Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Earth Serpent

It was pointed out to me by Rovewin of Athas.org, that earth serpents are listed in the encounter tables in "Terrors Beyond Tyr." However, they are not presented in any of the books. So, in an effort to rectify the situation, I have created n Earth Serpent below.
Based upon where the creature is placed in the encounter tables, I have made this monster very powerful.
"You can sleep, safe and sound. Knowing I am around." - A famous serpent.



Stats after the jump.


Earth Serpent
Climate/Terrain: Rocky Badlands, Forest, Any Underground
Frequency: Very Rare
Organization: Solitary
Activity Cycle: Any
Diet: Carnivore
Intelligence: Low (5-7)
Treasure: R
Alignment: Neutral
No. Appearing: 1-2
Armor Class: 3
Movement: 18, Br 9
Hit Dice: 12
Thac0: 8
No. of Attacks: 2
Damage/Attacks: 3-30 (bite)/ 2-20 (tail lash)
Special Attack: Poison
Special Defense: Camouflage
Magic Resistance: Nil
Size: H (48 - 52' long)
Morale: Champion (16)
XP Value: 14,000

Psionic Summary
Level: 10
Dis/Sci/Dev: 4/5/15
Attack/Defense: All
Score: 16
PSPs: 133
Clairsentience: Clairvoyance, Combat Mind, Danger Sense, Hear Light,
Psychokinetic: Telekinesis, Animate Shadow, Control Body, Inertial Barrier
Psychometabolic: Complete Healing, Energy Containment, Biofeedback, Cause Decay, Chameleon Power, Heightened Senses
Telepathy: Mindlink, Contact, Ego Whip, Id Insinuation, Mind Thrust

Earth Serpent
Earth serpents are huge frilled snakes. Their bodies are covered with brown and green iron-like scales.

Combat
An Earth Serpent’s coloration serves as excellent camouflage when in the forest or rocky badlands. When an earth serpent attacks from hiding, its opponents suffer a -4 penalty to their surprise rolls. Although they can move well over open ground, earth serpents prefer to move unseen and attack from concealment. They can easily burrow through loose earth at a rate of 9, but are unable to burrow through solid rock. They have keen infravision with a range of 120 feet and can sense heat and vibration from prey as far away as 120 feet, or 30 feet through solid rock.
An earth serpent attacks by biting with its sword-like fangs and by slapping with its huge tail. The fangs carry a deadly venom. When bitten, a creature must make a successful saving throw vs. poison or immediately become paralyzed. During the next round, the victim’s blood thickens and starts to turn into a mud-like substance. The victim's blood vessels turn dark red brown and can be easily seen through the skin. In addition, the victim suffers 1d10 points of damage each round until death occurs or the venom is neutralized. A neutralize poison spell or similar magic removes the paralysis, stops further damage, and restores the victim’s blood color, but does not cure any damage already received. A remove paralysis spell frees the victim from the paralysis but does not halt the damage or restore the victim’s blood color.
Even if the saving throw vs. poison is successful, the victim still feels sluggish and sick, suffering a -2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity for 4d6 rounds. Further bites extend the duration of the ability score loss but do not cause the scores to drop lower.

Habitat/Society
Earth Serpents are equally at home in the depths of the earth, in caverns, or surrounded by the earth in rocky badlands. They have no social organization, not even family ties, but a few of them might live together if mating.
Earth Serpents like gathering metallic items and gems to impress their mates and lure travelers to their doom.

Ecology
Earth Serpents hunt all manner of prey. It is not uncommon for earth serpents to move between the rocky badlands, underground caverns, and forests, they go where their prey waits.
Once every five years or so, couples of earth serpents pair up to mate. Each coupling lasts about a month. Afterward, the pregnant females go forth on their own and seek some isolated locale in which to lay their eggs. Usually, the female will lay 2d10 eggs deep underground. Six months afterward, the eggs hatch, each young being about 5 feet long. The young earth serpents have 3 Hit Dice; their tail slap does no damage and their bite only does 1hp of damage, but their venom is fully potent. The young mature in about nine years, gain 1 Hit Die per year until fully mature.
An intact skin from an adult earth serpent can fetch as much as 800 ceramic pieces on the open market. The pelt of a young earth serpent is worth about 5 ceramic pieces.
An earth serpent’s venom quickly loses its potency if it is extracted from the creature. If the poison sacs are carefully removed, however, the venom is useful as an ingredient for a Oil of Earth Elemental Invulnerability.

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