top of page

Description

(From Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus - 2018):


Hollyphants are gentle, stalwart creatures native to the Upper Planes. Good-aligned deities and angels use them as messengers and helpers. Hollyphants treasure friendship and honesty.


A hollyphant looks like a miniature elephant with luminous gold fur and small, rapidly fluttering wings that not only hold it aloft but also propel it at great speed. Although kind, a hollyphant won’t bear witness to an evil act without punishing the malefactor. Its pearlescent tusks are far from formidable, but it can unleash trumpet blasts from its trunk that can deafen creatures or engulf evildoers in radiant sparkles of positive energy. A hollyphant is also blessed with powerful innate magic to help it combat evil and protect its friends.



(From Book of Exalted Deeds - 2003):


A hollyphant has two forms. Its smaller form can be described as follows: 


This creature looks like a small, golden-furred elephant about 2 feet long, with a pair of shining white wings sprouting from its back. Its coat shimmers and gleams, and its eyes dance with a rainbow of colors. 


The hollyphant’s larger form can be described as follows: 


Immense leathery wings sprout from the broad shoulders of this bipedal mastodon. It has bright eyes, shaggy black fur covering most of its great bulk, and curved tusks like gleaming scimitars.


Hollyphants are servants of the powers of good, found throughout the Upper Planes on missions for such exalted deities as Chaav and Lastai. They act as messengers and helpers for any good deity, carry messages to mortals, and help celestial agents in their tasks. Their harmless, even comical appearance has proven the downfall of many evil creatures that grossly underestimate their significant magical and psionic power. 


A hollyphant has two forms—a Large bipedal mammoth with curved tusks and a small golden-furred elephant. In its Large form, the hollyphant stands 12 feet tall and weighs 1,200 pounds. In its Small form, the hollyphant measures 2 feet long and weighs 60 pounds. A hollyphant communicates telepathically. 


Combat: Hollyphants make frequent use of their blessed sight to discern evil creatures and either harass them, attack them itself, or alert more powerful celestials to their location. They avoid physical confrontation because of their small size, but have a wide range of spell-like, supernatural, and psionic abilities to defend themselves. 


Psionics (Sp): At will—blessed sight*, detect chaos, detect law, detect poison, detect thoughts (DC 15), invisibility, know direction, see invisibility, and suggestion (DC 16). These effects are as the spells cast by a 6th-level sorcerer (save DCs, where applicable, are 13 + spell level). The save DCs for these abilities are based on Charisma. *New spell described in Chapter 6 of this book. 


Summon Celestial (Sp): Once per day, a hollyphant can attempt to summon another hollyphant, an asura, or an avoral guardinal with a 45% chance of success. The summoned creature automatically returns whence it came after 1 hour. A hollyphant that has just been summoned cannot use its own summon ability for 1 hour. 


Trumpet (Su): Three times per day, a hollyphant can issue a blast of sound through its trunk, choosing one of the following effects each time: 


• A 60-foot cone-shaped burst of sound forces creatures in its area to make a DC 14 Fortitude save or take 2d10 points of sonic damage and be stunned for 2 rounds. Creatures that make a successful save take 1d10 points of sonic damage and are stunned for 1 round. This DC is Constitution-based. 


• A 30-foot cone-shaped burst of sun sparkles. These motes of holy power deal 8d8 points of damage to evil outsiders, undead, and any other creature vulnerable to holy water. A successful DC 16 Fortitude save reduces the damage by half. This DC is Charisma-based. 


Alternate Form (Su): A hollyphant can shift between its Small and Large forms as a standard action. In Large form, it loses the benefits of its invulnerability ability (see below) but gains the advantages of its new size and strength. 


A hollyphant remains in one form until it chooses to assume the other form. A change in form cannot be dispelled, nor does the hollyphant revert to any particular form when killed. A true seeing spell, however, reveals both forms simultaneously. 


Invulnerability (Su): A Small hollyphant’s shimmering coat protects it as a continuous globe of invulnerability, but only the hollyphant is warded. In Large form, the hollyphant loses this ability. 


Spell-Like Abilities: At will—bless, light, greater teleport (self and up to 20 pounds of objects only); 3/day—cure moderate wounds (DC 15), protection from evil; 1/day—banishment (DC 19), flame strike (DC 18), heal (DC 19), raise dead. Caster level 15th. The save DCs are Charismabased. 


Telepathy (Su): A hollyphant can communicate telepathically with any creature within 60 feet that has a language.




(From Planescape: Monstrous Compendium Appendix II - 1995):


Hollyphants are servants of the powers of good, found throughout the Upper Planes. They’re the messengers and helpers of the various good pantheons, acting as couriers or advisers to mortals the powers’ve got an interest in, or working as assistants to more powerful proxies.


A hollyphant looks like a tiny, golden-furred elephant only 2 feet long, with a pair of shining white wings sprouting from its back. Its coat shimmers and gleams, and its eyes dance with a rainbow of colors. Some sages speculate that hollyphants’re really spirits or manifestations of some kind, since nature would never’ve given birth to such a silly-looking creature. Hollyphants seem sincerely offended by this view and may take steps to teach a vocal detractor a lesson.


Adventurers are likely to run across a hollyphant any time they’re about the business of a good power. Hollyphants are fond of keeping an eye on mortal heroes doing their patron’s work. Hollyphants can also be encountered transiting the Astral or Ethereal Planes, since many of their tasks involve journeying to the prime material. Of course, any trip to the Upper Planes is likely to result in an encounter with a hollyphant in its home.


Combat: Hollyphants automatically detect evil within a 20-yard range, and go to great lengths to avoid fights with good-aligned or even neutral creatures. Evil creatures are another matter entirely; a hollyphant’ll look for ways to harass or hinder an evil creature unless its mission is so pressing that it can’t spare the time. Even if the evil is too powerful for the hollyphant to overcome on its own, it’ll try to alert more powerful good creatures to the evil presence, or make an effort to delay or misdirect its enemy.


In physical confrontations, the hollyphant’s at a distinct disadvantage. It strikes with its small tusks for only 1d3 points of damage each. While hollyphants’ve got minimal physical combat abilities, they do possess a number of magical powers with which they defend themselves. Three times per day a hollyphant can trumpet, choosing one of three effects: a blast like that of a horn of blasting; a call that acts as drums of deafening in a cone-shaped area 70 feet long by 30 feet wide at the end; or a fan-shaped shower of sun-sparkles 50 feet long by 20 feet wide. Sun-sparkles are motes of positive energy that inflict 8d6+8 points of damage to fiends, undead, and other creatures of supernatural evil. (Damage is halved with a successful save vs. breath weapon.)


In addition to their trumpet-calls, hollyphants can use the following spell-like powers, one at a time, at will: bless, cure serious wounds (twice per day), light, protection from evil (twice per day), and teleport without error. Once per day they can call a flame strike, heal, raise dead, and use banishment. Hollyphants are considered 16th-level for casting purposes.


The magical tusks of a hollyphant protect it from all disease and poisons. Its shimmering coat functions as a globe of invulnerability, and it can be hit only by +1 or better weapons. Hollyphants can attempt to open a gate with a 50% chance of success; there’s a 70% chance that another hollyphant responds, and a 30% chance that a deva appropriate to the setting shows up (an astral deva for a hollyphant on the Outer Planes, a monadic deva for one on the Inner Planes, or a movanic deva for a hollyphant on the prime material).


Habitat/Society: Hnllyphants’re usually found alone, since they’re often pursuing the tasks of some power or another. On their native planes, they can occasionally be found in small family groups of 1 to 3 individuals. Hollyphants live on alI good planes, but they’re especially common on Bytopia, the Beastlands, and Mount Celestia.


As proxies of good powers, hollyphants often are given missions that bring them into contact with mortal adventurers and heroes. In these situations, hollyphants act as advisers and aid their charges by helping them to defeat evil themselves instead of doing it for them.


Hollyphants have a surprisingly strong sense of mischief and love a good prank or jest. Sharp bloods’ve pointed out that anything that looks like a hollyphant shouldn’t take itself too seriously, and hollyphants generally don’t. (Cutters had best remember, though, that a hollyphant’s definition of humor doesn’t include jokes about its origins.)


Ecology: It’s pretty clear that hollyphants’re creatures that exist outside of nature. They’re highly magical and don’t even really need to eat or sleep, even though they do so anyway to make those around them feel more comfortable. When they do ingest food, hollyphants favor nuts, berries, and young shoots.


If removed, a hollyphant’s tusk can be ground into a magical powder that transforms water or wine into an elixir of health. ’Course, hollyphants take a real dim view of some basher hunting them for their tusks.


Psionics Summary

LevelDis/Sci/DevAttack/DefenseScorePSPs

62/3/8        EW,PB,MT/All14120


Clairsentience — Sciences: aura sight, precognition; Devotions: danger sense, know direction, know location, poison sense, spirit sense.

Telepathy — Science: mind link; Devotions: ESP, identity penetration, invisibility, post-hypnotic suggestion.


Alternate Versions

Size

Hero Forge: 11' (2')(XL)
Lore: Small (2 ft. long)
Suggested: Small

Other Monikers

None

Abilities

- Trumpet can deafen and cause thunder or radiant damage
- Aura protects creatures from harmful low-level spells
- Tusks and other weapon attacks are magical
- Innate Spellcasting
- Shapechange into flying mammoth
- Teleport without error
- Resistant to nonmagical attacks
- Immune to poison
- Telepathy
- Flight (very fast)

Appearance

A hollyphant looks like a miniature elephant with luminous gold fur and small, rapidly fluttering wings that not only hold it aloft but also propel it at great speed.

Home Plane

Any Upper Plane

Stat Block

5th Edition: 

- Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus (2019)

- wizards.com

- DndBeyond

- Dumpstatadvantures.com

3rd Edition:

- realmshelps.net

2nd Edition: 

- Dumpstatadvantures.com

- mojobob's website

Sources

- Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus (2019)

- Planescape: Monstrous Compendium Appendix II (1995)

- Book of Exalted Deeds (2003)

- Dumpstatadvantures.com

- wizards.com

- DndBeyond

- mojobob's website

Hollyphant

Small Celestial, Lawful Good

Deva Movanic Male-turnaround.gif
bottom of page