Gulguthydra - OG Myth-Weavers

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Gulguthydra

   
Gulguthydra

Gulguthydra

A rare hybrid monstrosity long believed extinct, much to the relief of even the most stalwart of monster hunters, the gulguthydra was recently spotted again in the western reaches of Daven, the ghastly result of breeding between a hydra and an otyugh -- first named in elven bestiaries as Gulogut, or "filth-hungerer."

Unlike true hydras, these creatures will readily devour plant life, although they do prefer softer meats, ideally bloated and rotten. A gulguthydra is six thousand pounds of muscle and hunger, covered with a layer of slime nearly a foot thick and a pair of grasping tentacles similar to those of its otyugh parent on its flanks. Also unlike true hydras, their ability to regenerate heads is significantly more limited, thankfully.

Gulguthydras are not known for subtlety. They will move through a forested area, snapping down bushes and saplings with their six heads, whilst snatching at mobile prey with their tentacles. When dealing with prey that can fight back, a gulguthydra will typically seek to crush it beneath them, smothering it in putrescence, or plucking a tree from the earth with its tentacles and using it as an improvised club.

Gulguthydra
Huge monstrosity, unaligned

Armor Class 16 (natural armor)
Hit Points 206 (18d12 + 90)
Speed 30 ft., swim 30 ft.

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
20 (+5) 12 (+1) 20 (+5) 6 (-2) 13 (+1) 7 (-2)


Saving Throws
Con +9
Skills Perception +5
Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 15
Languages
Challenge 10 (5,900 XP)

Special Traits

Hold Breath: The gulguthydra can hold its breath for 1 hour.
Multiple Heads: The gulguthydra has six heads. While it has more than one head, the gulguthydra has advantage on saving throws against being blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, stunned, and knocked unconscious. Whenever the gulguthydra takes 30 or more damage in a single turn, one of its heads dies. If all its heads die, the gulguthydra dies. At the end of its turn, it grows one heads for each of its heads that died since its last turn, unless it has taken fire damage since its last turn. The gulguthydra regains 15 hit points for each head regrown in this way.
Limited Telepathy: The gulguthydra can magically transmit simple messages and images to any creature within 120 feet of it that can understand a language. This form of telepathy doesn’t allow the receiving creature to telepathically respond.
Vile Stench: Any creature that starts its turn within 50 feet of the gulguthydra must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or be poisoned until the start of its next turn. On a successful saving throw, the creature is immune to the gulguthydra ’s Vile Stench for 24 hours.

Actions

Multiattack: The gulguthydra either makes as many bite attacks as it has heads, or it makes two tentacle attacks; it cannot mix bite and tentacle attacks.
Bite: Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (1d10 + 5) piercing damage.
Tentacle: Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (3d8 + 3) bludgeoning damage plus 5 (1d10) piercing damage. If the target is Medium or smaller, it is grappled (escape DC 17) and restrained until the grapple ends. The gulguthydra has two tentacles, each of which can grapple one target.
Tentacle Slam: The gulguthydra slams creatures grappled by it into each other or a solid surface. Each creature must succeed on a DC 17 Constitution saving throw or take 27 (4d10 + 5) bludgeoning damage and be stunned until the end of the gulguthydra ’s next turn. On a successful save, the target takes half the bludgeoning damage and isn’t stunned.

Looks good to me. A worthy reworking of Toril's original. Haven't a clue as to how to rename it to fit in better with WoF...I'll brush up on some of my more obscure sources, see if something leaps out at me.

Reach grapple, I like it. Do you think you can attack the tentacle grabbing you or does it pretty much mean you are stuck 10 ft away and better have a ranged weapon. I think raw would lean towards the latter.
Overall seems fairly balanced.

I agree that RAW suggests you're 10ft away...but the tentacle isn't darting around once it grabs you, it's in your space then. So logically, there should be a way to attack it and maybe force it to drop you. Akin to being swallowed, if you will, except allies can help too.

For example, a tentacle that is grappling someone may be attacked as a separate target from the gulguthydra itself. Should the tentacle take 25 or more damage from a single attack, the gulguthydra must make a DC 20 Constitution saving throw or stop grappling with that tentacle. {possible caveat} Damage inflicted against a tentacle does not count towards killing a head.

How's that sound to be starting with?

EDIT: I'm an idiot. The World of Farland name for this creature may as well just be "Gulogut". It's already in the blurb for it and is just reminiscent enough of the original to be acceptable. We can always change its origin from a non-descript elven tongue to Mordularian. I'm sure the drow of this reality would love this monster.

I am not sure I would bother putting it in the monster description as it might get unwieldy. But I could see DMs perhaps using the disarm from DMG to break the grapple or such.

Disarm: Use a weapon attack to attempt it. Make an attack roll contested by target's Strength (athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. Attacker wins= drop item. Attacker has disadvantage against items held with two hands. Target has disadvantage if smaller than the creature and advantage if larger.

Yeah, RAW you can't attack a tentacle. You can only escape a grapple. The rest is up to individual DMs.

Whoevr, thanks for looking it over for balance.

Chaos, I like the drow origin of the name. It works flavor-wise and doesn't require me to alter the elven lexicon. Let's go with that.





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