Let’s Convert the Monster Manual: Finishing the “T”s: Treant, Triton, Troglodyte, Troll, and Turtle

Troglodytes, treants, and trolls saw fairly regular usage in my early games, with treants probably being the least used (or, at least, the least encountered as they are not obvious and seldom hunt you down). Giant turtles and tritons are great monsters, but as I have mentioned in previous posts, it was hard to convince PCs to board a ship in my 1st Edition days. I believe I used more giant turtles in 3rd Edition than in 1st.

When I moved to 2nd Edition, I started the PCs in an island city with the intent to make oceanic travel more of a thing. The problem with getting on a ship, of course, is that players lose some agency while onboard. There is nowhere to run if enemies board your ship (or if there is a mutiny). If your ship sinks, of course, there is a good chance that you drown. If you paid for the ship and survive, you are out a huge investment.

In many ways, my thinking about shipboard adventures was formed by the original Traveller science-fiction role-playing game. Your ship was there to take you to one adventure location to another. You could run adventures taking place entirely on a ship, and encounters between planets could certainly occur, but the GM has a vested interest in keeping the PCs’ ship at least mostly intact.

Similarly, when I was playing FASA’s Star Trek and Doctor Who role-playing games, while the GM might introduce Klingon attackers or threaten the PCs’ TARDIS, actually removing either group’s conveyance from play most likely meant that the campaign was over.

A sea-going vessel is less durable and more replaceable than a starship, but within the context of their respective game milieus they serve the same purpose: to allow the PCs greater range in exploration. To boldly go where no adventurer has gone before. Or to simply get from Point A to Point B. If you want your players to have their characters step aboard willingly – or even eagerly – you should consider making sure that there is a way to at least survive what they will encounter. If you destroy their ship, it is helpful if it can be replaced before too much time has passed adventure-wise. Obviously, this doesn’t apply if you telegraph the dangers and they sail right in anyway.

All of which is a long-winded way of coming to the point: I cannot recall ever using tritons in an adventure.

Small Treant: Init -2; Atk branch-like buffet +12 melee (2d6) or animate trees; AC 20; HD 8d12; MV 30’; Act 1d24; SP plant, camouflage +16, crit as giant on 20-24, immunity to piercing weapons, animate trees, fire vulnerability (+4 to attack rolls, -4 to saves, x2 damage); SV Fort +14, Ref +2, Will +6; AL C.

Treant: Init -4; Atk branch-like buffet +14 melee (3d6) or animate trees; AC 20; HD 10d12; MV 30’; Act 1d24; SP plant, camouflage +16, crit as giant on 20-24, immunity to piercing weapons, animate trees, fire vulnerability (+4 to attack rolls, -4 to saves, x2 damage); SV Fort +16, Ref +0, Will +8; AL C.

Large Treant: Init -4; Atk branch-like buffet +16 melee (4d6) or animate trees; AC 20; HD 12d12; MV 30’; Act 2d24; SP plant, camouflage +16, crit as giant on 20-24, immunity to piercing weapons, animate trees, fire vulnerability (+4 to attack rolls, -4 to saves, x2 damage); SV Fort +18, Ref -2, Will +10; AL C.

Treants are tall, intelligent plants which are difficult to discern from various types of trees. Small treants are 1d4+11 feet tall, average treants are 1d5+14 feet tall, and large treants are 1d6+19 feet tall. They may appear as any type of tree, depending upon the treant. Their woody bodies are immune to piercing weapons, but they are especially vulnerable to fire.

A treant can animate 1d6 trees within 100 feet using an action die, and can control a number of animated trees equal to its Hit Dice. Animated trees remain animated for 1 turn, and have statistics based upon their tree type.

(I will cover animated trees in the Cyclopedia of Common Faeries, I think. Two examples can be found in Creeping Beauties of the Wood. Until then, use the following statistics as a baseline.)

Animated Tree: Init +0; Atk branch +2 melee (1d6); AC 14; HD 4d12; MV 10’; Act 2d20; SP plant, camouflage +16, immunity to piercing weapons, half damage from bludgeoning weapons, fire and axe vulnerability (x2 damage); SV Fort +15, Ref -8, Will +0; AL N.

Triton: Init +0; Atk trident +2 melee (1d8) or dagger +0 melee (1d4); AC 15; HD 3d6; MV 5’ or swim 60’; Act 1d20; SP amphibious; SV Fort +2, Ref +1, Will +1; AL  N.

Tritons are similar to merfolk in general form, but their tail section bifurcates into two tails where a human would normally have legs. They get along well with sea creatures, and may use them as pets, guardians, or beasts of burden.

For every 20 tritons, there is a remarkable individual with 4 Hit Dice. For every 50 tritons there is a leader who has 5 Hit Dice and the class abilities of a 5th level (roll 1d6): (1-2) cleric of a sea-god, (4-5) warrior, or (6) elf (including iron vulnerability).

The leader is 25% likely to carry a magical conch shell which can be blown to calm seas, induce storms, or summon 2d12 Hit Dice of sea creatures within 3d6 rounds. This is treated as a weather control spell (spell check result 28-29) when influencing the weather. It does not allow the user to control the sea creatures if summons, and the user must determine what to summon in order to use the conch this way. Tritons typically summon only creatures friendly to themselves for obvious reasons. These magical conchs may be blown any number of times for communication – and they can be heard 1d6 miles away over the ocean – but can only produce magical effects three times per day. It requires a DC 16 spell check for a non-triton to use such a conch properly, but those worshiping ocean gods or with maritime patrons gain a +4 bonus to this check.

Troglodyte: See the core rulebook, page 429.

Troll: See the core rulebook, pages 429-430.

Turtle: See the Cyclopedia of Common Animals. The Monster Manual provides statistics for giant sea turtles and giant snapping turtles. In addition to these, I have provided statistics for sea turtles, large sea turtles, leatherback sea turtles, and snapping turtles.