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Another celestial creature today, these are gentle, unassuming, loyal and boundlessly
cute little creatures called the Hollyphant and you can find them all over the upper planes,
from the seven mounting heavens of celestia and the epic peaks of the blessed fields of
Elysium, to the orderly orchards of Arcadia and the boundles forests of the happy hunting
grounds, they are ubiquitous, found everywhere, who knows how many there are, certainly they
number in the billions considering that many of the outer planes are infinite in size,
so, keep that in mind as we learn more and more about these surprising creatures.
Hollyphants vary a little in appearance, but typically they are small, about two feet in
length, with stocky little bodies and short, sturdy limbs, they have soft, golden fur that
glows faintly with a warm yellow light and look very much like tiny elephants.
Their eyes are small and bright with rainbow hues and they have small, stubby tusks, though
the most striking thing about them is that a pair of usually pearl white feathered wings
sprout from their back and they are amazingly agile and fast flyers, spending a great deal
of their time hovering and fluttering about, but when they decide to get moving, they rip
through the air at a base speed of 120 feet per round.
They are very clearly celestial creatures, completely at home in the upper planes, their
habitats range from fields of huge and gorgeous flowers they flutter around like somewhat
bizzare looking bumblebees, trailing glittering puffs of heavenly pollen in their wake, or
swooping around the cascading waterfalls, a riot of rainbows in the glowing mists, with
the hollyphants pausing to pluck perfectly ripe plums, cherries, cranberries, lotus flowers
and so on.
They are also common in inhabited settlements and the dwelling places of divine beings,
ambling around with serving platters laden with sumptuous snacks, refilling crystal goblets
with exotic liquors from across the multiverse, fetching bath towels, cleaning windows, plumping
cushions, they are not domesticated or obligated, they do these little tasks happily, because
they want to be around happy beings and deeply enjoy helping others with no thought or reward
or compensation, other than the satisfaction of doing nice things.
Now, that being said, their quite harmless, even comical appearance has proven the downfall
of many evil creatures that grossly underestimate their significant magical and psionic power.
Some sages speculate that hollyphants’re really spirits or manifestations of some kind,
since nature would never’ve given birth to such a silly-looking creature.
Hollyphants seem sincerely offended by this view and may take steps to teach a vocal detractor
a lesson.
These are certainly celestial creatures native to the outer planes, infused with the power
of divine rulers of the multiverse, the very fundamental matter and energy of these planes
is boundless, they are infinite crucibles of creation, gods can literally will things
into existence in the upper planes, the planes are categorized as "divinely morphic" and
Hollyphants possess quite strong psychic powers, so, there is your first warning.. there is
much more to the happy little Hollyphants than meets the eye.
We do have a current stat block for the Hollyphant in 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, thanks
to a one of them showing up in the adventure called Descent into Avernus, and I will be
talking specifically about Lulu the Hollyphant later in this video.
Hollyphants are small celestials of a lawful good alignment that treasure friendship and
honesty, they have a natural armor class of 18 and 8d6+8 or between 16 and 56 hit points,
they have similar physical stats to a fit and healty human, but are highly intelligent,
with a score of 16, exceptionally perceptive and intuitive with a Wisdom of 19 and quite
charming, with a charisma of 16, they scoot about on their little legs at a speed of 20
feet per round, but their base flying speed is 120 feet per round, their wings are small
but beat like a hummingbird and they are much, much faster when they make use of the strong
gales of Eronia or the challenging gusts within the tall peaks of Solania, they are the favored
companions of the winged angels who make use of them as messengers and helpers.
As with many creatures native to the upper planes, they just can not abide evil, if they
bear witness to it, and I remind you, they have an extreme wisdom stat, so their passive
perception is 14 and while they don't have any listed bonus to perception checks, their
high score along gives them a +4, so, they are alert for signs of evil, if there happen
to be a lot of them around, they will swarm the evil creature and attack it, otherwise,
they wouldn't hurt a fly, they are lovely little critters.
Hollyphants can speak and have telepathy out to a range of 120 feet, they are highly intelligent
and very empathic, always happy to provide aid, particularly when people are lost and
ask for directions.
They are totally immune to all poisons and take half damage from any non-magical physical
attacks, their speed provides them with a +3 to Dexterity saving throws, their celestial
vitality gives them a +4 to Constitution saving throws and their irrepressible goodness provides
a hefty +6 to all charisma saving throws.
They have a range of innate spell-like abilities based on their wisdom, so the spell save difficulty
class or DC is 15, they can cast light at will, twice a day they can cast bless, cure
wounds and protection from evil and good.
Once per day they can cast banishment, heal, raise dead, a special kind of shapechange
and also teleport, with no chance of error.
All their physical attacks do count as magical weapons and their little tusks are +3 to hit
one target within 5ft for 1d6 piercing damage, they are not really well suited to physical
combat being so small and cute but they do have a rather impressive power to channel
radiant power through their lungs and project it out of their agile little trunk, this blast
creates a 30 feet long cone of either thundering sound that can be heard up to 600 feet away
and inflicts 5d6 thunder damage and deafness in any creature that fails a DC 14 Constitution
saving throw or half damage and no deafness if they make the saving throw, inanimate non-magical
objects that are not being held or worn by creatures take 10d6 thunder damage, which
means the trumpet blast, if you read between the lines there, is effectively a seige weapon,
a combined group attack by a pack of masses Hollyphants can rip apart fortified castle
walls without much problem.
They can instead opt to project a sparkling radiant cone of energy that has no effect
on good creatures, neutral creatures must make a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or
take 4d8+4 radiant damage, if they make the save they take half that damage, and evil
creatures, same DC and damage, but they roll their saving throw at disadvantage.
Hollyphants always go to great lenghts to avoid fights with good-aligned or even neutral
creatures.
Evil creatures are another matter entirely; a hollyphant’ll look for ways to harass
or hinder an evil creature unless its mission is so pressing that it can’t spare the time.
Even if the evil is too powerful for the hollyphant to overcome on its own, it’ll try to alert
more powerful good creatures to the evil presence, or make an effort to delay or misdirect its
enemy.
They are highly effective thanks to their agility, speed, their ability to teleport
and unleash those roaring trumpet blasts, plus, unless they actively concentrate to
suppress the ability, as long as the hollyphant is alive, it automatically radiates an innate
Aura of Invulnerability, in any physical form they take, this aura is a 10-foot-radius sphere
around the hollyphant that just stops any spell of level 5 or lower to just stop at
the end of the auro and not affect creatures or objects within the aura, even if the 5th
level spell is cast with a higher level spell slot, even if the spell is cast specifically
targeting a creature or object within the aura or has an area of effect that encompasses
the aura, the spell just doesn't have any effect within the aura, they Hollyphant is
invulnerable, as would be any adjacent creature or object within that 10 foot zone.
Obviously this zone is centered on the hollyphant and moves with them, it operates even if the
Hollyphant is unconcious.
So, those features are pretty impressive, but, its the hollyphants ability to shapechange
once per day that is the doom of countless foes through the ages.
The hollyphant only transforms into one specific form, and that is a massive, very powerful,
slightly larger than full sized celestial Mammoth that has a biped stance.
Now I know that the monster manual says a mammoth is 12 feet tall, but Hollyphants transform
into a really big mammoth, this would be the same as the North American Imperial Mammoth
which attained a height of just over 13 feet or 4 meters at the shoulder as it was a quadroped,
and the largest males could tip the scales at just over 12 tons, so, imagine that creature
standing up on its hind legs and the enormous span of those leather wings with long, curved
and wickedly sharp tusks that can easily skewer right through a person and just pin them to
the ground or toss them with a casual flick of their head.
So, looking at the 5th edition stats for the Mammoth, the transformed Hollyphant grows
to huge size and its strength becomes 24, now, because the Hollyphant can easily drop
to all fours and use their formidable size and all limbs, they count as one size category
larger when determining their carrying capacity and the weight they can push or drag.
With a strength that high, this means they can lift 5760 pounds or 2612 kilograms and
carry or drag up to 2880 pounds or 1306 kilograms, however, one of the shortcomings of Dungeons
& Dragons is that, the Hollyphant also weighs over ten tons and if you give them something
to lean into, they can apply their body mass along with that strength to do things like
push over oak trees and with a decent bit of speed, they can body slam elder dragons,
which is where I point out that the Hollyphant retains the exact same flight speed in this
much, much larger form.
Also, this is a bit more than just casting a set version of the Shapeshift spell, according
to the lore from older editions, when observed by a being who has the Truesight ability,
they appear as a two foot long mini elephant and the towering form of the full sized mammoth
at the same time, these are both their true form, but we simply handle the transformation
by using the spell because it is easier to work out at the game table.
Another implication of this, is that their shapechange can't be dispelled because it
is also their true form.
In the massive form of a flying mammoth, their dexterity drops a couple of points and their
armor class lowers to 13, because they are now huge, thus easier to hit, their constitution
score raises to 21 and they gain a lot of hit points, 11d12+55 for between 66 and 187
with an average of 126, their walking speed also increases to 40 feet per round, and remember,
unless carting something or someone around, they normally walk on two feet, they are bipeds,
though their hands stubby fingers have very poor fine control, their trunk is as functional
as a hand, just like any elephant.
They gain the ability to trample targets if they get at least 20 feet of movement straight
toward a creature and hit with their much more impressive gore attack, which is +10
to hit one target with a 10 foot reach, inflicting 4d8+7 piercing damage that also counts as
a magic weapon, that target must succeed on a DC 18 strength saving throw or be knocked
prone, and once prone, the Hollyphant can make one stomp attack against it as a bonus
action, the stomp, also +10 to hit, with a five foot reach, inflicts 4d10+7 magical bludgeoning
damage to a prone creature..
I would also just allow them to use this attack on small or tiny creatures that get too close.
In this huge form the Hollyphant can still use its spell-like abilities and its trumpeting
trunk attacks with blasting cones of thunderous sound or cones of radiant energy that rips
into evil creatures.
In previous editions the Hollyphants had the power to attempt to open a magical gate once
per day with a 50% chance of success; when active the gate had a 70% chance that another
hollyphant would arrive and there was a 30% chance that a deva angel would show up instead.
Oh also, If removed, a hollyphant’s tusk can be ground into a magical powder that transforms
water or wine into an elixir of health.
Hollyphants have a surprisingly strong sense of mischief and love a good prank or jest
but make no mistake, these are not fickle fey creatures, they are stalwart divine beings
that don't even really need to eat, sleep or drink, they just do so because they enjoy
it.
They are often found along in far flung places, aiding adventurers and heroes on behalf of
the powers of good, and that brings us to the sad tale of Lulu, a Hollyphant one could
encounter all the way down in the plane of Avernus.
I won't spoil any of the details of the published adventure Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus,
but I can tell you that Lulu was the friend of and combat mount of the Solar angel named
Zariel, who served the God Lathander and was a staunch enemy of the forces of the Abyss,
tasked by Lathander with protecting his faithful she engaged in combat with the forces of the
demon lord Yeenoghu, this was just one more fight after many centuries with Lulu at her
side but, events unfolded and Zariel finally decided to take the fight to the enemy, charging
into the lower planes...
Seeing as Zariel is now an Archdevil, you can guess this did not go well for her, but
her intentions were good and even in her transformed state, she can not bring herself to harm her
friend Lulu, who's magic and memories had been stripped from her by exposure to the
waters of the River Styx.
Sent back to the world of Toril, Lulu now resides with her friend Sylvira Savikas, one
of the great readers, a master sage of Candlekeep and one of the foremost experts on the outer
planes on the entire continent of Faerun.
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