Writhing Mass

Description:

A writhing mass is a formless pile of rotting guts, organs, eyes and mouths that slithers and tumbles over the ground, entangling and devouring humanoid or animal prey, eating their flesh and muscle, while absorbing their offal into the ever growing mass. How a writhing mass comes to be is unclear - some speculate they are created by necromancers - but a writhing mass is constantly rotting, and will not last long if it does not consume and incorporate fresh victims.




By default a writhing mass fills 4 contiguous hexes and can be in any configuration; a line 4 hexes long; a blob of 4 connected hexes, or any other form. Writhing mass can also be larger or smaller; each hex of a writhing mass has 4 Health, so a writhing mass with 40 Health would take up 10 hexes, for example. Being larger or small does not alter any of their stats or abilities aside from their Health.

Special:

The stench from a writhing mass is unbearable. The stench can be detected within 25 hexes. Within 10 hexes of the creature, any humanoid with a sense of smell or taste will suffer a penalty of -1 on all Challenges.

A writhing mass is literally covered in eyes and mouths. It cannot be surprised unless it is in complete darkness, and it has an effectively unlimited number of bite attacks - allowing it to attack each individual adjacent to it with a Bite every turn.

A writhing mass prefers to use its Constrict Attack to Entangle victims. As with all Constrict attacks, the first attack must be an attempt to Entangle using the Effect Attack, after which, each turn that the victim does not escape, the writhing mass can roll a 21 Challenge against a helpless target to apply either Fast or Strong Constrict damage. Additionally, writhing mass it can also perform a Bite attack against a helpless target against anything it has entangled.