His Majesty The Worm Monster Mash: Cave Hulk

Cave Hulks are enormous burrowing mantises with a confusing gaze attack. They straddle the line between endurance and ambush predators. They burst out of the wall when you least expect it and attack you. If you’re on your guard they follow you, burrowing out of sight and waiting for a moment of weakness. Their favorite time to strike is during the Camp phase, especially after following you and building up an appetite.

 

CAVE HULK (Beast Elite) 

Attributes: Swords 4 | Pentacles 3 | Cups 2 | Wands 1
Health/Defense: 4/4 (Thick Carapace)
Likes: Eating people (favorite food), Loam (feels good to burrow), Mud (rolls around in it)
Hates: Sand (doesn’t hold its shape), Parasites (can’t reach them), Flying enemies

• Notes
• Confusing Gaze. On any round where the adventurers meet the Cave Hulk’s gaze (such as if they are ambushed), they are Confused. 
• Confused adventurers shuffle their hand of cards face down and choose randomly for initiative and actions. They may look at the card they played for initiative, but not any other card until they play it.
• On subsequent rounds they can declare they aren’t looking at the Cave Hulk, but are counted as Blind if doing so.
• Tremorsense. Though it has giant secondary “eyes” the Cave Hulk’s actual vision is quite weak. It tracks targets through vibration and has trouble spotting floating or flying targets.
• Lesser dooms
• Big meaty claws. Attacks against Confused targets deal two wounds.
• Burrow. The Cave Hulk can Move through loose dirt at normal speed, and stone at a rate of one zone per dash action.
• Greater dooms
• Escape tunnel. The Cave Hulk can discard a Greater Doom to automatically disengage from all combatants by burrowing.
• Adventurers can follow the Cave Hulk into the escape tunnel but had better kill it fast. On its next action (or minor action) it can discard any card to collapse the tunnel behind it and crush its pursuers.
• Hard shell. The Cave Hulk can play Greater Dooms as initiative.

• Crawl Mechanics & Tactics
• Cave Hulks are almost impossible to detect when waiting motionless behind a wall for prey. If a Hulk surprises the Guild, don't give it a free action per the normal ambush rules. Run the first round of combat with all the players Confused.
• If a Hulk is outmatched it follows the Guild until they let their guard down. The sound and vibrations make it obvious that a burrowing monster is tracking them but it's difficult to do anything about it unless you can penetrate solid rock and earth fill.
• Loot & Alchemical Reagents
• Treasure: Cave Hulks carelessly masticate soft metals and small gemstones while devouring prey. These treasures accumulate in their foregut along with stored food.
• Bomb: Cut out the enormous secondary eyes for a single use Confusion effect (DM draws and plays cards face down for a round).
• Potion: Eat the tympanal organ and gain tremorsense for a watch.
• Oil: Dig through a single wall using the buttery clawmeats.

THE MAKING OF 

This is a monster stat block I made for the restocking table of my Pile of Blades dungeon but never got to use. I added the Loot section for the ongoing Monster Mash. Umber Hulks are one of my favorite classic D&D monsters.