Friday, September 22, 2017

Frightful Fridays! Giant Hell Ant

Hello and welcome to this week's Frightful Fridays! on the second Friday in a row. I'm doing something wrong. This week's monster is a giant ant--pretty mundane, right? Well, this ant is based on a prehistoric ant that drinks blood, has vertical mandibles, and an impaling spike. I only turned a couple of things up from the base creature, because nature(?) did most of the work for me.

I hope you enjoy the giant hell ant, and I'll see you next week (maybe on Friday again) with another monster. Thanks for reading!


This enormous black ant has vertical mandibles and a blood-stained spike protruding from just above the mandibles.
Giant Hell Ant      CR 8
XP 4,800
N Large vermin
Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft., lifesense; Perception +17
DEFENSE
AC 22, touch 12, flat-footed 19 (+3 Dex, +10 natural, –1 size)
hp 102 (12d8+48)
Fort +12, Ref +7, Will +5
Defensive Abilities ferocity
OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft., burrow 20 ft., climb 30 ft.
Melee bite +15 (4d6+7/19–20 plus grab), gore +15 (1d6+7 plus 2d6 bleed and blood drain)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks bleed, blood drain, crippling bite, gnaw
STATISTICS
Str 25, Dex 16, Con 19, Int —, Wis 12, Cha 5
Base Atk +9; CMB +17 (+21 grapple); CMD 30 (38 vs. trip)
Skills Acrobatics +3 (+11 to jump), Climb +15, Perception +17; Racial Modifiers +16 Perception
ECOLOGY
Environment warm forests
Organization solitary, pair, army (3–20), or colony (1 giant hell ant queen plus 21–100 giant hell ants)
Treasure none
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Blood Drain (Ex) A creature struck by a giant hell ant’s gore attack must succeed on a DC 20 Fortitude save or take 1d4 points of Constitution damage. If the creature is currently suffering bleed damage, it takes a –4 on its Fortitude save. The ant gains 5 temporary hit points if it drains blood from a victim. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Crippling Bite (Ex) A giant hell ant’s bite attack threatens a critical hit on a roll of 19–20. If the ant scores a critical hit on a target, its mandibles cut deep, resulting in a wound that causes 2d4 bleed and leaving its foe staggered for 1d4+1 rounds from the pain dealt by the grievous wound.
Gnaw (Ex) If a giant hell ant begins its turn with a grabbed foe, it inflicts automatic bite damage.
Gore (Ex) If a giant hell ant succeeds at maintaining a grapple against a foe, in addition to automatically dealing bite damage, it can attempt a gore attack against the grappled opponent.

Giant hell ants are blood-drinking ants with powerful jaws capable of rending flesh from bone and a porous spike filled with an anticoagulant agent. They latch onto opponents and worry at wounds they inflict with their terrible mandibles. While they’ve got their opponents locked in their mandibles, they attempt to spear their victims with their spikes to induce more blood flow. Giant hell ants are so aggressive, they continue attacking until they drop dead.

Vampires and other intelligent, bloodsucking creatures sometimes employ giant hell ants to harvest blood from victims, and they in turn harvest the blood from the vermin. Undead creatures don’t register as prey for giant hell ants, so they have no fear of suffering backfire from using the ants.

A typical giant hell ant is 10 feet in length, stands 4 feet tall, and weighs 300 pounds. A giant hell ant colony is similar to an ordinary ant colony, except there are only soldier ants and a single queen (which applies the advanced and giant creature templates).

Giant Hellfire Ant (+1 CR) This strange, Hell-touched variant of the giant hell ant gains the advanced creature template and possesses immunity to fire, vulnerability to cold, and a breath weapon (30-ft. cone, 6d8 fire damage, Reflex DC 20 for half, usable every 1d4 rounds).