Mordant Snare

Gargantuan aberration, chaotic evil

Armor Class 18 (natural armor)
Hit Points 248 (16d20 + 80)
Speed 10 ft., burrow 30 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
23 (+6) 16 (+3) 21 (+5) 15 (+2) 14 (+2) 6 (-2)

Skills Deception +8
Damage Resistances bludgeoning from nonmagical attacks
Damage Immunities acid
Condition Immunities prone
Senses darkvision 60 ft., tremorsense 60 ft., passive Perception 12
Languages Common, Primordial, telepathy 60 ft.
Challenge 15 (13,000 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +5

SPECIAL TRAITS

  • Magic Resistance. The mordant snare has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
  • Mordant Puppets. A mordant snare can spend 8 hours draining a dead Humanoid of its fluids and internal organs, replacing them with the snare’s acid and filaments. The Humanoid’s body then becomes a puppet controlled by the snare. Mordant puppets share a telepathic link with the snare, and each puppet uses the statistics of a zombie. The puppets can’t move more than 30 feet away from the snare. The mordant snare can have no more than twelve puppets under its control at one time. When a puppet is destroyed, each creature within 5 feet of the puppet must succeed on a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw or take 9 (2d8) acid damage. If the mordant snare dies, all puppets it controls immediately crumble into desiccated husks as the animating acid and filaments leave them.

ACTIONS

  • Multiattack. The mordant snare makes one Bite attack and four Tentacle attacks, or it makes four Acid Spike attacks.
  • Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d10 + 6) piercing damage plus 18 (4d8) acid damage.
  • Tentacle. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 20 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d8 + 6) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 18) if it is a Large or smaller creature. The mordant snare has eleven tentacles, each of which can grapple only one target.
  • Acid Spike. Ranged Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, range 30/120 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) piercing damage plus 13 (3d8) acid damage.
  • Hidden Trap. While underground, the mordant snare covers itself in dirt, sand, or other material and lurks just below the surface. The mordant snare is indistinguishable from the ground around it while motionless and covered in this way. When a creature enters the mordant snare’s space, the snare can make one Tentacle attack against the creature as a reaction, removing the covering material.

ABOUT

The ground rumbles and a gigantic starfish with eleven arms rises from the earth, grasping at nearby prey.

Mordant snares were created by war mages of ancient times. Each resembles an immense, eleven-armed starfish weighing eight tons, and yet a mordant snare is never obvious. Instead, it controls a dozen humanoids shuffling about aimlessly, paying little attention to their surroundings.

Starfish Puppet Masters. Snares bury themselves under loose soil to attack creatures walking above them.

After killing a humanoid, they inject acid into the victim’s body that liquefies organs and muscle while leaving the skeleton, tendons, and skin intact. With the body thus hollowed out and refilled with acid and filaments, the mordant snare can control it from below like a puppet.

Brains Preferred. The mordant snare prefers intelligent food and hunts until an area is empty of sustenance. A village can suffer tremendous losses or even be wiped out before discovering the cause. However, a mordant snare is intelligent enough to know that escaped victims may come back with friends, shovels, and weapons, ready for battle. When this occurs, the snare abandons its puppets, burrows deeper underground, and seeks a new home.

Cooperative Killers. Mordant snares are few in number and cannot reproduce. Since the secret of their creation was lost long ago, eventually they will disappear. Until then, they cooperate with each other when in the same areas, using puppets to lure victims to one another.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Tome of Beasts 1 ©2023 Open Design LLC; Authors: Daniel Kahn, Jeff Lee, and Mike Welham.

This is not the complete license attribution - see the full license for this page