Girallon

Barely an edition old (they were introduced in 3.0), girallons are go-to monsters for any kind of jungle encounter.  They’re also practically dripping with adventure hooks: mountain hideouts, ruined cities, demon worship, high girallons, and white orcs.  And, as with any monster with too many arms, they can also serve as a blazing white signpost for PCs that they are not in medieval Kansas any more—see the girallon’s uncredited appearance in John Carter as an example…

One of the gladiatorial arena’s star attractions is also its secret ruler.  “White Tusk” is a high girallon barbarian/sorcerer of superior intellect.  Having bested every two-legged humanoid or beast on his jungle subcontinent, he allowed himself to be “captured” by big game hunters in order to test himself in the cities of men.  In three short years he went from being a sideshow to a secret lord of the gladiatorial sands and the criminal underworld.  He has kept to the shadows so far, but he longs to be acknowledged openly for the super-ape he is, and may be goaded into revealing himself.

A scholar at the university thinks an albino orc working down at the docks may have a link to one of the famous girallon-blooded “white orc” tribes.  The whole affair could be a bookworm’s flight of fancy, or it could wind up leading explorers through kelpie-infested bays, down a waterfall of blood, through a copper-dragon-ruled theocracy, and up into the mountains to face a tribe of death-worshipping orcs and their girallon sires.

A trip through a portal sends unwary adventurers to a swamp in a strange land—so strange, in fact, that two moons hang in the sky.  This foreignness is hit home by the strange lizard-like creature, a voonith, who fishes them out of the drink, and by the four-armed girallon who nearly pulverizes them all when they reach shore.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 154

For the first time my show on Saturday was influenced by my Tumblr feed—last week I become briefly obsessed with Korean Vocaloid YouTube videos thanks to…someone (saraten, I think).  Also some sprightly spring tunes and, of course, a little Beastie Boys in honor of Adam Yauch.  Listen, won’t you?

(Music starts about one and a half minutes into the file. If the feed skips, Save As an mp3 with Firefox or Chrome and enjoy in iTunes.  Link good until Friday, 5/11, at midnight.)