Welcome to the first installation of Behemoth Bestiary! Behemoth Bestiary is(or will be) a series of threads where I design various monstrosities to fit into my(or your) homebrew setting! In a setting of mine, the world is filled with all kinda of bizarre and massive monsters, not really all that unlike the world of Monster Hunter. Due to this, I'm always thinking about new, bizarre creatures I can create and add to the setting. And because why not, I've decided to share some of these creatures and my process of creating them with you! Now, without further ado, let's get started.

Whenever I design a behemoth, I often look to the real world for inspiration. I'm not exactly creative enough to come up with entirely original designs, so I often draw from existing adaptations and properties of real animals. For this first creature, my inspiration was sloths. More specifically, how some sloths actually plant moss in their fur, growing it on their bodies for camouflage and nutrients. I thought to take this idea and expand on it a little. Just using it for food and camouflage is a little boring, but what if these sloth creatures could actually use it for protection as well? The moss would have to grow thick and/or be tough enough to actually be of any use, but it's a good start.

However, a monster that's all defense is a little boring, isn't it? A proper behemoth has both defensive and offensive abilities. An easy start would be just some simple claws, like those possessed by giant prehistoric sloths. Those things were scary. But since this behemoth revolves around the mosslike plant growing on its body, I thought to weaponize it as well. I mentioned earlier that the moss would have to either be real thick, or real though, to properly protect the behemoth. Since we're making it dangerous as well as protective, let's go with the latter. Here's where I came up with the idea to make the plant into something other than moss, which doesn't exactly fit it.

Since it's meant to be able to attack as well as protect, I decided to make it something more akin to sword grass, a type of grass that's tough enough to actually cut human skin if you rub it the wrong way. Of course, this particular species would be much sharper, thicker, and more dangerous. More like vines than grass, really. On most of the body, it would be more matted down and woven together, a defensive layer rather than anything used for offense. On the extremities such as the tail and the arms, however, it would trail freely. The behemoth's method of attacking would be to swing these long strands of tough, sharp vine at its foes like whips, gouging their flesh and causing immense pain. When not in use, the vines would trail behind the behemoth in a mass, reminiscent of a bridal train, which led me to come up with the creature's name: The Vinebride.

Alright, so now we've got our behemoth concept, a giant, vine-slinging sloth-plant hybrid creature. The conceptual stage is over, now it's time to get to building this creature. We'll get to the stats later, first we've got to determine its basic abilities. For attacks, I'm going to obviously give it a "Razor Vines" attack, as well as multiattack with it. The razor vines won't have particularly high average damage, but each attack will use lots of small dice, meaning that the damage will be rather consistent and have a high baseline, as is appropriate for a lot of small, sharp vines whipping you. While each one doesn't hurt a ton, together they pack a mean punch. Additionally, they will have decently long range. I suppose I'll also add a claw attack, with bigger damage dice and higher potential damage, though shorter range.

That's all well and good, but how about the passive abilities? The things that really make a creature more than numbers and dice. I've only got two things in mind. First, a natural camouflage ability, giving it advantage on stealth checks in areas with lots of greenery. I want this creature to appear to be nothing but a grassy hill or rock on first glance, until it begins to move. But that's not really unique. For its more unique ability, I've got something else in mind. A vinebride has the benefit of natural armor, but tough vines aren't exactly as durable as metal plates or chitin. So, I had the idea of a mechanic that reflected that degradation of armor. Upon reaching half health, a vinebride would lose some of its ac as well as access to its razor vines attack. In exchange for this loss of defensive capabilities, losing both ac and range, the vinebride would go into a desperate rage, gaining multiattack with its claw attack.

With that all out of the way, I went ahead and dealth with the exact stats and all that jazz, eventually making it a CR 8 creature, with more defense than offense when above half health, and more offense than defense when below. Without any further ado, I present The Vinebride.

I hope you enjoyed this installment of Behemoth Bestiary, I certainly enjoyed writing it, and look forward to writing another in the future!