Xal'Teruk [Unique Star Worm]

Xal'Teruk, the Star Worm, is (one hopes) one of a kind: a gigantic centipede armored in black chitin, with a pair of green eyes that glow, and jaws hinged in four places, wide enough to swallow anything of size L or smaller. Its first two pairs of legs have grown into mantis-like forelimbs that rend large prey and let it burrow through soil at full speed and through solid stone at a third of that rate.

Sensing vibrations, the worm picks the loudest group overhead and bursts up beneath it at great speed, lifting one victim forty feet into the air in a swallow attack; a save vs. breath weapon means the victim was merely carried up rather than swallowed, but unless he clings to the beast he then falls the full distance. Witnessing this eruption for the first time causes dragon-like fear: intelligent beings under 1 HD flee with no save, and others must save vs. fear or suffer -2 on attack and damage rolls for the next 10 rounds. The valley's insect guardians ignore this fear while their queen lives, but are affected normally once she is dead.

On the following round the worm dives back down, attempting to swallow a second target. If its first victim is still alive, it instead rakes that one with its forelegs as it crashes to earth, unharmed by the impact. While plunging it is exposed, since its whole length must follow it into the hole. Anyone struck by two of its four claws is pinned and hauled underground.

An attack roll 4 or more above what it needs means the target is swallowed, and stomach acid then burns it for 2-16 points every round, no roll needed, until it dies. Inside, a victim may fight with small hand weapons, but slashing and blunt weapons deal only 1 point per blow; the gullet is AC 10, and using spells, wands or magic items requires a Dexterity check first. Neither fire nor gas, cloudkill included, can harm the worm. Its tunnels in ordinary earth collapse after 3-18 rounds, those in stone are permanent, and those in swampy ground fill in almost at once.

The worm lives only to eat, preferring animals because their footfalls are easy to track. After 800 years of slumber it wakes ravenous and will feed until killed. If freed at full strength, whole towns and cities could vanish overnight.

About a thousand years ago the worm plunged to earth sealed inside a meteorite, which may have been its home or its prison. Its impact near a sacred valley shook the entire land and may have sealed the last dwarven tunnels to the far continent. With no great underground realms to stumble on it and no nations to remember the valley, it was forgotten, and the valley's insect guardians dealt with the few who explored there.