New Monster - Telluric Slink

We'll be reskinning and modifying the Carrion Crawler to create this monster. The base stats are in the 5e Monster Manual page 37.

Telluric Slinks were created in one of the many laboratories within Ghul's Labyrinth below Ptolus. They are one of a vast number of aberrations born into the Squirming Horde and unleashed against the forces of good during the Ghul War.

Nearly 9' long and weighing close to 600lbs., the Slink is covered in a thick mass of long black hair. Its bulbous head has two slavering mouths filled with jagged teeth. Jutting out of where its eyes would be are two nest-like bundles of fine metal wires.

An apt description of the creature would be "an enormous hairy slug made of muscle, electricity, and evil".

Below are the changes to the Carrion Crawler. All other stats remain as written.

Increase the Armor Class to 14

Replace the climb speed with a swim speed of 10'

Replace Darkvision with Blindsense, same range.

Remove Keen Smell, Spider Climb and all Carrion Crawler attacks.

Add Immunity to electricity.

Modify the remainder as follows:

Multiattack. The Telluric Slink makes two attacks. Two bites against the same target or one bite and one sweeping slam against separate targets.

Sweeping Slam. Melee weapon attack: +4 to hit, reach 5' one or more creatures directly to either the left or right of the Telluric Slink. Hit: 2d6+2 bludgeoning damage and the target must make a DC13 Dexterity saving throw or become prone.

Bite. Melee weapon attack: +4 to hit, reach 5' one creature. Hit: 1d6+2 piecing damage.

Telluric Burst. All creatures within 10' of the Telluric Slink must make a DC13 Dexterity saving throw or take 3d6 electric damage. Recharge 5-6.

Monster Ecology: From Rot Grub to Carrion Crawler

One of the most feared creatures for a party of adventurers to encounter by surprise is the infamous Carrion Crawler. This tentacled caterpillar shaped beast stalks through dungeons in search of corpses to eat. Reaching as much as 9' in length at maturity, the crawler is nothing to trifle with.

When Crawlers are ready to reproduce they gather in groups, known as horrors, of up to 6 members, to seek out living hosts to paralyze and into which they lay clutches of hundreds of eggs. Carrion Crawlers are hermaphroditic both fertilizing and laying eggs. Once all members of the horror have deposited eggs into separate hosts they go their own ways and exhibit no parental care of the resulting offspring.

The warmth of the helpless victim triggers the eggs to begin hatching almost immediately to begin devouring the host. These tiny ravenous larva are what we know as Rot Grubs. The larva are highly competitive, racing to eat their path to vital organs and fighting each other to the death for dining rights.

What begins as hundreds of fingernail sized hatchlings dwindles as they consume the living host and each other. As their numbers drop into the dozens the grubs have grown to finger length and nearly twice the girth.

Competition continues over what remains of their now long dead host. Remaining grubs strike out in small groups seeking fresh carrion or warm living bodies to eat.

Upon reaching roughly the size of a human forearm the individual grubs find shelter to begin the next stage in their development. Within a chrysalis the grub transforms into a miniature version of their eventual adult form, the Carrion Crawler.

In their new form they have become dangerous hunters far more mobile and armed with paralytic venom capable of stopping even the largest of prey.

Because of the dangerous nature of both the Rot Grub and the Carrion Crawler, neither form has a natural predator other than those of their own kind.

Rumor is that deep in the Under-realm enterprising tribes of humanoids have trained crawlers as war mounts, but no evidence of this is known. Such a practice seems too hazardous to be worth the required effort.

Among deep tribes tales of enormous Carrion Crawlers persist, though it is unlikely they exist at those sizes.