Quite a few residents of the Sword Coast and further north are unfortunately familiar with
the dreaded Frost Worm, a gargantuan monstrousity when grown to their full size. First appearing
in 3.5 edition D&D's core monster manual, the average frost worm is about 40 feet
(12 meters) long and 5 feet (1.5 meters) in diameter, its official Dungeons & dragons
stats for the weight of this creature is incorrect, if you have an old copy of the 3.5 edition
core monster manual write on page112 that its weight is closer to that of a whale shark,
so around 34,000 pounds. This is kind of important when working out how much damage the creature
can do to castle fortifications when being driven in chained pairs by frost giants who
can train these things. 34,000 pounds. This creature should also have the seige damage
trait, its going to do critical damage to innanimate, non-enchanted structures, the
thing tunnels through snow and ice; and sneak attacks dragons in packs when they are younger,
the only reason they don't run in packs when they are older is that there is no reason
for them to. The frost worms went from huge to gargantuan,
the 5th edition frost worm is simply gargantuan, presumably there are juveniles, after laying
a bunch of eggs that look very much like chunks of oval shaped ice, the hatchlings will take
around three to five years to reach adult size, which is an enormous growth rate requiring
a diet nothing short of terrifying, so I'm thinking they might actually be a predator
of such creatures as purple worms. Maybe the frost worms just eat a lot of smaller
creatures on a nearly constant basis, which means that frost worms do not sleep, they
are always, always hunting for food. There is a third option, and their habit of ambush
hunting as adults tends to point towards this... they are not just feeding on organic materials,
they may also actually just eat ice and snow, in such volumes, as they burrow through the
ground they bore right through snow, ice and dirt leaving a five foot wide circular tunnel
behind them, so, that kind of implies they are eating a lot of material as they go and
are either capable of digesting inorganic material, elemental cold, or they sift through
all that paydirt for nuggets of burrowing creatures, fungus, bacteria, tree roots and
whatever else goes down their gullet. There are a couple of varieties of Frost worm, the
older 3.5 edition species has a pair of massive projecting mandibles growing out of their
head, the 5th edition sub species does not, it has mouth parts far more like a purple
worm, which has again raised speculation among sages that the species might be related, but
they really are not, there is another type a third, you wouldn't have heard of these
because I am just going to show you how easy making a variant monster is, so, they are
not found on the sword coast or usually any further north of the Sea of Fallen Stars than
my neck of the woods in Candlekeep, you can also find them rarely as far north as the
the dragon coast and way to the east in ancient Mulhorand it's usually not ideal conditions
for them and the very northern edge of the plains of purple dust breeds a hardy variety
with an appearance like polished bone, they are also not found further west than Halruaa
and Lapaliiya, the ground is simply too wet most of the year. In the regions between those
outer limited you can find the massive Winter Worms.
Not even remotely related to purple worms or frost worms, but very similar, the winter
worm has a much smoother, slick and featureless exterior, though it can have projecting limb-like
fins, it is also completely blind, relying on tremor sense and a form of sonar to sense
its environment and hunt its prey. Like the frost worm, the enormous winter worms will
attack from a bank of snow covered ground, only active during the winter months, during
the rest of the year they form a solid block of ice around their body like a cocoon and
just hibernate for the rest of the year underground. The other main difference with the Winter
Worms is that they have a wicked stinging tail, their natural prey, like the frost worm,
is anything that crosses their path, but they will target large game like blink mammoths,
moose, polar bears, seals, walruses, yaks, rothe, elephants, roc nests, and of course,
dragons slumbering in their lairs. Winter worms are not generally as formidable as the
frost worms, they get to around a challenge rating of 9, while the frost worm is CR 17,
so, clearly the frost worms can and will prey on winter worms if they get the chance, but
frost worms also attack remorhazes on sight, even though this usually results in the death
of the Frost worm and they normally can be repelled with sufficient amounts of open flame,
as fire is the only thing they really fear. Frost worm body temperature is nothing less
than supernatural, if not elemental, I am not sure what process allows them to live
at such extremes, they actually explode on their death in a burst of frigid energy. Each
creature within 60 feet of it must make a DC 20 Dexterity saving throw, taking 8d6 cold
damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. Creatures inside the
worm when it dies automatically fail this saving throw, very important to take note
of that as it could get a lot of adventuring parties killed attempting to rescue digesting
friends and family. Also, don't forget that the frost worm is
there to feed, they will go for the easiest snack first, which is any pack animals or
tame riding beasts, livestock, children, injured people, women and the elderly pretty much
in that order, a tactical spell caster can ask a dungeon master if their very intelligent
wizard could figure out how to modify an illusion so that it works on creatures who see with
sound, and they make the toughest fighters look like the most delicious plump and healthy
mountain goats, a particular favorite of the Frost worm. Frost worms are not intelligent,
they have the brain power of a centipede, its not hard to trick their fairly basic range
of senses, but its also very hard to stop them once they get all riled up and rampaging
in an unintended direction. Priests of the Beast Cult churches of Malar often try to
get their hands on frost worms and winter worms, they make excellent stock for alpine
borders that are hard for nations to patrol with their own population.
Frost worms are soo cold, any creature that touches the worm or hits it with a melee attack
while within 5 feet of it takes 10 (3d6) cold damage. Winter worms don't radiate cold that
intensely unless they are in the act of cocooning themselves in ice for the warmer months of
the year. The stinger of the Winter worm injects deadly cold, it will debilitate limbs first
to prevent prey escaping, then inject into the torso to bring them down, or into the
head if they are prone or restrained, a kill shot for the Winter Worm that it will always
take, given the opportunity. The stinger has a combat reach of ten feet,
so does the bite of the worm, its huge maw of many rows of razor sharp triangular teeth
inflicts 2d8+7 piercing damage, for any creature smaller than huge, it must succeed on a DC
16 Dexterity saving throw or be swallowed by the worm. A swallowed creature is blinded
and restrained, it has total cover against attacks and other effects outside the worm
of course, unfortunately the guts of the worm also bathes captives in potent acid, inflicting
4d6 acid damage at the start of each of the worm's turns to all creatures and objects
trapped inside it, plus, while in contact with any part of the worm the swallowed creature
will also be taking cold damage. If the worm takes 25 damage or more on a single
turn from a creature inside it, the worm must succeed on a DC 21 Constitution saving throw
at the end of that turn or regurgitate all swallowed creatures, which fall prone in a
space within 10 feet of the worm. If the worm dies, a swallowed creature is no longer restrained
by it and can escape from the corpse by using 20 feet of movement, exiting prone.
Some common sense applies when we are talking about the effects of potent stomach acid like
that on mundane materials and magic items, wondrous items are often ruined by strong
acid, scrolls not held in protective cases, cotton, unhardened leather, hemp, that sort
of thing. Metal objects and most enchanted objects should be fine if not a bit tarnished,
wounds from acid to people can result in a lot of disfigurement, luckily a whole waterskin
applied to the face can dose the burn in time. The stat block for the juvenile worm is included
in the video, in case you want a lower challenge rating beastie, or a template with good base
stats you can modify and turn into your own unique monster and it's story.
The stunning wail of the frost worm is legendary, it is used to immobilize the worm's prey.
Heavy pulses of low frequency sound masked by a unmistakable trill acts as a sonically-induced
compulsion to stand still. The trill has had it's range and power reduced a bit for 5th
edition. Each creature within 60 feet of the worm that
can hear it must succeed on a DC 20 Wisdom saving throw or be stunned for 1 minute. A
creature can repeat the saving throw each time it takes damage and at the end of each
of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. Once a creature successfully
saves against this effect, or if this effect ends for it, that creature is immune to the
Trill of all frost worms for the next 24 hours. Frost worms are immune to this effect of course,
as are Winter worms and Purple worms, even though they don't trill like this.
Winter worms and Frost worms can make terrifying ambush predators hunting down travellers in
the wilderness, striking at dusk or dawn in particular when prey seem to get sluggish
and move around in one small area, drawing the worm in to investigate, frost worms can
be trained from hatching and live an unknown length of time, they mostly die due to violence
well before old age gets them, their aggression towards each other keeps their breeding rate
low, so, despite how fast they grow to adulthood, they don't over-hunt the environment and don't
remain an apex predator for long, plus, they can on rare occasion take out other apex predators...
just stay out of their way, give up your horse and run for it or better yet, ride your horse
away as fast as you can, the worms may be fast, but they prefer to travel underground
by burrowing. Worm lairs are made up of wide ranging, twisting
tunnels five feet wide with occasional clumps of worm waste containing indigestable treasures,
if any. These tunnels frequently burrow up until just under the surface where the worm
will wait. During the summer thawed out months, these tunnels are revealed and typically fill
with water. Worm castings are invaluable to prospectors
who can find gold flakes, gem stones and other minerals, the tunnels also make exploring
minerals underground much easier. Frost worms can be found in the Galena Mountains
in the Cold Lands and the Thunder Peaks in the Eastern Heartlands. They can be found
outside the Material Plane in the Elemental Plane of Cold, the Iron Wastes of the Abyss,
and an air elemental variant of the frost worm could be found in the Elemental Plane
of Air. Not only do many variants of the frost worm exist on many worlds, they are almost
a multiversal constant, though one world might have a giant slug version and others would
have a giant leech, others might have worm-like serpents or hideous mole rat mutants, I shall
leave it in your more than capable hands. My name is AJ Pickett, I make lots of videos
about Dungeons & Dragons lore, particularly monster ecologies and legends, the forgotten
realms and a few videos on character classes and races, if you like what I do please support
me on subscribestar or patreon, check out my merch, come hang out with me on my discord
server, have a chat, one of the reasons I do fewer livestreams now is I am chatting
on discords, podcasts and message boards so often every day.
Coming up next: We visit the Night Hag markets of Hades.