Megatherium

I was told we're going to have a great fight against the empire, gain our independence.

Didn't think twice before enlisting me and my most agressive megatherium, the Bastard.

-A horseman which participated in the kavajan war of independence.

     As big and heavy as the greatest khejali elephants; slow and four-legged, but capable of rising on its back feet and the trunk-like tail. The great froward claws are used for digging, knock down trees and defense: a megatherium acts like a bear, rising on two legs and giving blows strong enough to launch people meters away and break their bones. This, plus the thick reddish fur reinforced by osteoderms, means that even extraordinary predators such as gryphons hardly can kill a megatherium.

      They are most of the kavajan cattle, the source of nearly all the meat turned into beef jerky. They can eat nearly everything: roots, grass, bark, cactuses, the leaves and fruits of the highest trees. They love avocados and ocasionally eat carrion: are capable of driving off a predator from its slaughtered prey, although they never actually hunt. Megatheriums dig tunnel networks throughout Kavaja. The first halflings to reach the region used them as shelter and their homes are dug out by megatheriums even nowadays.

      The adults are left free in the communal fields of the kavajan villages and towns, under the responsability of the fraternities. The young stay in pens as sson as they're born, the parents bringing them food such like birds. Most are slaughtered as soon as the parents stop doing that, having reached a reasonable size and yeat to develop the osteoderms that make an adult's hide as impenetrable as plate armour. The strongest are marked and released as sson as they form a lifelong couple. When a megatherium dies, its mate gets so agressive and dangerous that the fraternity needs to send horsemen to kill it.

      Kavajans use everything the megatherium provides: meat and milk; nearly the entire hide is too reinforced to make parchment, but it is excellent for leather armour, reinforced coats and the bandanas every kavajan has; the feces are used as fertilizer and burnt in fires; the animal's skeleton is turned into cups, medicine, combs, needles, coats of arms, dice and statues; dozens of meters of guts become ropes for bows and cranes. Kavajan militias usually are armed with bolas, horses, spears, darts, javelins and a couple of megatheriums: monsters, bandits and orcs are some of the threats taken apart by what some foreigners describe as "two elephant-sized bears with claws as big as my arm".

Megatherium

Huge beast, unaligned

Armor Class 16 (natural armor)

Hit Points 126 (11d12 + 55)

Speed 40 ft., swim 20 feet.

STR          DEX       CON         INT        WIS          CHA
24 (+7)      9 (-1)      21 (+5)      3 (-4)     12 (+1)       6 (-2)

Senses passive Perception 11

Challenge 6

•  Grief-Mad. At the start of its turn, the megatherium can gain advantage on all gore attack rolls it makes during that turn, but attack rolls against it have advantage until the start of its next turn.

 ACTIONS

1. Gore. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (2d8 + 7) piercing damage.
2. Stomp. Melee Weapon Attack: +10 to hit, reach 5 ft., one prone creature. Hit: 23 (3d10 + 7) bludgeoning damage.

Mates for Life - Adult megatheriums form life-long pairs. If one of them dies, the other becomes insane, gaining the Grief-Mad trait, resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, and it also can’t be charmed or frightened.