Glantrian Giant Crawling Hand Mounts
by AozThanks to Five markets to buy and sell undead by Khuzd in Issue 29 - Vampires and Undead http://pandius.com/Threshold_29.pdf inspired me.
Image from bing.com
Image from daybreakgames.com
Glantrian Giant Crawling Hand Mounts
Climate/Terrain: Any
Frequency: Unique
Organization: Solitary
Activity Cycle: Any
Diet: Nil
Intelligence: 8
Treasure: Nil
Alignment: Neutral
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 6
Movement: 60 (20) even climb
Hit Dice: 3+9 Skeletal or 4+ 12 Zombie
THAC0: 14
Save: 6th level fighter
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage/Attack:
skeletal: 1d3 [save vs grab: Fail then hand sweezes for 1d6 per round]
zombie: 1d4 [save vs grab: Fail then hand sweezes for 2d4 per round]
Special Attacks: Grab
Special Defenses: See below
Magic Resistance: Nil
Size: Large
Morale: Fearless
These creatures are made when a wizard drains the life force from a Giant humanoid creature then in a ritual removes the hands of the giant. The hand skin leathery or skeletal depending on the wizard. Giant Crawling hands have a spark of intelligence. They understand full-sentence instructions with conditions and use simple tactics and strategies. Since they became undead at the moment of death, their bodies tend to be in better condition. The creation uses normal initiative rules to determine when they strike. They are dexterous enough to use attack, although they must be specifically commanded to do so. Their Dexterity allows them to climb walls as a thief (82%) and they strike as a 6 Hit Die monster. This undead are turned as specters.
The result is that only +1 or better magical weapons can harm them. Regardless of the magic on the weapon, edged and cleaving weapons inflict normal damage, while blunt and piercing weapons cause half damage. In addition to normal undead spell immunities, undead are immune to mind affecting spells and psionics, illusions, and to electricity. Fire causes only half damage.
Heals at a rate of 3 hp per 24 hours for skeletal and 4 hp per 24 hours for zombie.
Senses blind-sense/Darkvision 60 ft. (blind beyond this radius), passive Perception 10
Languages understands the languages of its creator, but can’t speak
Leap. The crawling hand’s long jump is up to 10 feet and its high jump is up to 5 feet, with or without a running start.
Crawling hands are necromantic creations and Glantri has had a few issues with giants. So, a few enterprising wizards have started "creating" this wonderous mounts. Cost starts at 2400 gold pieces for skeletal or (3000 gold pieces for zombie).