Pile Wyrm trap monster

**Trap monster**- **Pile Wurm**

Tentacles act as trip wire and grapple snare to hold and lash prey.  Prey struck two times in a round are also restrained as if grappled twice.  On a crit they are also grappled again and strangled, all while being flayed. Three grapples incapacitates.

If the party survives the lure and the trigger strike turn, then the giant pile worm draws back leaving a gaping hole where it retreated.

afterward will rear up, often bursting through the ground with its tentacles flailing and it’s purple skin glistening.

It can flail it’s mouth tentacles as an attack or flail its body at the party for area damage.  If it hasn’t attacked yet this round, it can tentacle flail as a reaction. This grapples three times all at once. It can use this as a counter attack if it chooses or it can instead use its body flail as an interrupt -but loses its other actions this round to do either.

The body flail causes 1d6+ hp and adds “stumbling” on any action this round by those within range and also “knocks back” all standing targets within range this round.

On any tentacle grapple it may add an additional attack as a reaction to the grapple with a bite - three times before needing a “break” - and will use them against armored opponents as a priority.   The bite is looking for the advantages gained by targeting a grapples for.

Only one target may be grappled at a time and attacking a separate target releases all current grapples.

**Bite**

The attack is ignored if it doesn’t pass cover and penetration but if it hits, it’s a devastating blow that causes instant injury and causes an additional 1-6hp damage. On a critical hit, the injury is bleeding without a stamina check.

Once a creature is knocked to zero hp, the beast grapples its victim that weighs up to half a ton of body weight and it drags them at the rate of one yard per second back to its tunnel.  It will block the tunnel with its victim while it feeds.

The creature is intense but not heavily damaging to the properly armored.

whereas no moose or pack of wolves could ever survive it, a well outfitted party should reap the experience of decapitating it and watching the thrashing body retreat below ground again. This isn’t enough to kill it.

The body humors and both rare and leathered meat come as rewards from the flesh of its trunk.

Inside the head are two high strength crystal fangs the length of daggers, the source of the bite attack.  The tentacle sheathes make nominal leather as well.

**Monster** **Zone**

Monster zonation is head tail and body.

The yard wide head is connected to the segmented thirty foot or so that it can extend above the ground.  Twice as much body could extend further down below.

Head tentacles are three yards at maximum length but have a two yard grapple range and a one yard bite from its pincer like fangs.

Body tentacles running the length of the beast are yard long and lash out as a reaction at anything that harms the body for 1d3.  the body segment will attempt to move away after receiving three hit points of damage, alerting the head and tail that something is harassing them.

The tail is just a heavy meaty armored tip and this one large segment is almost another creature in itself.

Regenerative and bulky, it has little ability to attack besides its body tentacles but it heals the head and body and can cause the body to thrash in defense, even when not enough body remains connected to thrash otherwise.

They move along ceilings and walls as well as floors and swim as fast as they crawl with that creepy serpentine centipede gait.

A massive specimen or a colony can easily span an entire dungeon.  Some with raptorial claws cut through armor.  Some inject venom to subdue prey.

**Variant Abilities**

V. Toxic v. Paralytic v. Bonus penetration and damage v. Injurious injection

The head has high perception but the rest of the body is pretty much blind and deaf.

It acts as a thug in battle, seeking easy prey and it’s imperative is to ambush.  Its emotion is either patient or panicked.

While the head is sheathed within the trunk, it is invulnerable and takes no damage.

The body has unlimited movement within the range of its extended length but cannot move from its central position without withdrawing from the ground and possibly tearing away from its anchoring tail.  At that rate it moves 1/3 its length each round by rolling and dragging the exposed coiled body.

“The big ones are no harder to fight than the little ones, there’s just more of em!”

The hard part is finding them.  Making multiple mucous reinforced tunnel shafts just below the ground, they can quickly switch their head between a few different places and can stretch their body many times it’s apparent length while burrowing.

It lures prey not only with the offal and scraps of its earlier prey but at neater edged ambush blinds, it uses its ability to make scents and sounds.  Clacking and clattering, tinkling glass and the clattering of flatware.  It makes the smells of cooking waft from within its camouflaged point.

Prey searching for the source of deliciousness find themselves surrounded by the creatures tentacles.it is this organ that provides a rare meat of delicate and bold flavor.

This monster starts as a trap.  It rears up to attack, giving the party a round to react after the failed trap recoils.  It’s reach means it can melee any target at any time regardless of movement.

 It only targets one creature at a time but can incapacitate that character in a few ways.  It requires a group to take it down, it’s massive, and will flee when it head is defeated but since the head is at the top of the rearing beast, it is not in melee except rounds it bends to strike.  It could just slam and thrash its body against the party until they flee or fall. Every body slam offers an instant dive save but all other actions and movement must be ended for the round.

If it doesn’t grapple, it rears again.  It can lift 300lb or so into the air during battle. It will lift them up to attack a single grappled foe blocking with its body to withstand melee damage and relying on the tail to recover when injured.

The head is a hunk of cartilage with soft flesh atop the long trunk and only the fresh olfactory organ within and the crystal fangs are worth anything to sell unprocessed.

The humors can be used to make poisons and glues.  The huge carcass of one slain completely becomes a bit of “behemoth carcass” terrain.  Any of the carcass terrain monsters would look for this as a place to nest.

**Variant Abilities**

V. Recover injury v. Recover stamina

V. Restored during breather v. Bite each grapple

v. Tentacle zonation.  Four successful attacks against tentacles cause the tentacle attack to weaken and lose its grapple and bite abilities until it takes a break