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Kodama: Kami of the Trees

Converted here to be used for my OA campaign.

This little white-green humanoid figure stands only three feet tall. Its head is faceless save for two hollow pits for eyes.


KODAMA

Small celestial (kami), neutral

Armor Class 17 (natural armor)
Hit Points 60 (11d6 + 22)
Speed 30 ft.
STR        DEX        CON        INT        WIS        CHA
14 (+2)   13 (+1)    16 (+2)    11 (+0)    14 (+2)   17 (+3)
Skills Nature +3, Perception +5, Stealth +4, Survival +8
Senses Darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 14
Damage Resistance acid, fire, lightning
Damage Immunities
necrotic, poison
Condition Immunities
charmed, poison
Languages Common, Celestial (kami); telepathy 50 ft.
Challenge 5 (1,800 XP)

Innate Spellcasting. The kami’s spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 14, Spell Attack +6). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:

Distracting Gaze. When a creature that can see the kodama’s eyes starts its turn within 30 feet of the kodama, the kodama can force it to make a DC 14 Constitution saving throw if the kodama isn’t incapacitated and can see the creature. On a failure the target is staggered and has disadvantage on all to-hit rolls for the next 1 minute (save ends).

Local Knowledge. As a nature spirit, a kami is intimately familiar with the natural world in the area where it lives. A nature spirit automatically has access to the information learned from the commune with nature spell.

Magic Resistance. The kami has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Regeneration. As long as a kami is within 120 feet of its ward, it has regeneration 10 so long as it has at least 1 hit point remaining. However, it dies if its ward is killed or destroyed.
Speak with Beasts and Plants. The kami can communicate with beasts and plants as if they shared a language.
Tree Strider. Once on its turn, the kami can use 10 feet of its movement to step magically into one living tree within its reach and emerge from a second living tree within 60 feet of the first tree, appearing in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the second tree. Both trees must be Medium or bigger. Alternatively the kami can hide in the tree becoming undetectable by anything but the most powerful magic – though the tree will radiate transmutation magic.
Ward. Each kami is mystically bound to a natural feature — small spirits to a branch, small stone, or stream, medium spirits to a tree, flower, rock, or bamboo grove, and large spirits to a mountain, boulder, ancient tree, or small island. The nature spirit cannot stray more than 300 yards from its feature. If it does, it becomes ill and dies within 24 hours. If the feature to which it is bound is destroyed, the nature spirit dies. Animal kami can move around freely as they essentially fuse with their animal ward permanently.
Exception: A kami may move anywhere within the same natural feature its ward resides in. For example a tree kami could move anywhere in the same forest that its tree ward grows even if it is more than 300 yards away.

ACTIONS
Multattack. The kami attacks twice with its claws.

Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d8 + 2) slashing damage and 10 (3d6) poison damage.

 

DESCRIPTION

Revered by druids and rangers for their attunement with the wilds, kodama, known also as tree kami, are the guardians of the wild trees of the forest—they do not protect trees cultivated and grown in civilized areas. (Those trees are protected by different kami, if at all.) A kodama takes a single tree under its protection; typically, all of the trees in a forest that are protected by kodama are clustered together in one particular area. A kodama in its physical form resembles a barely humanoid creature with only the vaguest of features on its semispherical head. A tree kami is 3 feet tall and weighs 60 pounds. While one might expect the kami of something as large as a tree to itself be larger, the fact that forests are made up of so many trees tends to diminish the singular “presence” any single tree might have.

Kodama are more curious about visitors than most kami, and often manifest their physical bodies simply to watch and observe newcomers to their groves. A kodama usually manifests on the far side of its tree, or in the shadows of the undergrowth, so that it can slowly step out into visibility to quietly observe with its distracting, empty-eyed gaze. This gaze can be particularly unnerving. Those who have fallen under its supernatural effects often have different descriptions of how the gaze made them feel (ashamed, frightened, curious, amused, and nervous being the most common reactions), yet the end result is essentially the same. While under observation by a curious kodama, few are those who can continue their actions without being at least somewhat distracted by the kami’s attention.

When a kodama must fight (typically in order to defend its tree or other kami), it moves quickly—kodama work best in groups, and when confronted alone generally use tree stride to travel to another part of the forest to raise a small host of allies to aid it in defending its home.

Variants

In cases where a tree is particularly ancient or immense, however, the kodama associated with it is much larger—statistics for such rare kodama can be generated by advancing the kodama given here by several Hit Dice and increasing its size—theoretically, a Colossal kodama with more than 20 Hit Dice could exist somewhere in the world. Not all kodama increase in power by gaining racial Hit Dice, though, as some instead progress by gaining class levels, particularly levels of druid, though a rare few kodama kami—those possessed of minds more ordered and structured than is normal for their race—take the path of the monk.

Original.

Posted in 5e, Dungeons & Dragons, Monstrous Compendium, Oriental Adventures

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