Cyclops

One-eyed giant with bad luck. A huge humanoid.

Imagine a gigantic humanoid with only one stupid eye. Its wearing nothing but a loincloth.

Overwhelming strength, Singleminded Bully, Easily Pleased.


 
HD: 6 +6HP Armor: as leather
Hit it: easy Dodge it: normal
Move: normal  

It can bring bad luck: If a creature casts or concentrates on a spell and a cyclops can see it, the cyclops can force the creature to make a saving throw. On a failed save, the spell fails.

Attacks (1/round)

Poor Vision Clubbing. The cyclops makes one melee attack with disadvantage (1D10).

Rock. The cyclops makes one ranged attack (1D10).

Blind Flailing. The cyclops trashes towards a noise. Each creature and objects in its path take damage (1D10) if they fail to dodge, including the cyclops.


Random Encounter
  1. Monster: 1 cyclops & 1D100 sheep.
  2. Lair: A gigantic cyclopean hovel with 1D100 sheep.
      OR
    Omen: The earth shakes under heavy footsteps.
  3. Spoor: 1D100 dirty sheep.
  4. Tracks: Oversized foot tracks and sheep tracks.
  5. Trace: A cart/ship, smashed by a boulder.
  6. Trace: A cyclopean wall.
Salvaging the body

You find the monster’s weapons and … (Roll as many times as the HD of the monster)

  1. Rotten food scraps between the teeth.
  2. A human skull.
  3. A full ration of sheep jerky.
  4. A usable sheep pelt. (Valuable)
  5. A sack of silver (Valuable).
  6. A throwing boulder, carved with eye symbols.
2D6 Cyclops Cultures

Combine the result of both tables to get the broad lines of this humanoid culture in this part of the world.

Cultures

  1. The ones that live in isolation with their sheeps.
  2. The ones that bring the collapse of civilization.
  3. The ones that hate the gods and work to bring their collapse.
  4. The ones that joined the local horde.
  5. The ones that build the biggest structures of the world (1D4: 1, wall; 2, fort; 3, maze; 4, windmill.
  6. The ones that are feral.

Features

  1. They are actually well intended.
  2. The gods can see through their eye.
  3. They are worshiped by orcs.
  4. Everything is a game to them.
  5. Their leader is a mountain sized cyclops.
  6. They are hunted by humans.
Player Class

Play as a Cyclops!


DM Notes

The cyclops has the problem of many giants in DnD in the fact that they have no abilities besides being big. It’s a bit sad, especially for something as visually striking as the cyclops. What I did was to give its eye a power and a reason to exploit this weakness.

Written on November 14, 2020