The rogue pressed a finger to her lips as she motioned to the rest of the party to follow after her, creeping past the vast, slumbering beast. Resting upon a verdant bed of moss and wild plantlife, the snoozing garangolm turned slightly but remained asleep as the silver-haired woman crept past it. She nodded confidently from the other side and signaled once more to her companions. They traded looks and shared a sigh before the fighter advanced, keeping one hand upon the hilt of his weapon. As he joined her past the massive beast, they looked towards the remaining wizard and cleric and after a brief discussion, the former began to traverse the span. She bundled her robes in her hands, lifting it – only for the back of its hem to catch on a brittle twig. The crack seemed to echo through the glade and the band froze, all staring wide-eyed at the wincing wizard who slowly turned to find herself staring into the open gaze of the monster. It huffed, snorting as it drew itself up to its vast height. Fists slammed against the ground with earth-shaking force before it unleashed a resounding bellow.
The garangolm is a super cool monster from the Monster Hunter series, a gigantic beast that seeps sap to encourage plant growth. One of its mains uses for this sap is to sheath its hands in gauntlets that carry elemental effects - one in fiery rocks and one in watery moss. It is a normally peaceable creature, but is a furious fighter when its anger is roused, supposedly growing even stronger the angrier that it gets. With its gauntlet of magma, it is able to create explosions, which it can use to launch itself great distances. Meanwhile, its moss gauntlet inflicts waterblight, which makes it harder to recover stamina, and it can cause a water spout to erupt from the ground. For further away targets, it hurls giant stones and will also draw up a giant stone from the earth before overheating it with its magma gauntlet until it explodes. Finally, the garangolm is known to perform combos - the most common being to launch a player skyward before slamming them between both hands and creating an explosion of steam as both gauntlets meet.
I have discussed on the Monster Monday Discord about what is the best way to represent the function that weapons simply bounce off of MH critters if they aren't powerful enough. Between a higher AC or DR, we came to the conclusion that it better fit the latter, so the garangolm gains some reduction only penetrated by adamantine. The garangolm's main shtick is covering its hands in the gauntlets, which is covered by the don gauntlets ability. This is explicitly a move action because it is the equivalent of drawing its weapon. I typically refrain from including the ability to break parts when converting creatures from Monster Hunter, but if it has the ability to don gauntlets, they should have a chance to knock them off by applying the opposite elements. Its abilities really open up once it has its gauntlets donned. Burn is a pre-existing ability, but I had to come up with blight that inflicts fatigued to mimic the effects of waterblight. Its steam creating cataclysmic clap is based on the rend ability with the added ability to create an area of obscuring mist. It can either use its magma gauntlet to create an explosive ignited slam or its moss gauntlet for a spout slam, which I was able to reference the geyser spell for - though I didn't want the moss gauntlet to deal fire damage, so I had to modify it slightly. Finally, the garangolm's big attack is its detonate rock ability, creating an eruption of fire and stony shrapnel around it as a pretty standard breath weapon type ability simple changed to a radius. Outside of its original abilities, it also has blood rage to simulate the rage that garangolm descends into as it fights and the rock throwing ability to hurl boulders at players.
Pathfinder 1e:
One of the main features of the PF2e garangolm that I really liked was converting its elemental slam abilities into reactions triggered by it making a successful attack with the appropriate gauntlet. I thought this was a fun way to include them and rather than making them an extra normal action to do, it actually has a chance to hit with both gauntlets, launch them into the air or blow them up while still being able to perform its Cataclysmic Clap. I had debated giving this ability the clause of 'the garangolm can use this ability as a free action, but then loses the effects of Arm Up,' but the other changes I had already made that feel unnecessary. While I used acid damage to represent the moss in PF1e, I decided to simply have the moss gauntlet in 2e deal additional bludgeoning as water spells in PF often do though it still inflicts blight! I was able to better include its ability to launch itself through the Blast Off ability, which is based off of the bulette's Leaping Charge, giving it some maneuverability along with a chance to attack. Unfortunately for me, when it did this during the monster test, it got nailed by 3 critical hits. It still managed to survive, but it was a rough go of it. I wanted to increase the chance of it doing a Cataclysmic Clap, so I gave it the Furious Slams ability to make two attacks at the same MAP. After the test, the only change we made was to decrease its resistance, and then added Awoken Anger for its rage. This covers the additional rocks its tries to armor itself with, therefore increasing its resistance to physical as well as its damage.
I included Infuse Rock in the sidebar because it doesn't represent a single ability that the garangolm has, but I thought it was a cool ability. For its equipment, I specifically wanted to make an item that captured the feel of the garangolm and also have it be a set of specific handwraps of mighty blows, which is something we don't have in the game! I referenced the oscillating wave psychic to capture the feel of what I wanted for the handwraps and had to turn back towards acid damage for them.
Pathfinder 2e:
Blue's D&D 5e:
ENCOUNTER HOOKS
Dr. Fracas-Stein: Word of a garangolm wreaking havoc has caused quite a stir given how peaceable they typically are. The heroes are dispatched to handle the threat and when they face it, they discover that a strange collar has been fixed around its neck. Savvy heroes may recognize that this collar is being used to direct it, and can attempt to destroy or disable the collar to resolve the fight in an alternative method. Either way, by examining the collar, they can discover identifiable marks in its design that leads them to a mad wizard known for building golems. His experiments have expanded from the mere garangolm they first encountered as he has now made garangolms utilizing golem components, enhancing his control over them as well as their own powers.
If you're interested in joining the discussion on what creatures I'm working on or just discussing your own homebrew works, check out our Discord! If you want to get some teasers or help us get to our yet unlisted milestones for extra content, check out the Twitter.
Have a monstrous Monday!
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