A mass of tangled vines and dripping slime rises on two trunk-like legs, reeking of rot and freshly turned earth.
XP 2,400 DEFENSE
AC 19, touch 9, flat-footed 19 (+10 natural, –1 size) OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft., swim 20 ft. STATISTICS
Str 21, Dex 10, Con 17, Int 7, Wis 10, Cha 9 SPECIAL ABILITIES
Electric Fortitude (Ex)Shambling mounds take no damage from electricity. Instead, any electricity attack used against a shambling mound temporarily increases its Constitution score by 1d4 points. The shambling mound loses these temporary points at the rate of 1 per hour. FeatsShambling Monolith You are able to draw up available vegetation into your body mass and increase your size and strength. Prerequisite: Shambling mound. Benefit: As a full-round action, you may draw additional vegetable matter into yourself and increase your size, strength, and durability as if using an animal growth spell. At the beginning of each turn, you must succeed at a Fortitude save to maintain your increased size. The save DC is 10 if in forest or jungle and 15 if in a swamp or underground , and increases by 1 for each round that passes. If you fail the save, you collapse back to your normal size and are fatigued for 8 hours. Special: You must be in forest, jungle, swamp, or underground terrain to use this feat. You cannot use this feat when you are fatigued or exhausted.
Stormstruck Shambler
Suffocating Strangulation Dungeon Denizens Revisited. Copyright 2009, Paizo Publishing, LLC Authors Clinton Boomer, Jason Bulmahn, Joshua J. Frost, Nicolas Logue, Robert McCreary, Jason Nelson, Richard Pett, Sean K Reynolds, James L. Sutter, and Greg A. Vaughan. | Variant Shambling Mound AbilitiesThe majority of shambling mounds live outdoors, most commonly in marshes, swamps, jungles, and well-watered forests. A shambling mound may have one or more of the following variant abilities:
Dungeon Denizens Revisited. Copyright 2009, Paizo Publishing, LLC Authors Clinton Boomer, Jason Bulmahn, Joshua J. Frost, Nicolas Logue, Robert McCreary, Jason Nelson, Richard Pett, Sean K Reynolds, James L. Sutter, and Greg A. Vaughan. Variant Forms of Shambling MoundGreensward (CR +1): The most tragic variant shambler is outwardly identical
to a normal shambling mound (though they often fashion some of their
body mass into a makeshift head and face). They are extremely rare
humanoids (usually elves) whose minds, spirits, and consciousnesses have
somehow endured and remained intact after a shambling mound kills and
eats them. Lacking the power of speech, many are slain by their humanoid
comrades as they return home in hope of a cure, but some few have
managed to avoid hostilities long enough to manage peaceful
communication. Those unable to secure a miracle or wish to return to
their own form have sworn to use their new forms to become defenders of
the woodlands. Greenswards are usually chaotic good. They retain the
memories of their previous life, but they cannot speak or cast spells. A
greensward’s Intelligence is +2 higher than a common shambling mound.
Spore Mound (CR +1) Some shamblers live in such close association with fungi and rot that they gradually become infested. These spore mounds look much like typical shamblers but are encrusted in morels, puff balls, and all manner of mushrooms. Whenever a spore mound is struck in combat, it discharges a cloud of yellow mold spores in a 10-foot radius. If exposed to direct sunlight, a spore mound’s yellow mold is rendered dormant and does not discharge. Its spore discharge is suppressed for 1 round if the creature is struck by a fire attack that overcomes its fire resistance.
Tanglethorn Mound (CR +1): Found only in arid regions, deserts, hills, and dry plains, tanglethorn mounds look like twisted masses of dry, thorny vines wrapped thickly around misshapen clumps of cacti. They deal slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning damage with their slam and constrict attacks, and their constrict attacks deal +1d6 damage. Tanglethorn mounds lack a swim speed but have a burrow speed of 10 feet and tremorsense out to a distance of 30 feet; they often lie in wait just below the surface, or with a portion of their body mass showing above ground, appearing like a normal thorny bush or cactus. Their racial bonus to Stealth checks applies only in desert settings.
Dungeon Denizens Revisited. Copyright 2009, Paizo Publishing, LLC Authors Clinton Boomer, Jason Bulmahn, Joshua J. Frost, Nicolas Logue, Robert McCreary, Jason Nelson, Richard Pett, Sean K Reynolds, James L. Sutter, and Greg A. Vaughan. Symbiotic SwarmShambling mounds are themselves
unpleasant opponents, but some shambling mounds live in symbiosis with
swarms of insects, most often centipedes, skittering along the tendrils
and vines that make up the shambler. Typically such a symbiotic swarm
does not endanger creatures fighting a shambling mound, as too few of
the centipedes run along the creature’s surface to pose much of a
threat. However, a target engulfed by the shambler’s constrict attack is
subject to the attack of a centipede swarm, including physical
damage, poison, and distraction. The swarm is considered to have total
cover from attacks as long as the shambling mound is alive. If the
shambling mound is killed, the centipede swarm boils up from its remains
and attacks any creatures nearby. Add +1 to the CR of a shambling mound
with a symbiotic centipede swarm. Dungeon Denizens Revisited. Copyright 2009, Paizo Publishing, LLC Authors Clinton Boomer, Jason Bulmahn, Joshua J. Frost, Nicolas Logue, Robert McCreary, Jason Nelson, Richard Pett, Sean K Reynolds, James L. Sutter, and Greg A. Vaughan. |
Environment temperate forest or marshes
Organization solitary
Treasure standard
Shambling mounds, also called shamblers, appear to be heaps of rotting vegetation. They are actually intelligent, carnivorous plants with a fondness for elf flesh in particular. What serve as a shambler's brain and sensory organs are located in its upper body. Shambling mounds typically have an 8-foot girth and stand between 6 and 9 feet tall. They weigh about 3,800 pounds.
Shambling mounds are strange creatures, more akin to animate tangles of creeping parasitic vines than single rooted plants. They are omnivorous, able to draw their sustenance from nearly anything, wrapping their creepers around living trees to draw forth the sap, sending rootlets into the soil to absorb raw nutrients, or consuming flesh and bone from crushed prey.
Shamblers are frighteningly stealthy in their native environments. Blending in with the surrounding terrain, they can lie in wait for days on end without moving, waiting patiently for a potential meal. A shambler could be almost anywhere at any time, attacking without warning and not caring whether it leaves any survivors, so long as it acquires its next meal.
Shambling mounds normally lead solitary, nomadic existences in deep forests and fetid swamps, although they can also be found underground living among damp fungal thickets. Disturbing rumors persist, however, of shamblers gathering in strange congregations around great earthen mounds in the depths of marshes and jungles, often during the height of violent electrical storms. Their reasons for doing so are unknown, and many sages have wondered whether there is some obscure and alien purpose at work.
