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Let's Read: Volo's Monsters
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<blockquote data-quote="Charles Rampant" data-source="post: 6980530" data-attributes="member: 32659"><p>The theme of gluttony is not one that appears much in the D&D monster corpus, at least as far as I know, but the Hill Giants do an admirable job of exploring that niche single-handedly. One of their methods for doing so are the <strong>Mouth of Grolantor</strong>, a starved and mad Hill Giant that serves as divine object, a demonstration of the destructive power of famine, and terrifying weapon of war. </p><p></p><p><img src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/ab/eb/34/abeb34c6574a4a7cf479936741c04709.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>The Mouth of Grolantor has a great picture in Volo’s. Standing in the midst of a pumpkin, uh, orchard(?!), it is furiously tossing handfuls of them into its mouth, while its chains and distended belly swing wildly. There is something really mesmerising about the pattern of colours on the belly, which is the focal point of the image: it’s tough to look away. </p><p></p><p>These guys are usually kept chained up by the tribe. They enter this parlous state after eating something that disagrees with them, and vomiting a lot; during the sickness, a ‘Priest of Grolantor’ examines the bile, which sounds a lot of fun for everyone involved. If the unfortunate Hill Giant doesn’t recover from the illness, the tribe deems it a message from Grolantor and they keep it chained up and starved. The way that they regard the Mouth as a divine object of veneration, not a person, is pretty interesting, but I think that you’d struggle to use it meaningfully in a game unless your players stop to talk to the Hill Giants, and I suspect that they rarely will. </p><p></p><p>As the Mouth is a divine object, it doesn’t get to go outside and play like the other Hill Giants. Instead it is kept chained up indoors, and only released in times of desperation or war, which I think is by far the most likely way for your players to meet one - as a line of defence in a Hill Giant Steadding like Grudd Haug. They sometimes also escape from their captivity and go on killing sprees, another possible method of introducing one - and giving the players an interesting way to meet Hill Giants who are only interested in recapturing the Mouth, not fighting them. </p><p></p><p>In combat, the Mouth is a pretty simple critter. This edition is generally pretty keen to avoid lots of bookkeeping for the DM, with powers that recharge randomly at the start of a turn, rather than in ‘1d4 rounds’. Part of that drive is the use of random tables, seen on Beholders and now here. Each turn, the DM rolls a dice, and sees what the Mouth does. The table’s main function here is to see whether the Mouth or its opponents have advantage on attacks, and it also ensures that it is hard to know whether it’ll split its attacks or focus on one individual. The damage output can be pretty heavy for that level - 9d8+15 with advantage - so you can expect the party to dislike this fellow immensely. It is immune to the Confusion spell, which is a nice touch, and it has a decent number of hit points. </p><p></p><p>I think that this guy will be a complete blast to use in melee, and I’m tempted to steal the table for other random monsters - Slaadi, for example - as it seems like it would add a lot of fun to the game.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charles Rampant, post: 6980530, member: 32659"] The theme of gluttony is not one that appears much in the D&D monster corpus, at least as far as I know, but the Hill Giants do an admirable job of exploring that niche single-handedly. One of their methods for doing so are the [b]Mouth of Grolantor[/b], a starved and mad Hill Giant that serves as divine object, a demonstration of the destructive power of famine, and terrifying weapon of war. [img]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/ab/eb/34/abeb34c6574a4a7cf479936741c04709.jpg[/img] The Mouth of Grolantor has a great picture in Volo’s. Standing in the midst of a pumpkin, uh, orchard(?!), it is furiously tossing handfuls of them into its mouth, while its chains and distended belly swing wildly. There is something really mesmerising about the pattern of colours on the belly, which is the focal point of the image: it’s tough to look away. These guys are usually kept chained up by the tribe. They enter this parlous state after eating something that disagrees with them, and vomiting a lot; during the sickness, a ‘Priest of Grolantor’ examines the bile, which sounds a lot of fun for everyone involved. If the unfortunate Hill Giant doesn’t recover from the illness, the tribe deems it a message from Grolantor and they keep it chained up and starved. The way that they regard the Mouth as a divine object of veneration, not a person, is pretty interesting, but I think that you’d struggle to use it meaningfully in a game unless your players stop to talk to the Hill Giants, and I suspect that they rarely will. As the Mouth is a divine object, it doesn’t get to go outside and play like the other Hill Giants. Instead it is kept chained up indoors, and only released in times of desperation or war, which I think is by far the most likely way for your players to meet one - as a line of defence in a Hill Giant Steadding like Grudd Haug. They sometimes also escape from their captivity and go on killing sprees, another possible method of introducing one - and giving the players an interesting way to meet Hill Giants who are only interested in recapturing the Mouth, not fighting them. In combat, the Mouth is a pretty simple critter. This edition is generally pretty keen to avoid lots of bookkeeping for the DM, with powers that recharge randomly at the start of a turn, rather than in ‘1d4 rounds’. Part of that drive is the use of random tables, seen on Beholders and now here. Each turn, the DM rolls a dice, and sees what the Mouth does. The table’s main function here is to see whether the Mouth or its opponents have advantage on attacks, and it also ensures that it is hard to know whether it’ll split its attacks or focus on one individual. The damage output can be pretty heavy for that level - 9d8+15 with advantage - so you can expect the party to dislike this fellow immensely. It is immune to the Confusion spell, which is a nice touch, and it has a decent number of hit points. I think that this guy will be a complete blast to use in melee, and I’m tempted to steal the table for other random monsters - Slaadi, for example - as it seems like it would add a lot of fun to the game. [/QUOTE]
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