Shoggoth, Elder

Family: Shoggoth

Gargantuan aberration, chaotic neutral

Armor Class 18 (natural armor)
Hit Points 725 (25d20 + 225)
Speed 50 ft., climb 30 ft., swim 50 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
26 (+8)	14 (+2)	28 (+9)	12 (+1)	16 (+3)	13 (+1)

Skills Perception +10
Damage Resistances acid, fire, lightning; bludgeoning, piercing
Damage Immunities cold, thunder, slashing
Condition Immunities blinded, deafened, prone, stunned, unconscious
Senses true seeing 120 ft., tremorsense 60 ft., passive Perception 19
Languages Aklo
Challenge 23 (50,000 XP)

Special Traits

• Amorphous. An elder shoggoth can move through a space as small as 1 foot wide. It must spend 1 extra foot of movement for every foot it moves through a space smaller than itself, but it isn�t subject to any other penalties for squeezing.
• Anaerobic. An elder shoggoth doesn�t need oxygen to live. It can exist with equal comfort at the bottom of the ocean or in the vacuum of outer space.
• Chilling Paralysis. Each time a non-epic creature strikes an elder shoggoth while within 10 feet of, or otherwise touches the elder shoggoth, that creature is paralyzed until the end of its next turn. Creatures immune to cold are not affected by this trait and creatures resistant to cold may make a DC 18 Constitution saving throw to avoid the paralysis.
• Gravitic Agnosticism. An elder shoggoth can use its climb speed to move in any direction, including straight up or sideways through empty air, mounting its heaving bulk upon the unseen angles between existence. It is unaffected by effects that reverse, increase, or otherwise alter the normal effects of gravity.
• Hideous Piping. The fluting noises made by a s mythic hoggoth are otherworldly and mind-shattering. A creature that can hear this cacophony at the start of its turn and is within 120 feet of an elder shoggoth must succeed on a DC 18 Wisdom saving throw or be confused (as the spell confusion) for 1d4 rounds. Creatures that roll a natural 20 on this saving throw become immune to the Hideous Piping for 24 hours. Otherwise, characters who meet the conditions must repeat the saving throw every round.
• Insidious Regeneration. An elder shoggoth has regeneration 10. It regains 10 hit points at the start of its turn. No form of attack can suppress an elder shoggoth�s regeneration� it regenerates even if disintegrated or similar instantaneous death effect. If the elder shoggoth fails a save against an effect that would kill it instantly, it rises from death 1 hour later with 1 hit point if no further damage is inflicted upon its remains. The only way to permanently destroy an elder shoggoth is to reduce it to 0 hit points or less and then target it with a wish (or similarly powerful spell).
• Keen Senses. An elder shoggoth has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing or smell.
• Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If an elder shoggoth fails a saving throw, he can choose to succeed instead.
• Magic Weapons. An elder shoggoth�s weapon attacks are magical.
• Rolling Charge. If the elder shoggoth moves at least 20 feet straight toward a creature and hits it with a slam attack on the same turn, that creature must succeed on a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone. If the creature is knocked prone, the elder shoggoth immediately moves into the creature�s space as a bonus action and crushes the creature beneath its bulk. The crushed creature can�t breathe, is restrained, and takes 11 (2d10) bludgeoning damage at the start of each of the shoggoth�s turns. A crushed creature remains in its space and does not move with the shoggoth. A crushed creature can escape by using an action and making a successful DC 20 Strength check. On a success, the creature crawls into an empty space within 5 feet of the elder shoggoth.
• Utter Absorption. The body of a creature that dies while grappled by an elder shoggoth is completely absorbed into the elder shoggoth�s mass. No portion of it remains to be used in raise dead, reincarnate, and comparable spells that require touching the dead person�s body.

Actions

• Multiattack. The shoggoth makes 1d6 + 1 slam attacks. Reroll the number of attacks at the start of each of the elder shoggoth�s turns.
• Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +15 to hit, reach 40 ft., one target. Hit: 30 (4d10 + 8) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 19) and restrained. The elder shoggoth can grapple any number of creatures simultaneously, and this has no effect on its number of attacks.
• Unspeakable Propagation (1/Day). An elder shoggoth can give birth to a ravenous baby shoggoth (treat as a nonmythic shoggoth with disadvantage on d20 rolls for the next year). The baby shoggoth follows its sire�s commands and defends it to the best of its ability. Fortunately, an elder shoggoth cannot abide its own offspring for very long, and most shoggoth-spawn are quickly consumed by their sire once the progenitor shoggoth is no longer threatened. However, a few lucky ones are able to escape their parent�s insatiable hunger and within a year grow to terrible maturity losing their youth trait (disadvantage on d20 rolls).

Reactions

• Reactive Strike. Whenever an elder shoggoth takes damage from a creature within 40 feet, it can make an attack against that creature after the attack is resolved. These attacks do not count against its normal allotment of reactions.
• Tekeli-li! When a creature is confused by its hideous piping the shoggoth may expend one of its legendary resistance uses to inflict 3d6 Wisdom damage. If a creature is reduced to 0 Wisdom it falls into a coma and becomes permanently insane � even after the ability damage is healed (aka, the character becomes an NPC from this point forward).

About

Although even lunatics and doom-saying prophets desperately claim the monstrous shoggoth is nothing more than a druginduced vision or thankfully unreal nightmare, the truth is altogether more dire. The shoggoths exist, although they keep to the deepest of ocean trenches or the most remote of forgotten caverns and ruins, emerging only rarely to spread madness and destruction in their slime-caked wakes.

First and Eldest. The first shoggoths were created in eons past, long before the first gods turned their attentions to the Material Plane. Some hold that the aboleths engineered them, while certain strange texts hint of a race even older that engineered the first shoggoths as slaves. Eventually, these dread beasts developed enough intelligence to rebel against their creators, and now they lurk, patient but potent, in the lightless deep, and those first shoggoths to awaken retreated into the darkest pits below the world and the most awful corners of the universe to brood in sinister shadow. Some attract cults to worship them, though they rarely pay much attention to the pleas of their supplicants, focusing instead on birthing new abominations and aberrations into the world.

Most simply devour any who dare come near, absorbing their physical substance and psychic essence to slake their eternal hunger.