Wood Man [Forest Spirit]

The mightiest nature spirit of the hill-folk's realm is a 50-foot humanoid of living wood, with root-tangled feet, knotted club hands, and limbs bristling with the boughs and foliage of many different trees.

Each fist strikes for 3d10, and if both connect the wood man crushes its victim for another 5d10. It can also fling a doubly held foe 10d10 yards for 6d8 on landing. It has 50% magic resistance (80% against the slaver-wizards' evil magic), is immune to fire and electricity, regenerates 4 hit points per round, and dies only at -50 hit points.

It can fall. A vast nomad horde reportedly destroyed one, and slaver-wizard bombards once forced another to retreat before berserkers overran the guns; the cannon are so costly and hard to drag into the land that they have not been used since.

Usually only one exists, though legend says more answer a dire enough need. It appears only when the whole land faces ruin, and its people read its coming as a sign of doomsday. Who calls it is unknown: perhaps the witches, perhaps the land's secretive old male sorcerers, perhaps the gods. Cautionary tales say it may also be sent against any local who stops loving the land and honoring its witches. It heartens the hill-folk's armies and can send a slaver-wizard host fleeing on sight, though the locals now repel invasions so well that it is seldom needed.

The wood man embodies the land's ecology rather than taking part in it. Its march uproots forests, shoves hills aside and diverts rivers, yet the damage heals by magic within days, leaving no trace.