Image by Wayne Reynolds, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Monster Manual II Art Gallery here
[When I ran Age of Worms, I made a soundtrack for it with appropriate cues for specific combats and characters. The battle with the ulgurstasta at the climax of âThe Championâs Beltâ got âThe Krakenâ from Pirates of the Caribbean. ]
Ulgurstasta
This house sized horror resembles nothing so much as an immense maggot, with a cluster of beady eyes overlooking a voracious, fanged maw. It has dozens of small legs lining its entire body, each ending in a hook, and black tendrils fire from pores in its body and whip about it.
The ulgurstasta is a creation of Kyuss, the Worm that Walks. Their original intent was to serve as barely sentient siege engines, but they gained the capacity for intelligence as a side effect of their creation. Now, the ulgurstastas are as much generals as they are weapons, and they may command legions of undead armies in service of the Wormgod. Ulgurstastas have never been common, and they typically give each other a wide berth, the better to spread and avoid being hunted down all at once by the enemies of undeath and evil. They happily work with other worshippers of Kyuss, and some cults use them to âdeliverâ sacrifices to Kyuss by feeding them to the ravenous beast.
An ulgurstasta may be a genius, but they still delight in direct combat when the opportunity arises. Their jaws sit on an eversible pharynx, allowing them to extend far beyond its body to grab a victim and devour them. The acid that drips from its maw and fills its stomach is charged with negative energy, causing it to eat away at the life force of its victims as easily as it consumes their flesh. Opponents drained of life animate as skeletons in the blink of an eye. The ulgurstasta can carry these minions in a compartment in its guts that protects them from its acid and allows them to ride inside it for a horrible surprise attack.
Creating an Ulgurstasta
The secrets to create an ulgurstasta are found in The Apostolic Scrolls, the holy book of Kyussâ grim religion. To form an ulgurstasta, the flesh from a hundred humanoid corpses must be liquefied and poured into a mass grave at least 20 feet square in desecrated or unhallowed ground. Then, twelve intelligent undead creatures must enter the grave and the creator must cast a create greater undead spell. This effectively kills the twelve lesser undead, whose minds combine into the gestalt intelligence of the ulgurstasta.
gummygunk
yousharknotpass
izzy806
tangentwithtanner
