Tentacle Worm

Woodcut after Conrad Gessner showing a serpent. — Serpent, after Conrad Gessner, Wellcome Collection / Wikimedia Commons.

Armor Class: 7 [12]
Hit Dice: 3
Attacks: Special attack (1d6)
Special: paralysis
Move: 12
HDE/XP: 4/120

Description

Tentacle worms appear to be giant worms of some sort, averaging 6 to 8 feet long. Their heads are pasty white or grey, but their bodies vary from livid pink or purple to deep green in color. Their tentacles splay out from around the creature's "neck." Some sages believe they are the larval form of some other monster, but this has never been proven.

A tentacle worm can attack as many as three adjacent opponents. Those hit must make a saving throw or be paralyzed 2d4 turns. No matter how many of a tentacle worm's attacks hit an opponent in a given round, only one saving throw is required in each such round.

If all opponents of a tentacle worm are paralyzed, it will begin to feed upon the victims, doing 1 point of damage every 1d8 rounds until the victim is dead; if other paralyzed victims are still alive, the worm is 50% likely to move on immediately to another still-living victim. Otherwise, it continues to eat the corpse of the slain victim for 1d4 turns.

Source note: This creature is converted from Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, 4th Edition Release 142, © 2006–2025 Chris Gonnerman. The Basic Fantasy textual material is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International; this page adapts that creature to White Box.