Chulcrix

The chulcrix is a vile, ravenous predator of the Ethereal plane, shaped like an immense worm. Its fat body is armored in black chitin slick with mucus that stinks of rotting meat. A typical one runs 100 feet with a 20-foot girth, and some pass 300 feet. The whole front end is a round valve of a mouth, which can open to 30 feet across when feeding, or in bigger specimens to half the body's length. Tiny tendrils ring its toothless mouth, picking up movement, smells and warmth from as far as ten miles off, and two 30-foot arms sprout from its neck, ending in snapping, writhing pincers. It is fairly intelligent and can speak telepathically in simple phrases, but seldom does.

Eating is all a chulcrix cares about, and it wants its food whole, so it seldom attacks prey directly. On finding a meal, it spends two rounds unhinging its jaws to their full 30-foot width, then uses its attract victims power while hovering in place. From the gaping mouth spreads an unseen cone of force reaching 100 feet, 25 feet in radius. Anyone in it who succeeds at a save vs. spell is unaffected.

Those who fail drift toward the mouth at ten feet per round and must also save vs. paralyzation. On a failure they are frozen helpless as they float. On a success they may still fire missiles, work magic and the like, yet they continue their helpless glide forward. The pull continues until they are swallowed, the chulcrix withdraws, or companions rescue them.

Swallowed victims pass through a valve into the stomach, where the paralysis ends but acidic digestive gas deals 1d4 damage every round, with no save. They can try to cut their way out, but the churning gut and choking fumes impose -2 on their attacks, and no blow does more than 1 point per round apart from magical and Strength bonuses. Should the worm lose half its hit points while feeding, it everts its whole body and plane shifts away on the spot, leaving everything in its stomach behind, and resumes its normal shape on arrival.

Against creatures that resist the pull, or that it does not want to eat, it uses its pincers for 3d6 damage each. Each round it regenerates 1d4 hit points, and it takes no harm from fire (normal or magical), from cold, or from any dragon's breath.

Lairless, the chulcrix wanders the Ethereal forever hunting; it forms no societies and keeps no treasure. It may live 10,000 years and reproduces without a mate, laying one egg every thousand years, a black crystal sphere about 25 feet across. Over a century the egg swells to 100 feet, then cracks open to release a fully grown chulcrix.

Chulcrix keep to themselves, though some take eyewings as scouts and helpers. Dark gods and their mightier servants sometimes hire them, usually by promising new and exotic prey. It scorns no prey for being small and finds little too large; they have been seen devouring small dragons.