Theme Finale: Chemnosit, the Monarch Worm
Chaotic Evil Colossal Magical Beast
Inner Sea Bestiary, pg. 47
Welcome to the end of Worm Week, and weâre ending on a real strong note. Meet one of the children of Rovagug, God of Destruction, and the Tarrasqueâs⊠Older? Younger??? Itâs kind of unclear⊠But the Sibling of Unknown Age to the big, bad Tarrasque. Much like the Tarrasque, Chemnosit has a laundry list of immunities that prevents any battle with it from ending too quickly and many abilities unique to the Spawn of Rovagug, such as Regeneration thatâs impossible to overcome through any means. This is a worm with some severe staying power.
On the defensive side, all of the Spawn of Rovagug are similar to the Great Old Onesâtrue defeat is impossible, but one can drive them off and keep them from accomplishing their goals, or even knock them out for an extended period of time. Theyâre impervious to methods that would damage them in ways they canât recover from, such as ability damage and drain, petrification, and polymorphing. Chemnosit in particular has a simple trick to dissuade foes from attacking it too much in the form of its Spines. Anyone striking it with an unarmed, natural, melee, or melee touch attack takes 2d8+10 damage from the arm-length, obsidian spines that jut from every inch of the Monarch Wormâs flesh.
On the offensive side, Spawn of Rovagug all possess a 300-foot Frightful Presence to inspire supernatural fear in any being that witnesses them attacking or charging. And speaking of charging, Spawn also possess the Unstoppable Force ability, meaning they can always charge even when obstructed or restrained and get a titanic +20 bonus to their Strength score when overrunning a target or damaging an object by charging into it. Unstoppable Force also means that the Spawnâs natural attacks overcome hardness and all form of damage reduction. Chemnositâs own lashing mouth-tendrils deal 2d10+13 damage each, and it can strike with six of them each round! Each tendrils threatens to grapple anyone they touch, and any poor fool grappled in this way has a chance to be yanked into the Monarch Wormâs gullet, where they take 2d10+13 damage each round, plus an additional 1d4 Str damage from the close proximity to its eye.
That eye, that awful, awful glow in Chemnositâs maw, is perhaps the most horrible means of offense it has. It allows the Monarch Worm to use Disintegrate at will, which should make anyone reading this immediately seize up. If it doesnât, perhaps this will: Chemnositâs effective caster level is high enough to let its Disintegrate deal 40d6 damage if it connects and the victim fails their saving throw. On success the ray only manages to deal 5d6 damage, but Chemnosit can just try again next round. Disintegrate is a cantrip for this worm! But obliterating the scenery isnât all that eye can do, and when you see its true power, youâll wish it was.
Before we get to that, though, have an interesting fact: Chemnosit is most famous among all the Spawn of Rovagug by how quiet it is. Aside from the earth-shattering arrival it makes each time it visits the surface world and the chaos it causes just by moving around, Chemnosit operates in utter silence. It doesnât roar, scream, groan, or make any sort of vocalization at all. It also doesnât really move so much unless it needs to, preferring to simply swivel about as it bathes a 120-foot cone in its Hungry Gaze. Anyone meeting Chemnositâs Hungry Gaze instantly takes 3d6 nonlethal damage as theyâre suddenly overcome with maddening hunger and must make a Fortitude saving throw or be struck with fatigue, which graduates to exhaustion if they fail again, which turns to a nigh-permanent stagger if they fail a third time. In addition, those who fail against the fatigue must make a second save, a Will save this time, or be overwhelmed by a compulsion to eat. The food Chemnosit makes them crave? Fresh, living flesh of oneâs own kind⊠Including oneâs own flesh, if they canât sink their teeth into an ally fast enough.
When Chemnosit arrives, it typically destroys just enough scenery to attract the attention of an army or militia. Then, when a whole enemy force stands against it, the Monarch Worm unveils the power of its eye⊠And then just watches. It sits in utter silence, distressingly still, simply basking in the sight of an entire enemy force turning on one another in maddening hunger, ripping each other apart to sate the supernatural, hideous hunger thatâs filled them. Notably, the Hungry Gaze doesnât turn someone into a mindless monster or fill them with rage; Itâs very possible that victims will be pleading with their allies for assistance or apologizing profusely even as they cut hunks of flesh from friends and family. Imagine only being able to watch in horror as your body went against every instinct it had to cut pieces of itself away and force those chunks into your mouth. Itâs painful in every way you can imagine.
All the while, Chemnosit sits on the horizon, watching until only a handful of fighters are left. Only then does it enter combat itself, devouring the dead in droves and crushing the âvictorsâ of the profane âtournamentâ it put into place. The destructive power of the Tarrasque can lay an entire country low, but the destruction Chemnosit wreaks is a grotesque, personal sort of pain and terror that very few other monsters can replicate. It doesnât just crush a house, noâit rips the roof off, then forces the family inside to kill and consume each other as it quietly watches. And then it crushes the house.
You can read more about it here.
