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Let's Read: Volo's Monsters
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<blockquote data-quote="Charles Rampant" data-source="post: 6982690" data-attributes="member: 32659"><p>Today we look at the <strong>Girallon</strong>, 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.</p><p></p><p><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/Girallon.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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 <em>Curse of Strahd</em>. </p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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 <em>Aggressive</em> trait as Orcs. It also swings five times in melee, which is pretty impressive, so he’ll be good for ensuring that <em>some</em> 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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charles Rampant, post: 6982690, member: 32659"] Today we look at the [b]Girallon[/b], 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. [IMG]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/Girallon.png[/IMG] 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 [I]Curse of Strahd[/I]. 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 [I]Aggressive[/I] trait as Orcs. It also swings five times in melee, which is pretty impressive, so he’ll be good for ensuring that [I]some[/I] 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. [/QUOTE]
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