Shale Charger

Family: Shale

Large elemental, unaligned

Armor Class 18 (natural armor), 21 while Curled Up
Hit Points 104 (11d10 + 44)
Speed 40 ft., burrow 30 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
18 (+4) 16 (+3) 19 (+4) 3 (-4) 14 (+2) 9 (-1)

Skills Stealth +6
Damage Resistances piercing and slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren’t adamantine
Senses darkvision 60 ft., tremorsense 60 ft., passive Perception 12
Languages
Challenge 6 (2,300 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +3

SPECIAL TRAITS

  • Stone Camouflage. The charger has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide in rocky terrain.
  • Rock Stride. The charger ignores difficult terrain in caves and rocky areas.
  • Tunneler. The charger can burrow through solid rock at half its burrow speed and leaves a 5-footdiameter tunnel in its wake.

ACTIONS

  • Multiattack. The charger makes two attacks with its horn.
  • Horn. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d10 + 4) piercing damage.
  • Rock. Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, range 60/120 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d10 + 4) bludgeoning damage.
  • Tunneling Charge. The charger moves up to twice its speed in a straight line. The charger’s movement can be any combination of moving on land and burrowing, and it can move through the spaces of Large and smaller creatures in its path. When the charger moves through the space of a Large or smaller creature, the creature must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity or Strength saving throw (the creature’s choice) or take 17 (5d6) bludgeoning damage and be forced prone. A creature that fails the saving throw by 5 or more is pushed in a straight line along the charger’s path before taking damage and being forced prone. If a creature succeeds on a Strength saving throw against this action, the charger’s action ends.
  • Spew Shale (Recharge 5-6). The charger spews forth a frothy mix of scree and mud in a 20-foot cone. Creatures in that area must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 17 (5d6) piercing damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

REACTIONS

  • Curl Up. When the charger would be hit by an attack made by a creature it can see, the charger curls up, adding 3 to its AC, including against the triggering attack. While curled up, the charger can attack but can’t move. It can use an action to uncurl.

ABOUT

Shale chargers are an extraordinarily large subspecies of shale spitter. Unlike their more sedentary cousins, shale chargers take a far more active role in their pack’s ever-expanding search for new mineral deposits. Rushing forth on its cascading rows of legs and slamming its reinforced chitinous plating into anything in its path, the shale charger silently demands anyone opposing it to stand aside-and it doesn’t ask twice.

Chargers can burrow at great speed, rapidly digging through even solid rock and opening up new tunnels for their smaller comrades to explore. Whereas the more common shale spitter might embed itself in an area and spend months or even years scouring a single cavern for minerals, a shale charger essentially feeds as it goes. Its simple digestive system sorts soil and sand from its nutrient-rich content as quickly as it can churn through the earth.

Shale chargers grow hard, jagged horns atop their skulls, which aid them in both fighting as well as digging. When two shale chargers meet, the two are prone to joust for days on end, heedless of any other creatures around them. It’s not uncommon for the winner of such jousts to achieve victory by snapping off the horn of its opponent. While its broken horn regrows over a course of months, a defeated shale charger is considerably more subdued, even skittish. Wounded shale chargers offer more than enough proof that these animals can feel emotions such as pride as well as humiliation.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Battlezoo Bestiary (5E) © 2022, Skyscraper Studios, Inc.; Authors: William Fischer, Stephen Glicker, Paul Hughes, Patrick Renie, Sen.H.H.S., and Mark Seifter.

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