comprehensive set of resistances - though, as usual, a Paladin or Fighter with a magical weapon will do real damage - the Quintessent can also boast some of the heaviest attack options in Volo’s. It can either form a sword out of lightning, which will do very hefty damage on each of its two swings, or it can toss a pair of javelins, made of pure wind. This latter attack requires no roll to hit, which I’m sure will please nobody in your party. Of course, with a +14 to hit, I don’t imagine that the Quintessent will miss very often with the Sword either. In addition, the Quintessent has Truesight - good for shutting down high level Rogues - and an impressively high set of saves. If that wasn’t enough, she also comes equipped with a set of Legendary Actions, which includes a battlefield control effect (good for pushing people off of ledges in its mountainous lair, perhaps), a direct damage spell, and the ability to turn back into a storm. This latter effect means that it cannot be targeted by any effect, but there is no mention made of regenerating damage, so it is very cool, but unlikely to save a Quintessent that is losing a fight.

Overall, I’m a huge fan of the Quintessent, and I’m likely to add one to my future games as a not-quite benevolent NPC who the party can meet early on, before they realise that actually she is partly to blame for the evils that they face. Combined with some elemental creatures - Ice Toad, Crag Cats, cultists from Princes of the Apocalypse, I think that the Quintessent will be able to provide interesting challenges in all three pillars of the game, and be a very compelling presence in your campaign.

 

[Leatherhead]

The Quintessent can be used anywhere weather is particularly important, so everywhere basically. From a tropical island to desert plains.

I think the most interesting thing you can do with a Quintessent is have the PC's save one, or help create one. They are Chaotic Good after all, and in the proper location can be a source of precious water necessary to sustain life. A "normal" Storm Giant naturalist, perhaps a ranger of some kind, needs help from the PC's to become a Quintessent in order to provide her forest with rainwater after some kind of tragic curse dried out the skies. It could be set up as a bittersweet send off to a long time ally. And how much it backfires is entirely up to the maliciousness of the DM. Heck, the Quintessent may last for centuries only to be undone/corrupted later, and have a new adventuring group rise up and restore/destroy it. In a rare example of a creature that can span multiple campaigns in the same world.

 

[Charles Rampant]

I like your ideas on the players helping a Giant actually become one. That's neat, and would be a really fun element to do in your world towards the end of a campaign, since, as you say, it becomes a recurring NPC that you can endlessly reuse in future campaigns in the same setting. I've noticed that players quite enjoy meeting people that they met in a previous campaign - it's the kind of little cameo that works so well for Marvel films, for example. Plus the high level nature of the Quintessent makes it great for an NPC that the players will be wary of, while its essentially fixed location means that you don't have to explain why it doesn't just solve the quest itself.

I was very tempted to use this image from The Mummy, to highlight the potential for other settings:

 

[Charles Rampant]

Today we look at the Girallon, which belongs to the Owlbear school of ‘weird combination animals’; it is an enlarged Gorilla with four arms, claws, and fangs. Because as we all know, when you look at a Gorilla what you think is that it needs to be more menacing.

The art in the book has a real sense of momentum; the Girallon is hurtling forward, most of its many limbs flying backwards as it does so. It really emphasises how intimidating one of these would be, with its fangs and claws, even as it keeps the essentially ludicrous body shape.

The text for the Girallon makes it clear that, no matter how cool the image would be, a half-ton (and Large sized) creature is not going to be able to climb the average tree. Instead, these guys prefer cities, especially ruined ones in the jungle, where they slope and clamber around with ease. That sounds pretty awesome, and gives these guys almost their own encounter location. There is, as always, the mystery behind the creation of such an obviously unnatural creature; their predilection for living in cities certainly adds to this, and you could certainly spin such an idea out into a full story. It reminds me of the mentions of the Gulthias trees in the Monster Manual entry for Blights, a clue that was later made use of in Curse of Strahd.

You can also meet these guys serving as trained animal guards for other races; Yuan-Ti and a city’s Thieves Guild are both mentioned, both ideas that are pretty appealing. I can also imagine meeting one of these in a Waterdhavian mansion’s garden, as an attempt to break in comes afoul of this hefty guardian. As a result, you can use these guys as minions for pretty much anyone that could have access to a large enough market.

In combat, the Girallon is a fairly standard and simple beast. It will climb about easily, has stealth and perception (though not intimidation, oddly) as trained skills, and gets the same Aggressive trait as Orcs. It also swings five times in melee, which is pretty impressive, so he’ll be good for ensuring that some damage gets through your bad dice on the night. Their simplicity is good for a minion beast - it means that your Boss Monster wizard in the back can have your undivided attention - but does mean that you’ll get quickly tired if you plan to run a whole ruined city full of these guys at the party.

 

[Bitbrain]

I really like the Girallon. Visually, they remind me of the "White Apes" from the film John Carter of Mars.

 

[Leatherhead]

Trained animals, proficient in stealth, with huge strength and exceptional climbing ability?

These things are going into the Carnival, that's for sure. In tent, they can perform in the same capacity as a bear, maybe with the added bonus of doing an impressive juggling act.

 

[psychophipps]

Trained animals, proficient in stealth, with huge strength and exceptional climbing ability?

These things are going into the Carnival, that's for sure. In tent, they can perform in the same capacity as a bear, maybe with the added bonus of doing an impressive juggling act.

I would add Athletics as a skill (the flavor text says they can climb and jump really well) for some grapple followed by claw/bite attacks with advantage fun. Juggling PC heads would certainly be an attention-grabbing trick...

 

[Chaosmancer]

I think if I have them in the jungle, I may add a rock throwing ability to them as well. Monkeys and gorillas are fairly well known for their projectiles, and it makes sense that if encountered in a pack the big dominant males would charge the party while the others pelt them with objects from a distance.

Thinking of the apes in Tarzan when they are driving off the Jaguar. Kerchak goes in, but the others hold back and let the leader be the biggest most intimidating thing.

 

[Charles Rampant]

We begin the Gnoll section today on its most powerful member, the Flind. This is a boss monster, the natural leader of a band of Gnolls, and his entry is short but impressive.

The Flind in the book is standing in a static pose, but his flailheads are in motion and have black smoke trailing from them; the overall effect draws your attention to the skullheads of the flail and to the red facepaint on the Flind’s face. The image is overall pretty good, but move motion would have helped; it reminds me a lot of those concept art renders you see for computer game characters.

The Flind gets a very short flavour text for such a powerful creature, but then the Gnoll section in chapter one is doing the real lifting here. However, even with that, the Flind is still a brutally simple beast: he turns up to lead a warband, he likes eating humanoids, and he will try and grow his warband and eat everything he comes across. I already did a description of the Gnoll warband back in the Maw Demon and Shoosuva entry, so we won’t reinvent the wheel by going over it again here.

The Flind is a tough cookie. His defenses are not that impressive, to be honest, and he won’t last forever against your group. However, he has two real tricks to draw on. The first is his Aura of Blood Thirst, which lets creatures with the Rampage trait within 10ft do Bite attacks as a Bonus. That is a solid boost in DPS for those creatures - especially the Maw Demon and Shoosuva which have very powerful Bite attacks - and gives you a reason to bunch the Gnolls up, which will please the Wizard in your party. Secondly, the Flind attacks with a three-headed Flail, each head having an interesting effect. Madness inflicts something akin to the Confused condition, which will be fun if it causes your players to attack each other. Pain does a whole load of Psychic damage, which is simple but fun. Paralysis does what it says on the tin, and as always that condition is a horrible one to be hit with.

I really like the monster design here, with the Flind getting a good ‘leadership aura’, as well as a trio of fun and powerful attacks that don’t require a lot of effort to use - not much bookkeeping, no need to look up spell effects - but which ensure that a ‘hit things in melee’ monster actually has something more compelling than just damage output going for it. I think that this guy will definitely feel like a Boss Monster when the players meet him, even if I personally would be tempted to boost his HP by 50 to keep him in the fight a little longer.

The most powerful creature in a Gnoll storyline, with the possible exception of Yeenoghu, the Flind should be an imposing presence, and I think that his statline broadly backs that up. He’ll rip through low level characters like tissue, and his aura will make nearby members of the warband even nastier than they normally are, so I think that an early meeting with him will leave quite the impression on your party. However, he isn’t quite tough enough to suit the Boss Monster role, I think - he’ll go down too fast, like Strahd in Curse of Strahd commonly does - so be prepared to increase his HP to avoid an anti-climatic ending to the fight.