A megapede, an enormous purple centipede with neon green highlights. Copyright 2010 Wizards of the Coast.

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The Lore

The Lore of the Megapede is fairly uncomplicated. They’re the logical endpoint of the Giant Centipede Arms Race. The largest, strongest, Darkest and Sunniest giant centipedes on Athas. And they’re also psychic, because of course they are.

Megapedes lair underground, in burrows or natural caves where they lay their eggs. They hunt by tunneling through the sand, erupting from beneath their prey, and fighting a battle of attrition they will likely win with their venomous bite, hundreds of flailing legs, and corrosive psionics. Sometimes unlucky travelers taking shelter in a cave might find it’s already occupied by a megapede when it drops down from the ceiling on top of them.

Sometimes, they’ll share their lair with a couple of wild cilopses, who are their distant cousins, but they tend to just eat anything else, and no one has ever managed to tame them.

The Numbers

Megapedes are Huge Natural Beasts and Level 15 Elite Brutes with 368 HP. They have Darkvision, a ground speed of 8, a burrow speed of 6 in loose earth, and a climb speed of 8. Their overall power level is on par with that of an Athasian drake.

Their basic bite attack has Reach 2 and does a potent blend of physical and poison damage. Their most common at-will attack will be Legs of the Megapede, which attacks all enemies in a Close Burst 2 for similar damage and lets the megapede bite someone for free as an effect. Its Lashing Body (recharge 5+) works as a minor-action melee attack that does a little less damage than the Legs.

As mentioned above, the monster is also psychic! Once per encounter it can use Psionic Erosion to attack the Fortitude of enemies in a Close Blast 5. On a hit, this deals immediate and ongoing psychic damage, which starts at 10 and decreases to 5 after the first successful save. On a miss, it deals half damage. Slightly more often, it can cause a Psionic Detonation on an Area 1 Burst Within 5, which deals “psychic and force” damage and slides targets 3 squares. This recharges when it’s first bloodied.

Finally, when it hits with either of its single-target physical attacks, the megapede can use Psionic Augmentation to deal extra psychic damage on the attack. This also recharges when it’s first bloodied.

Encounters and Final Impressions

As mentioned above, the most likely megapede encounters are against a mated pair or against one of them plus 2-3 leveled-up cilopses.

Lore-wise this is basically a Giant-er Centipede, so I’m not all that excited about them. If that’s your bag, tough, they’re awesome. Mechanically, you can use a megapede anywhere you’d use an Athasian Drake - they’re about as powerful and arguably a lot more common. You could also reskin their stat block as a drake or other suitable giant creature.