Butcher Booth

Gargantuan aberration, chaotic evil

Armor Class 15 (natural armor)
Hit Points 217 (15d20 + 60)
Speed 20 ft., fly 40 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
20 (+5)	10 (+0)	18 (+4)	12 (+1)	12 (+1)	18 (+4)

Saving Throws Str +9, Con +8, Wis +5
Skills Athletics +9, Deception +8, Stealth +4
Senses darkvision 90 ft., passive Perception 11
Languages Common, Deep Speech, telepathy 120 ft.
Challenge 12 (8,000 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +6

SPECIAL TRAITS

• False Appearance (Object Form Only). While the butcher booth remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from an ordinary object.
• Fearsense. The butcher booth is aware of the location of frightened creatures within 60 feet.
• Innate Spellcasting. The butcher booth’s innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 16). It can innately cast the following spells, requiring no components:
  • At will: detect magic
  • 3/day each: charm person, hallucinatory terrain, major image
• Mimicry. The butcher booth can mimic any sound it has heard, such as the scraping of knives or a merchant’s incessant hawking. A creature that hears the sounds can tell they are imitations with a successful DC 18 Wisdom (Insight) check.

ACTIONS

• Multiattack. The butcher booth can use its Frightful Presence. It then attacks each creature in its space with its jaws, or attacks once with its jaws and uses Create Husk.
• Jaws. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 27 (4d10 + 5) bludgeoning damage and the target is grappled (escape DC 19) and pulled up to 5 feet into the butcher booth’s space.
• Create Husk. A humanoid corpse in the butcher booth’s space rises as a skeleton or zombie under the butcher booth’s control.
• Frightful Presence. Each creature within 15 feet of the butcher booth and aware of it must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature’s saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to the butcher booth’s Frightful Presence for the next 24 hours.
• Mimic Structure. The butcher booth magically polymorphs into a Large or larger object or into its true form, which is an amorphous fleshy dome. Its statistics are the same in each form. This transformation changes its texture and appearance inside and out. Other creatures can enter the butcher booth’s space through any entrances that make up its appearance. Creatures inside the booth’s space have total cover. It reverts to its true form if it dies.

REACTIONS

• Snap Shut. When a creature moves into the butcher booth’s space, the booth attacks the creature with its jaws.

ABOUT

A butcher booth is a deadly ambush predator that mimics the appearance of small, grim buildings such as dilapidated cottages, carnival ghost houses, or blood-soaked butcher’s shops. In this disguised form, the butcher booth lures prey into its gigantic mouth-the front door-then turns its victims into undead husks for later consumption. Because of their primordial digestive systems, butcher booths can digest only rotten flesh, using its mimic ability to amass a small army of zombies to both protect and sustain them.

Butcher booths thrive in either large metropolises or along remote roads, but rarely ever wander into small or medium settlements. Whereas a pop-up seafood stand in a dense marketplace might not attract much attention, and few weary travelers would question a conveniently located roadside inn, a butcher booth that opens shop in a tight-knit village or insular town has all but signed a lease for its own destruction.

A butcher booth’s true form resembles a fleshy dome with a massive mouth of sharp fangs and many tiny red eyes dotting the flesh above its upper lip. Ten long, articulated bony spines sprout from the top of this dome, with a translucent, jelly-like membrane spanning the distance between them and forming a larger transparent dome. The butcher booth can alter the consistency of this membrane, allowing its prey to move through it or turn it rigid to allow the butcher booth to fly.