Monster Monday: Redwood Treant, Titan of the Forest

Today's Monster Monday is the redwood treant, a mighty tree creature so large that it tears up the earth with its footprints, so thick that fire struggles to penetrate to its wooden core, and so ancient that it considers elves to be young upstarts.  Just as redwoods are to regular evergreens, so redwood treants are to normal treants: more extreme in every dimension.

The mighty redwood

The redwood treant has been on my backburner for a while now (I mentioned them in my introduction to Guns of the Western Kings back in 2014), but I was inspired to bring them to life during a recent trip to the California redwoods.  All photos in this article are from this trip which I took earlier in May; in some of them, such as the one above, my wife provides a helpful reminder of the scale of these immense giants.

One of the abilities of the redwood treant is that its footprints create an area of difficult terrain, meaning its very movement can change the nature of the battlefield.  This ability was inspired from in-the-field observations of fallen redwoods and the huge pits their root structure left when they toppled over.  You can see the size of a redwood treant's 'foot' in the image below - try to imagine a battle where every blow the enemy dealt was made with gnarled feet of that size!

Speaking of gnarled, a redwood's incredible longevity and resistance to stress manifests itself physically in odd deformations.  These scars occur when a redwood survives a particularly stressful event like a forest fire, infection, or intense storm.  Sometimes it can look like the bark of the tree boiled and began to flow off, other times a scar can take the form of a huge burl the size of a small car.  They can even result in beautiful, almost sculptural figures emerging from the trunk.  An ancient redwood treant, the veteran of many battles for the survival of its wood, would likely have several such scars, making each one distinctive and characterful.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2017 Jonah Bomgaars.

Standing tall on two towering trunk-legs, this immense humanoid tree is almost too big to be believed

Treant, Redwood              CR 13

XP 25,600                

N Colossal plant

Init -2; Senses low-light vision; Perception +17

DEFENSE

AC 25, touch 0, flat-footed 25 (-2 Dex, -8 size, +25 natural)

hp 212 (17d8+136)

Fort +17, Ref +3, Will +11

Defensive abilities plant traits; DR 10/slashing

Resist fire 20

Weaknesses vulnerability to fire

OFFENSE

Speed 50 ft.

Melee 2 slams +22 (4d6+17/19-20)

Space 30 ft.; Reach 30 ft.

Ranged rock +3 (4d6+25) 360ft.

Special Attacks rock throwing (360 ft.), trample (4d6+25, DC)

STATISTICS

Str 44, Dex 6, Con 25, Int 12, Wis 19, Cha 15

Base Atk +12; CMB +37; CMD 45

Feats Alertness, Improved Critical (slam), Improved Sunder, Intimidating Prowess, Iron Will, Power Attack, Toughness, Weapon Focus (slam)

Skills Diplomacy +10, Intimidate +19, Knowledge (nature) +18, Perception +17, Sense Motive +14, Stealth -9 (+7 in forests); Racial Modifiers +16 Stealth in forests

Languages Treant

SQ animate trees, colossal footprints, double damage against objects, treespeech

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Animate Trees (Sp)

A redwood treant can animate any redwood trees within 180 feet at will, controlling up to two trees at a time.  It takes 1 full round for a tree to uproot itself, after which it moves at a speed of 10 feet and fights as a treant (although it has only one slam attack and lacks the treant’s animation and rock-throwing abilities), gaining the treants’s vulnerability to fire and fire resistance 10.  If the treant that animated it terminates the animation, moves out of range, or is incapacitated, the tree immediately takes root wherever it is and returns to its normal state.

Colossal Footprints (Ex)

With every step, a redwood treant’s roots dig deep into the soil, creating deep gouges and pits in the forest floor, even breaking up rock and fallen logs.  Every time a redwood treant moves, the 30-foot square it once occupied becomes difficult terrain. 

Double Damage Against Objects (Ex)

A treant or animated tree that makes a full attack against an object or structure deals double damage.

Treespeech (Ex)

A treant has the ability to converse with plants as if subject to a continual speak with plants spell, and most plants greet them with an attitude of friendly or helpful.

ECOLOGY

Environment temperate forest

Organization solitary or grove (2-7)

Treasure standard

Redwood treants are titans of the forest; with elders easily exceeding 300 feet in height and weighing in at over 1,500 tons.  Their bodies play host to entire ecosystems, with hundreds of birds and small mammals and countless insects making their homes among the mighty tree-sized branches.  The oldest redwood treants have been alive for thousands of years.  They are slow thinkers even by treant standards, but immensely wise and deeply protective of their redwood groves.  A redwood treant awakening from a century-long slumber to find its favorite trees felled might go into a slow-burning rage and devote all of its considerable energy to tracking down and punishing those responsible.  Even elves and other treants usually find redwood treants distant and aloof – likely as a result of their methuselean lifespans.  Redwood treants rarely bother to learn any language but their own, as most mortal languages change too fast to be worth their effort.  As a result, redwood treants are usually isolated from even sylvan society and difficult to converse with.  Although they are as nominally as vulnerable to fire as any creature made of wood, their thick bark repels all but the strongest of fires, keeping them relatively safe from forest fires and torch-bearing mortals.  

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-your sempervirens d20 despot