Gargantua

Gargantua are monsters of staggering size and fury, perhaps relics of an older age, freaks of nature or the work of mad magic. Most are reptilian, humanoid or insect-like, and all have a crude empathy that tells them who means them harm.

The commonest, largest and deadliest kind dwarfs nearly everything alive. Most stride upright on tree-trunk legs, some on all fours. Rocky scales, usually dark green and black with a paler belly, rarely mottled brown, gray and yellow, cover it. Its hands have four hook-clawed fingers, its webbed feet thicker claws, and a bony crest runs down spine and tail. The small head bears gold or red eyes, flat nostrils, wing-like ears and a fanged mouth splitting it nearly in half. It roars like a bull elephant a thousand times over and breathes air or water.

Though not mindless, it acts like a brute bent on wreckage. It rakes with its front claws and bites, tramples for 10d10 when upright, and constantly sweeps its tail through a zone 90 feet behind and to each side; anyone there saves vs. death or takes 8d10. Shaking ground, churning water, its bulk and its endless squealing roars mean it can never surprise anyone. Its hide gives AC 2 and it regenerates 4 hit points per round.

It rarely bothers people, but anyone who attacks it, invades its lair or above all threatens its young will be hunted across thousands of miles of sea until his village, sometimes his whole province, lies in ruins. Parents can sense their offspring's location at any distance.

A few live on subtropical sea floors, most on remote, uncharted tropical islands in eastern oceans; one island off an eastern empire's southwest coast holds nothing but gargantua. Explorers once sledged a young one home frozen in arctic ice; it thawed en route, crushed them and fled into the mountains.

Any big, private cave serves as a lair, and a family claims several square miles. Its eyes hate bright light, so it sleeps by day and hunts and patrols at night. It keeps no treasure. It lives several centuries, mates for life soon after maturity, and bears one young per century, heralded by violent thunderstorms over the territory for 101 days. Any corpse hit by that storm's lightning is restored as if by resurrection. A youngling is 20-40 feet tall with 10 HD (THAC0 11), MV 12 (Sw 9), claws of 1-10, bite of 2d12, and a tail sweeping 20 feet behind and to the sides for 3d6 (save vs. death negates).

It eats mostly plants, gulping whole trees, but also any game, and minerals or gems when food runs short. It dislikes other gargantua, which compete for territory. A flower growing naturally, never planted, in its footprint yields petals for a potion of growth.

The dimmest kind are stooped, long-armed, jut-jawed, ape-faced giants 80 to 100 feet tall, greasy-haired or bald, sometimes furred black, brown or gold, with skin from pink to yellow to black and brown or red eyes; one-eyed ones are rumored. They grunt and bellow but understand short human phrases 25% of the time. Two fists strike for 3d10 each, trampling deals 10d10, and they regenerate 4 per round. They rarely use tools, though some swing trees. Unless hungry they avoid the harmless and stalk the hostile, live peaceably with other creatures but war with rival gargantua, often to the death. They dwell in remote valleys, mountain caves or islands, eat game such as deer, bears and horses as well as plants, collect nothing, and mate for life. About once a century a female bears 1-2 young, 20-30 feet tall with 8 HD (THAC0 13), MV 15, fists of 1-10 and no trample.

These hatch from huge eggs as 20 HD larvae that grow 1 HD per week. A larva shoots sticky cocoon silk 60 feet to entangle victims; a strand parts only for 20 points of edged-weapon damage, a successful bend bars/lift gates, or a monster of 10 HD or more. At 25 HD it pupates for 2d4 weeks and emerges as a 30 HD moth, furred gray or black, with blue, red, yellow and green wings and a siren-like shriek. It no longer spins silk, but its wingbeats raise a gale 60 feet wide and 240 feet long; anyone not tied down saves vs. death at -4 or is hurled 10-40 feet, taking 1d6 per 10 feet. They lair in warm mountain valleys and caves, live for centuries, and lay one egg per decade with a 20% chance of fertility. They eat game and plants, stripping a mulberry grove in hours. Larval silk can be woven into cloth for magical robes.