Treant

Part human and part tree, a treant is all but impossible to tell from an ordinary tree. Its skin is thick, rough brown bark, its arms are knotted like limbs, and when it stands still its legs close together into a single trunk. Dozens of small branches sprout above its eyes and across its head, hung with broad leaves that change color in winter but seldom drop. Treants are clever and usually speak their own tongue plus common, dwarf, elf and enough of nearly every humanoid language to order trespassers out of their trees.

Gentle by temperament, a treant is devastating once angered, and its power grows with age. A young treant (13-14 feet tall, 7-8 HD) hits for 2-16 per attack; a middle-aged one (15-16 feet, 9-10 HD) for 3-18; an elder (17-18 feet, 11-12 HD) for 4-24.

Their bark gives excellent protection against nearly all weapons, but fire is their bane: any fire attack has a +4 bonus to hit them and deals 1 extra point, and all their saves against fire suffer -4. Trees they animate share this weakness.

Each treant can rouse up to two ordinary trees within 60 yards. A tree needs one round to pull up its roots, then moves at 3 per turn and fights like a full-grown treant with 12 Hit Dice and two 4-24 point attacks. It stops moving if its treant is incapacitated or moves beyond 60 yards. Treants of any size, and their trees, inflict structural damage on buildings and fortifications.

Small communities live in old hardwood forests of oak, maple, mahogany and the like. They seldom reveal themselves to short-lived races, meaning anything that lives 500 years or less, and humans and demihumans have little chance of picking out one that is trying to blend in, though rangers have a 10% chance per level. Evil offends them, especially when it burns or recklessly fells trees. They loathe goblins and orcs and eye anyone with an ax warily.

Treasure means nothing to them, and they tuck it out of sight, perhaps beneath a large rock. Only the promise of some great good will persuade one to give it up.

Treants feed by photosynthesis. They often sleep for days or years at a stretch, sending short roots into the ground for water and minerals. New treants grow from offshoot stalks that females guard and tend until mature. Their lifespan is unknown but runs to several thousand years at least. With age they grow slower and stiffer, sleep longer and talk more of the past than the present, until at last one simply never wakes, rooting where it stands and living on as an ordinary tree.