Hecatoncheires

The Hecatoncheires -- the hundred-handed ones-- are one of those creatures from the dawn of the universe, when the gods were birthing freakish horrors all willy-nilly. There aren't that many of these creatures out there, which is fortunate, since the Hecatoncheires has one of the highest CRs in the game (57!) They don't have much in the way of magic, the way a lot of the creatures at that level of play tend to have.

It just has a heck of a lot of arms.

Good for you if you're a human-sized creature, because this fella'll only be able to get its arms in order to hit you twenty times in a turn (and it probably won't miss).

Okay, so I said they don't have much in the way of magic, but that doesn't mean they're completely non-magical. For one, on the very small chance that it feels it needs help, the Hecatoncheires can summon another one of its kind. So now you're dealing with 200 sword-wielding arms wanting to chop you into hamburger meat. Also, they can make themselves fly.

An average intelligence combined with the madness of 50 arguing heads means that they have little in the way of ambition outside smashing stuff. Probably the best way to get rid of a rampaging Hecatoncheires is to get yourself a really really powerful wizard to teleport it to an empty spot in the universe every couple of centuries.

In Greek mythology, the Hecatoncheires (there are three of them) weren't benevolent per se, but they were definitely less evil than the version in D&D. They got locked up in Tartarus by their father Uranus when he feared that they would usurp him. Later on, Zeus busted them out to get their help in his war against the Titans. As a reward, the Hecantoncheires now guard Tartarus, where the Titans are imprisoned. There's probably some poetic justice there.

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Hollyphant

The hollyphant is a celestial creature primarily associated with Chaav and Lastai, two gods of joy, acting primarily as their messengers. Most of the time a hollyphant is seen, it will appear as a petite flying elephant, about the size of a small dog. But if it needs to attack, it will shift into a giant, more threatening shape.

While small, the hollyphant is immune from all spells. It loses this protection when it shifts into its larger form, trading defense for offense. Despite the size change, it remains just as nimble both on ground and in the air.  It has as many magical spells, but it's main attack is it's trunk. As well as knock enemies about in it, the hollyphant can either release a shattering bellow or spray a shower of light (deadly to evil).

Note that both forms of the hollyphant are it's true form. If viewed through a true seeing spell, both its large and smaller selves will be seen at the same time.

This is one of those creatures that I always kinda rolled my eyes at when I saw it. The illustration of the big winged elephant thing is not that good. But then I noticed there was a CUTE TINY GOLDEN FLYING ELEPHANT hiding next to it and I was like yesssssss.

I chose to do this as two illustrations instead of one because the CUTE TINY GOLDEN FLYING ELEPHANT deserved to be more noticeable than it is in the book. Some liberties were taken with the design of the big form. It's supposed to have wings, but I like to think it can still fly with its ears. Just a huge bulk kept aloft by vigorously flapping tiny ears.

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