King of Worms CR 20
The towering humanoid figure looks down at you, its expression hidden behind a bone white mask as worms slither in and out of its flesh.
NE Gargantuan aberration
Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., blindsense (life) 15 ft.; Perception +34
Aura squirming (60 ft, DC 27)
DEFENSE HP 395 RP 6
EAC 34; KAC 35
Fort +17; Ref +17; Will +24
OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft., burrow 15 ft.
Melee lash +28 (13d6+26 Bl, ruinous touch)
Multiattack 4 slams +28 (5d8+20 Bl)
Ranged gaze +30 (4d12+20 A & C, reaving glance)
Space 20 ft.; Reach 20 ft.
Offensive Abilities worm call
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 20th)
1/day- mass inflict pain (DC 23), plane shift, shadow walk, regenerate
3/day- waves of fatigue (DC 23), crush skull (DC 23), resistant aegis
At will- enervation (DC 23), fear 4 (DC 23)
STATISTICS
Str +6; Dex +2; Con +2; Int +12; Wis +9; Cha +0
Skills Culture +39, Intimidate +34, Mysticism +39
Languages Aklo, Abyssal
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Reaving Glance (Su)
The gaze of the King of Worms carries its disdain and disgust for the works and lives of mortals. A creature struck by its gaze attack must make a DC 27 Will save. On a failure, they take 2d4 Constitution damage and cannot regain hitpoints for 1d4 rounds.
Ruinous Touch (Su)
The touch of the King of Worms is a ruinous thing. Food touched by the King of Worms is instantly rotted and filled with maggots, while inanimate plants are blighted and infected by molds and diseases. When the King of Worms strikes a creature with a lash attack, they must make a DC 27 Fortitude save. On a failure, all damage dealt by the attack is also dealt to every piece of equipment the creature is wearing. When the King of Worms makes an attack against an item or makes a sunder maneuver, it deals double damage.
Squirming Aura (Su)
Those who approach the King of Worms too closely feel ephemeral worms squirm across their skin and through their bodies. A creature within 60 ft. of the King of Worms must make a DC 27 Will save or become nauseated. A creature within this aura must make this save again at the beginning of every turn, giving them the chance to free themselves from the condition or fall victim to it if they’d already saved. A creature that leaves this aura while affected remains nauseated for one round before the effect wears off. The King of Worms cannot disable this aura. This is a mind-altering effect.
Worm Call (Sp)
The King of Worms can call forth the worms that infest its body. By spending one Resolve Point and a move action, the King of Worms may summon 1d2 ravager worms anywhere within range of its squirming aura. While within range of the King of Worms’ squirming aura these ravager worms have telepathy with the King of Worms and any other ravager worms in this aura. These summoned worms will immediately vanish if they leave the range of the squirming aura. The King of Worms may dismiss any of these worms as a free action whenever it so chooses, and a ravager worm that remains summoned in this way for one hour becomes unbound and may leave the aura without penalty.
ECOLOGY
Environment any, prefers ruined locations
Organization unique
There are few creatures whose very name invokes fear across populated space. Illontos, the corpse king that ravaged hundreds of worlds with armies of undead horrors. Xo, the astral maw that devours stars to sate its unending hunger. Tarrasque, a living engine of destruction who crushes entire nations before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived. The King of Worms would be one such being, save for the fact that none have seen its work in person and been able to tell the tale.
The King of Worms stands twenty feet tall, its form obscured by a ratty cloak. The cloak is clearly ancient, made from old cloth rather than modern materials and bears stitch marks, stains, and general wear and tear that speaks to extensive use, though what being would have the nerve to darn such a being’s clothes remains a mystery. Under its hood its face is similarly obscured by a bone white mask. The mask bears markings that give the impression of a simplistic smiling face, but the worn mask has long since lost any trace of detail that it may have once born. The only parts of its body that are ever seen are its hands and arms, which it reveals when it reaches out to victims in a mockery of a hand extended to help or when it spreads it arms wide to bask in the destruction around it. Its skin is a sickly mottled mix of greys, appearing almost plague-stricken. Its fingers don’t match, with varying lengths that lack any pattern, different numbers of joints on each finger, and different numbers and arrangements of fingers on each hand. Through the flesh of its arms burrow fat black worms of an undiscernible species, breaching skin only to burrow back in somewhere else.
The King of Worms is a being of ruin, blighting the lands with its passage and tearing down entire nations. It destroys worlds with the help of the ravager worms that serve it, then plane shifts into another dimension where geometry and distance is distorted, allowing it to walk the distance needed to plane shift back to a new world on the Material Plane and begin its work once more. It does not speak to anyone it meets on its journey of destruction, though it understands some languages and will commonly laugh at particularly amusing attempts to fight it or flee. For their part, the inhabitants of the planes it travels through on its journey do their best to avoid it when possible, though they refuse to explain it to outsiders except for obscure references to how the King of Worms doesn’t belong there any more than it does on the Material Plane.
In combat, the King of Worms is a merciless combatant. Its first action is always to use its worm call and set the resulting ravager worms on any combatants who try and hang back from direct combat while it engages the front line combatants to prevent them from going to the aid of their more vulnerable allies. When possible it uses more summoned ravager worms to give it some breathing room to use its spells to weaken foes or outright kill the most vulnerable, using the worms burrowing through its flesh as living whips to lash at enemies when forced to fight itself. When things become dire the King of Worms will always choose to flee using its shadow walk or plane shift spells rather than risk destruction.
