Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Phantom Lord 11-28-04, 07:40 PM	I've been trying to come up with nifty monsters for the desert in my new homebrew world I've been working on, and this one just sprung to mind. Please review it and let me know what you think, any changes that need to be made, anyplace I can find one done by somebody else, et cetera. I'm looking forward to your comments. BTW, I haven't done all of the frilly text like full details on Frightful Presence, Trample, and Awesome Blow. But I will before too long. HULUD Colossal Vermin (Earth) Hit Dice: 50d8+700 (925 hp) Initiative: -1 (-1 Dex) Speed: 120 ft. (24 squares), burrow 120 ft. Armor Class: 35 (-1 Dex, +34 natural, -8 size), touch 1, flat-footed 35 Base Attack/Grapple: +42/+63 Attack: Slam +50 melee (3d8+36) Full Attack: Slam +50/+45/+40/+35 melee (3d8+36), Bite +30 melee (2d8+24) Space/Reach: 30 feet (600 feet long)/30 feet Special Attacks: Improved Grab, Swallow Whole, Frightful Presence (Will DC 28), Trample Special Qualities: Tremorsense 10 mi., Damage Reduction 10/+2, Earth immunity, Great Fortitude, Awesome Blow Saves: Fort 43, Ref 15, Will 18 Abilities: Str 52, Dex 8, Con 38, Int -, Wis 14, Cha 6 Environment: Desert, Underground Organization: Solitary Challenge Rating: 20 Treasure: None Alignment: Neutral Advancement: 51+ HD (Colossal) Hulud are giant sandworms that live in the deep desert. They are fiercely territorial toward other races, fighting any and all who they detect trespassing on their sands. While most are about thirty feet across at the mouth and about 600 feet in length, legend speaks of worms big enough to swallow small cities in the blink of an eye. Combat Hulud usually just break the surface of the sand; most of their body remains hidden below. A favored tactic is to come straight up below the prey and swallow as many as possible in the first round of combat. This tactic is not a complete surprise; any in danger of being swallowed as the hulud breaks the surface notice the sands shifting beneath their feet during the surprise round. Any who are still flat-footed when the sandworm breaks the surface can make a reflex save (DC 22) to jump out of the way. Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, the hulud must hit a Gargantuan or smaller opponent with its bite attack. If it gets a hold, it can try to swallow the foe. Swallow Whole (Ex): The hulud can try to swallow a grabbed opponent of Gargantuan or smaller size by making a successful grapple check. Once inside, the opponent takes 2d8+8 points of crushing damage plus 2d8+6 points of fire damage per round from the hulud’s digestive tract. A swallowed creature can cut its way out by dealing 50 points of damage to the digestive tract (AC 20) with a light weapon by succeeding at a grapple check (DC 25.) Once the creature exits, muscular action closes the hole; another swallowed opponent must cut its own way out. The hulud’s gullet can hold one Gargantuan, four Huge, sixteen Large, sixty-four Medium, or two-hundred fifty-six Small creatures. Frightful Presence (Ex): When the hulud breaks the surface of the sand Trample (Ex): 2d8+8 crushing damage Awesome Blow (Ex): As normal
The Quotation Box 11-28-04, 08:24 PM	Nice, I think It captures the feel of the monster pretty well. You might want to consider giving it a few more abilities, most CR 20 monsters have a bunch of nifty tricks (the tarrasque's regeneration, a balor's flaming body and death throes), because I don't think it's quite at CR 20. Some sort of fire resistance seems logical. It's aversion to water should be mentioned (but don't make it take damage from it, I can just see someone pulling out a decanter of endless water and, pardon my french, beating the :censored: out of it). Under treasure, I believe one could extract some spice essence from it, and the teeth can be used to make crysknives.
Phantom Lord 11-28-04, 09:55 PM	Hmm...what do you think of this? Fire Resist 20 (Ex): The hulud is immune to all natural fire, and resistant to the first 20 damage from any magical fire-based attack. Water Aversion (Ex): The hulud's dislike of water allows water-based attacks to demoralize it; after a successful water-based attack the worm must succeed at a will save (DC = damage dealt.) Failure means the hulud is shaken, failing by 35 or more frightens the worm, and failing by 70 or more panics it. Regeneration 5 (Ex): Non-elemental magic deals normal damage to a hulud (i.e. magic missile.) Physical and elemental attacks only deal subdual damage. If a hulud loses a body segment , it regrows the lost portion after 3d6 days of hibernation or 6d6 days of normal activity. ***Edit*** Looking at these abilities for a few minutes, while providing some much-needed beefing up for the awe-inspiring hulud, I think they also bump the CR up by a couple --- maybe to a 21 now.
catharz 11-29-04, 01:06 AM	Dragon magazine 325 has them as super-big purple worms without the tail sting (reduce CR by 1), and with 1 mile tremorsense and the ability to run while burrowing. It also has the Orangespice creation [Ex] ability. Anyway, I think you should go a bit farther with the water thing. They didn't just have an aversion to water, it injured them. I would treat it like holy water vs. undead. And it just seems wrong to classify them as "vermin" :twitch:
Flame_Drake 11-29-04, 01:48 AM	Dragon magazine 325 has them as super-big purple worms without the tail sting (reduce CR by 1), and with 1 mile tremorsense and the ability to run while burrowing. It also has the Orangespice creation [Ex] ability. Anyway, I think you should go a bit farther with the water thing. They didn't just have an aversion to water, it injured them. I would treat it like holy water vs. undead. And it just seems wrong to classify them as "vermin" :twitch: I agree, the worms are far from mindless creatures. I'd pin them as magical beasts or outsiders (native), since they are alien in mind set, but abberation does not feel right in any way.
grimwarden 11-29-04, 06:48 AM	Good start, but your Swallow whole entry give me a bad stomach :-) It is too weak in my eyes. Add Acid damage, and vary the amount of damage necessary to cut out according to the size. And if done by a really large one... and neither crushed, and neiter burned and neither dissolved by acid : a dagger wouldnt help anything, I would suggest to chop your way out with an axe :-)
Phantom Lord 11-29-04, 09:02 AM	Wrong to classify them as vermin? Okay, yeah, it seems to lessen the grandeur a bit. Outsiders? No. Far from mindless? The hulud that I always read about (granted I didn't read ALL of the Dune books) just seemed like mindless predatory worms. They burrowed about and ate things. Sure they protected the desert and its people. Sure the Fremen and their ancestors looked at Shai-Hulud as a being of great wisdom and an inspiration for all. But Shai-Hulud was their romanticized notion of a sandword; a deity of sorts. For cryin' out loud, one of these things could be defeated by a couple of maker hooks! Better yet, read the Butlerian Jihad, in which you will see that a small boy with a makeshift spear could defeat one of these. Sounds mindless to me. Oh, and with water aversion: (if you would notice) water is the only thing that does normal damage to these creatures. Not only that, but large amounts of water damage will cause it to run away. And what is so special about holy water vs. undead? It doesn't do any extra damage, and doesn't turn them AFAIK. As far as being too weak, bear in mind that this is a SMALL one. A CR 21 adult hulud. Shall I post stats for all ages? You wanna see stats for an ancient one? Whaddaya think, does 300 feet across at the mouth sound about right? And a mile long? Sure they exist, no I don't think I will actually have one in combat, so I don't think I will stat it out. DISCLAIMER: I was somewhat grumpy when typing this, so if I seem somewhat flippant or agitated, don't take it personally; I really don't mean to be. Thanks for the replies, especially the reference to dragon magazine, but I just don't think that the worms were intelligent.
Hochi-min trail 11-29-04, 09:28 AM	I like it. one of my planes of my homebrew world (in my sig) is based entirely on Dune. i haven't found the time yet to focus on this side of the plane because i was doing so many other things. if you don'y mind, i'd take it. for a side note, i've always thought of the monster as the Tarrasque of the land. i thought of using it much like the tarrasque, but only having the burrowing ability through sand and the aversion from water. it does seem that the tarrasque is much stornger than this beast, even though they are suppose to have the same CR. have you thought of giving it the tarrasque's spell deflection ability? P.s - the fremen did not take over it. actually, in the Butlerian Jyhad, you can see the trubly that one made to kill one of those monsters.
toomre 11-29-04, 10:45 AM	Nicely captured. But is it 3.x compliant to give a creature iterative attacks on a natural weapon? Also, it doesn't have any feats and a 50HD creature should have plenty. cleave, power attack, improved critical, weapon focus, improved natural weapon, and some epic feats as well for both of your natural attacks would go a long way.
AnujaShadow 11-29-04, 01:37 PM	Up the damage to cut out, and make it a slashing only. Also, up the damage, by a lot, if you get swallowed. If a Maker swallows you, your not gonna live. Up the DC on the reflex save to avoid being swallowed. Don't forget, in all of the Dune series, these things were IMMUNE to fire. Explosives had to be applied to each ring of the worm individually to truly kill it. Because of the nature of what Cold spells are (I view them as freezing the water in the air and harnessing that), make it Fire Immune, with vulnerability to cold, but still give it a fair amount of cold resist.
Edymnion 11-29-04, 02:10 PM	Vermin sounds like a perfect type to me. Yes, they really are mindless. They can't tell the differance between real food, and a machine, they are simply attracted to any rhymic sound, and they swallow it whole. Meat, metal, or a rock falling down a dune, all are eaten with equal gusto. And water does not just hurt a sandworm, it "kills" it. Spoilers for those that have not read all 6 of Frank's original DUNE books: In God Emperor of Dune, Leto has grown into a full fledged sandworm, and eventually falls to his death. He doesn't die from the fall, but because he fell into a river on Dune. When he hit the water, his body basically dissolved into millions of sand-trout. Each one holding a sleeping fragment of his own mind, forcing him into a state of unliving non-death. Neither alive, nor dead. So water does not just hurt sandworms, it "kills" them by making them splinter into countless sandtrout, each one with the chance to grow into a new sandworm. Essentially, the water triggers the reproductive cycle for the giant worms. The sandtrout then encapsulate the water, and move on when it's gone. Basically meaning that if you introduced sandtrout to any world, it would eventually be transformed into a new Dune (which Frank actually set up at the end of his last Dune book after the destruction of Arrakis).
The Quotation Box 11-29-04, 05:00 PM	Yes, but small amounts of water didn't kill the fully grown worms. Otherwise they would've died every time they ate a human. Spoilery Bits: Maybe seperate stats for the worms after Leto? They were said to be more intelligent because of the changes melding with his body made. Maybe even stats for Leto as a unique worm-like creature, and a "sandtrouted" template.
shmeg 11-29-04, 05:47 PM	Yes, but small amounts of water didn't kill the fully grown worms. Otherwise they would've died every time they ate a human. Unless of course thier internal structure is immune to water while their externals are not?
Edymnion 11-29-04, 06:02 PM	Leto could stand being wet at first, but found it to be more and more irratable as he became more sandworm-like. I'd say water acted like acid to them. A little bit just burns and is unpleasant, but isn't life threatening. Get dunked in a river of it, and bye bye birdy. You can just say that, to a sandworm, throwing a big thing of water on them would be equivolent to throwing a flask of acid on 'em. 1d6 points of damage, use full submersion rules for water the same way you would for acid.
catharz 11-29-04, 08:07 PM	Vermin sounds like a perfect type to me. Yes, they really are mindless. They can't tell the differance between real food, and a machine, they are simply attracted to any rhymic sound, and they swallow it whole. Meat, metal, or a rock falling down a dune, all are eaten with equal gusto. And water does not just hurt a sandworm, it "kills" it. Spoilers for those that have not read all 6 of Frank's original DUNE books: In God Emperor of Dune, Leto has grown into a full fledged sandworm, and eventually falls to his death. He doesn't die from the fall, but because he fell into a river on Dune. When he hit the water, his body basically dissolved into millions of sand-trout. Each one holding a sleeping fragment of his own mind, forcing him into a state of unliving non-death. Neither alive, nor dead. So water does not just hurt sandworms, it "kills" them by making them splinter into countless sandtrout, each one with the chance to grow into a new sandworm. Essentially, the water triggers the reproductive cycle for the giant worms. The sandtrout then encapsulate the water, and move on when it's gone. Basically meaning that if you introduced sandtrout to any world, it would eventually be transformed into a new Dune (which Frank actually set up at the end of his last Dune book after the destruction of Arrakis). OK, but Leto isn't a worm, and he isn't "killed." He is a pseudo-worm covered in a skin of "sand trout." When he falls in the water, the sand trout go crazy and detach. Normal worms aren't covered in sand trout. And, later in the cave (as he is insane with the combined pain of loosing his skin, being covered in water, and emotional loss), it says that he now has the skin of a sand worm. I'm not saying that immersion in water doesn't kill them, but to make that special freeman elixer the sandworms must "drown." Which indicates that while immersion in water injures them, they have so many HP they actually suffocate first. Then again, maybe in that case drown just means being killed. And as for vermin, I know that vermin traits describe them perfectly. It just feels silly calling something like that "vermin," which is defined as meaning "Various small animals or insects, such as rats or cockroaches, that are destructive, annoying, or injurious to health." Oh ya, and not to be too far off-topic or to be too much of a troll (or fan-boy), but IMO any Dune book not written (at least in part) by Frank Herbert is utter crap. Brian's books read more like Star Wars serials then Dune.
Phantom Lord 11-29-04, 11:34 PM	Hochi-min, I am flattered that you wish to 'borrow' it...go ahead, it's not like it was mine in the first place. Thanks for all of the input. I will take it all into consideration, overhaul the beast, and repost it in a couple days. I can't wait until my players experience my new homebrew world, and all of the terrible non-core dangers that lurk therein. :evillaugh
Wayward Son 11-30-04, 09:36 AM	Nicely done! My only suggestion would be to get more in-depth about the advancement. What you are presenting is a fully-mature sandworm in it's prime. Throughout the books, smaller specimens are found all over Arrakis and in greater abundance than this "old man of the desert". The Fremen even kill very young worms to produce the Water of Life. So, you could either expand the advancement entry to show a range of sizes (Perhaps from Large to Colossal), or write up an advancement chart similar to those for dragons, if you wanted to add abilities as they age. Personally, I'd go with the simpler advancement entry and scale up the abilities as you go. Now, how would we write up the Spice for 3.x? :D
The Quotation Box 11-30-04, 05:03 PM	The spice would provide a sort of divination ability, with a strength depending on one's sensitivity to it. In addition, as long as one consumes melange regularly one would age, oh, about three times slower.
Edymnion 11-30-04, 09:13 PM	OK, but Leto isn't a worm, and he isn't "killed." He is a pseudo-worm covered in a skin of "sand trout." When he falls in the water, the sand trout go crazy and detach. Normal worms aren't covered in sand trout. And, later in the cave (as he is insane with the combined pain of loosing his skin, being covered in water, and emotional loss), it says that he now has the skin of a sand worm.Um, no? He was pretty much fully sandworm by that point. His brain had dissolved into a number of nodes throughout his body (thats stated after his attempted assassination when he lost one of his "flipper" arms to a lasgun blast). He wasn't covered in sandtrout anymore. He was originally just wearing a sandtrout skin, but they merged with his body and turned him into a worm. He never lost his skin and lived to tell about it. That was the ultimate price that Paul was never willing to take, the permanent undeath of having your mind fractured into all of those sandworms. Neither living nor truely dead.Btw, thats the new spoiler block code. Click the Show button if you want to read it, without having to do the highlight thing.
DarkSoldier 11-30-04, 11:20 PM	Brian's books read more like Star Wars serials then Dune.Probably because his co-author, Kevin J. Anderson, wrote so many middling Star Wars books.
Edymnion 11-30-04, 11:56 PM	Of course, anyone thats read the prequal books should know exactly what the big final battle that Frank died on the cliffhanger of is going to be. In Machine Crusade, Frank goes to the effort to devote two entire paragraphs to Omnus firing off automated factories with copies of the evermind in them. Specifically mentioned that time wasn't important to machines, that the missle could fly through space for ten thousand years before landing, and it wouldn't matter. The books never mentioned this again. Its not in any of the other pre-prequals, it isn't mentioned in the prequals, and it of course isn't mentioned in the original Frank Herbert books. Combine that with the fact that Frank had the Honored Matyrs, the sex control experts that could warp people's minds to do their bidding through incredibly good sex. What is the only thing that could scare them enough to run for their lives, driving them into the DUNE universe? And what could possibly be so terrible it would take all of the greatest characters from the series to be able to face? (remember the Tilaxu had the cells of Paul, Leto, the whole gang, and they know how to restore the memory to the golahs now) The answer is obvious. The big enemy that Frank was leading up to, the one that will require the combined power of Paul, Leto, Duncan Idaho, Gurny, and all the rest, has got to be the return of Omnus and the thinking machines. Those factories were shot off into deep space for the express reason of having far flung portions of the evermind out there, where the humans couldn't get to them. They were programmed to set up base, then to send envoys back to Corrin so the evermind could update itself and bring the new colonies into the Synchronized Worlds. Well, apparently, after all of this time, that envoy, which never even heard of Holtzman engines, has finally come home. Only there is no more Omnus, and humanity has lost the ability to stand up against the thinking machines in any significant manner. I can't wait for Frank to write this climactic final battle. He said back in the beginning that he had his father's notes, and that he knew what was supposed to happen after the big Chapterhouse DUNE cliffhanger. However, he rightly decided that he wasn't a good enough writer yet to do the story justice. So, instead of writing it out in a half-assed way, he was going to do the backstory from Franks copious amounts of notes until he thought he had a solid enough grip on the world to do his father's final vision justice.
AnujaShadow 12-02-04, 02:23 AM	Since I don't know how to do the spoiler block code, i'll do the text that is the color of the background... Edymnion, Um, no? He was pretty much fully sandworm by that point. His brain had dissolved into a number of nodes throughout his body (thats stated after his attempted assassination when he lost one of his "flipper" arms to a lasgun blast). He wasn't covered in sandtrout anymore. He was originally just wearing a sandtrout skin, but they merged with his body and turned him into a worm. That's not true. If you go through and read God Emperor again, the reason that Leto dies when he falls in the river is that he is still covered in Sandtrout, each one containing a bit of his intelligence, and when he falls in the water, they go crazy and leave his body to try and encapsulate all the water. If he was fully sandworm and fell in the river, he would have died and there would be no more sandworms. and the Sandtrout skin elongated him and started forming into a wormshape, simply because that is their instinctual thing to do.