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Megaliths are the largest known life forms in the multiverse. A megalith may, at first sighting, appear to be a planetary body. In its long dormant phase, it may be indistinguishable from a planet.
A megalith's body has two distinct parts. Its center, in which the life essence resides, is a warm, solid core weighing almost 20% of the total mass. This core, effectively the creature's brain, is protected by an outer covering of mixed solid and liquid matter. This covering is called its mantle, and can withstand nearly any imaginable attack due to its sheer size.
Over long periods of time, very thin layers of earth, water, and air collect on the creature's surface. Most transient life forms present during a megalith's active phase confine themselves to these added layers, and rarely penetrate any large fraction of the mantle.
In the active cycle, the megalith is fully awake and Lawful in alignment. It observes its surroundings and examines itself constantly, noting the appearance and disappearance of life forms on and within it aiding their development and defending itself.
Illustration by Larry Elmore
During its active phase, a megalith can communicate by gentle, subtle manipulations of the surface of its mantle. The only mortals able to understand megalith "speech" are specialists called druids, and even they do not fully understand the process or the implications.
Near the end of its active cycle, a megalith loses interest in its surroundings. It cools its outer parts by rotating with increasing speed, slowing only after all extraneous material (such as water, life forms, etc.) is discarded. It then withdraws its life force to some central point, finally lapsing into a dormant phase (similar to animal hibernation).
During this phase it ignores most activity within, on, and around itself, and becomes Chaotic in alignment reacting randomly and instinctively.
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