A silt horror devouring a group of adventurers.

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The Lore

As mentioned before, the only sea most Athasians know is the Sea of Silt. The name here is pretty descriptive - an endless expanse of silvery dust that makes up the eastern “border” of the Tyr Region. You can sail on it using special vessels, and its depths conceal many ruins of extinct civilizations, as well as an extensive ecosystem that’s a mystery to most surfacers.

Those who have more experience with the Sea of Silt might know of the Floating Mantles who sometimes wander into land, but the thing they fear the most is the aptly named Silt Horror. These enormous beasts are more or less Darker and Sunnier krakens, emerging from the deep to wrestle entire ships with their grasping tentacles and devour them with their bottomless maws.

And that’s for the “basic” version that appears close to shore, the one with white tentacles. Silt sailors who have ventured further away from shore come back with stories about horrors with brown or gray tentacles who are even larger - some of them larger than entire city-states. Are these tales true? Who knows? It’s not like it’s easy to fact-check them.

The Numbers

We only get the “basic” white-tentacled silt horror here. The bigger versions, if they exist, are left as an exercise for the GM. Unlike a standard D&D Kraken, the silt horror is not sapient, but that doesn’t make it less dangerous.

The creature is so large that we get a stat block for the main body and a couple of different stat blocks for its tentacles, which act like minions and regenerate fast enough to keep coming back in the same fight after being “slain”.

Silt Horror

The main body of the creature is a Huge Aberrant Beast and a Level 12 Solo Lurker with 496 HP. It has a ground speed of 2 and a burrow speed of 6 on soft earth, which is like a swim speed on the Sea of Silt. It’s Blind, and therefore immune to the blinded conditions and to all gaze attacks. It perceives the world via Termorsense 20.

The horror’s main trait covers its Regenerating Tentacles. Any time when the horror has less than 4 tentacles within 20 squares of itself, a number of new tentacles appear until it has 4. The horror chooses which types they are from the three available (constricting, raking, sweeping). They appear above ground even if the main body is burrowing, and act on their own initiative, rolled when they appear.

The main body itself has a fairly basic Bite attack, but the star of the show here is the Chomping Maw maneuver, which deals almost double the damage and can target up to two creatures. The restriction here is that the main body must be entirely underground to attack, and the targets must be grabbed by tentacles.

As a move action, it can Submerge, burrowing its way to a space that’s entirely underground. This recharges whenever it’s on the surface, so it’s more or less at will. And when one of its tentacles is reduced to 0 HP with a melee attack, it can make a free melee attack of its own before disappearing, dealing 10 extra damage and pushing the triggering PC 5 squares instead of grabbing them.

Silt Horror Tentacles

All three tentacle types are very similar to each other, so we’ll cover them in the same entry.

First, the common traits: all three are Level 12 Minions. They have ground and burrow speeds of 6, and act as sensory organs with the same Tremorsense 20 as the main body. They’re obviously Attached to the silt horror and cannot be more than 20 squares from the main body. They’re also Unhindered, which as we know means they can pull any grabbed victims along with them when they move.

All three tentacles have a basic Seize attack, which deals physical damage and grabs the victim. The stats that vary between the three types are their creature roles, and what they can do with a grabbed victim using their second attack.

  • Constricting tentacles are Soldiers and their Constricting Grab damages and dazes the victim for a turn.

  • Raking tentacles are Skirmishers and their Sweeping Grab damages and slides the victim 3 squares to a space adjacent to the tentacle.

  • Sweeping tentacles are Brutes and their Suffocating Grab damages and knocks prone.

Even after the special attacks, the victims remain grabbed - use the standard rules to try to get away.

Encounters and Final Impressions

Silt Horrors will most likely be found alone. They’re not sapient so they don’t form alliances, and they’re impossible to tame. At most you might find them already fighting another victim, such as a different ship, or a giant who was wading through the Sea. These fellow targets might be friendly to the PCs, or they might not.

Another possibility is an horror intruding upon an already ongoing fight against those other ships or giants…

The mechanics here are very interesting. The tentacles want to grab as many victims as possible and do nasty things to them while bringing them closer to the main body’s location. The main body wants to stay underground until two victims are in reach, use Chomping Maw on them, and then use Submerge to get away again. As long as at least one PC remains grabbed, the horror could do this every turn.