Monday, July 16, 2018

The Henry Justice Ford Monster Manual: GIANT, LUNAR

A dude on G+ is doing a Monster Manual of only Henry Justice Ford illustrations. I love that guy's work, so I thought I'd get into it. I don't know the story this picture is from, but it gave me an idea:

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GIANT, LUNAR

AC: as chain + shield
HD: 8
Move: normal
Attacks: huge knife (1d6+2) or curse
No. Appearing: 1
Morale: 10
Treasure: a perfectly intact head could sell for HPx100 GP
Alignment: varies

The Lunar Giant is rare and its existence debated by scholars. Some think it is a single species whose heads change with the moon's phases, but in fact there are three types. During the day, they hide in dungeons or underground lairs, only to emerge at night.

Full-headed Giants are Lawful, and the most common. The light from their heads acts as true moonlight (for lycanthropes, etc) and is equally bright. They are usually accompanied by 2d4 giant moths, and a cloud of the mundane variety as well. They are intelligent, patient, sad and lonely.

Half-headed Giants are Neutral. Part of their head is always dark, while the other radiates moonlight like a Full-head's. The halves slowly rotate throughout the month, sometimes the dark side is in front, sometimes behind. Their disposition is equally changeable - you never know how a Half-head might react.

Full and Half-heads can curse their opponents so the moon's light will always seek them out: even deep underground, they will glow with soft moonlight (15' radius). They never get lost in the dark, but predators can always spot them and stealth is nearly impossible.

The Chaotic New Giants, called the Eclipsed, those whose moon-heads are occluded in shadow, are the rarest. Their heads devour all light: any illumination in view of an Eclipsed will begin to fade away, as if it were burning out 50 times faster. They can bestow a portion of their power in a curse of darkness: from now on, light can't actually touch you. It makes you effectively invisible, but you are blind.


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PS: why can't blogger just leave the text alone? I just want to pick one font and leave it that way. It keeps changing things for no reason, and every time it happens in a different way!

PPS: This is released under a CC-BY license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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