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Wailrus

Challenge
Tags
str
20
dex
9
con
22
int
7
wis
12
cha
15

AC 16 (natural armor)

HP 162 (13d12 + 78; bloodied 81)

Speed 20 ft., swim 45 ft.


Proficiency +4; Maneuver DC 17

Saving Throws Con +10, Str +9

Damage Resistances cold, necrotic; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks

Damage Immunities poison

Condition Immunities charmed , exhaustion , frightened , poisoned

Senses darkvision 120 ft., passive perception 10

Languages --

Legendary Resistance (3/Day). When the wailrus fails a saving throw , it can choose to succeed instead. When it does, part of its tusks break off and turn to ash. If it has no more uses of this ability, the wailrus cannot attack with its tusks again until they grow back when it finishes a long rest .

Sonorous Despair. The wailrus’s song resonates for miles. Any creature that does not have a swim speed and is within two miles of a singing wailrus experiences deep sorrow and must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or is charmed and compelled to seek out its source (i.e. the wailrus).

A charmed creature must use its turns trying to move as close to the wailrus as possible. It also cannot take reactions. On its action, it can use only the Dash action or try to escape any creature, situation, or effect that prevents it from moving. If the creature ends its turn further from the wailrus than it started, the creature despairs and suffers 1d4 psychic damage. The creature repeats the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success. The effect also ends when the creature becomes unconscious or can no longer hear the song.
 
On a successful save, a creature is immune to this effect for 24 hours.

Sorrowful Supplication. A wailrus that hears a holy hymn sung as a bonus action within 120 feet has disadvantage on saving throws against any effect that turns undead until the beginning of its next turn.

Undead Nature. The wailrus doesn’t require air, sustenance, or sleep.


ACTIONS 

Multiattack.The wailrus makes two melee attacks.

Body Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 18 (3d8 + 5) bludgeoning damage. If the wailrus moves at least 20 feet straight towards the target before the attack, it can immediately use its reaction to make an attack with its tusks.

Tail. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (3d6 + 5) bludgeoning damage.

Tusks. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (3d6 + 5) piercing damage.

Wailing Roar (Recharge 6). The wailrus emits a low-pitched, baleful noise. Each creature in a 15-foot cone makes a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw . On a failed save, a creature takes 44 (8d10) thunder damage and is paralyzed by an overwhelming sense of loss. It can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the paralysis on a success. On a successful save, the creature take.


REACTIONS

Incensed Roar (1/day). When bloodied , the wailrus immediately recharges and uses its Wailing Roar.


LEGENDARY ACTIONS

The wailrus can take 2 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. It regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.

Tail Slap. The wailrus attacks with its tail.

Gore Rush. The wailrus moves up to half its Speed and attacks with its tusks.

Crushing Weight (Costs 2 Actions). While on land or ice, the wailrus moves 5 feet to enter the space of a large or smaller creature. The creature makes a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw or takes 19 (3d8 + 6) bludgeoning damage, is knocked prone and restrained until the wailrus moves from the spot. A creature can use an action to free itself or another restrained creature with a DC 17 Strength check. On a successful save a creature takes half damage and isn’t knocked prone or restrained.

Combat

The song of the wailrus typically attracts air breathers and is compelling enough to where many simply drown in the attempt to reach its source. But when actually attacked, especially if outnumbered, the wailrus leads with its Wailing Roar then chooses a target it can body slam, attacking with its tail and tusks either on the way or afterwards.


Wailrus Lair Features

Choose or roll one or more of the following lair features:

1 An inner chamber in the dragon’s lair has large mirrors arranged on the walls. The dragon can use a legendary action while within reach of the wall to make a final adjustment, at which point every non-dragon creature in the lair makes a Constitution saving throw . On a failure, the creature is blinded while in the chamber. If any of the mirrors are shattered, the effect ends.

2 When a creature sees the dragon’s treasure for the first time, it makes a Wisdom saving throw . On a failure, it is charmed by the treasure. While charmed, it must use its movement to approach the pile and its action to take treasure. At the end of each of its turns and whenever it takes damage, the creature repeats the saving throw, ending the effect on itself on a success.

3 Once per day, the dragon can use a legendary action to drink from a crucible of molten gold, recharging its breath weapon.

4 The dragon can use a bonus action to open a secret door to an escape tunnel. The dragon can make a claw attack on the tunnel to cause it to start collapsing. Creatures in the tunnel at the beginning of each of the dragon’s turns take 22 (4d10) bludgeoning damage from falling debris.


Legends and Lore

With a Culture or Religion check, characters can learn the following:

DC 10 A wailrus is an undead behemoth of the deep sea that sings of death.

DC 15 Beyond its baleful roar and mighty tusks, the wailrus can charm creatures into watery graves.

DC 20 A prayerful song to the gods may soothe a wailrus’s deep sorrow.

Description

Wailruses are huge undead beings formed from the spectral echoes of giant walruses killed long ago. They have massive bodies that allow for sleek mobility underwater and lumbering movement on land or ice.

Born of Sorrow. It is said that when the giant walruses were hunted to near extinction for their coveted ivory tusks, the Spirit of the Sea cried out in a long, mournful call, and the first wailrus was born.

Memories of Death. Wailruths typically haunt the old walrus hunting waters. Most often they are alone, as if they are the physical manifestation of all the walruses butchered in a given region. In rare instances, two or more may share a territory, usually in places where the walruses were slaughtered wholesale, such as their ancestral breeding grounds or migratory waystations.

Misery Loves Company. The song of the wailruth is mournful and moving. Those that experience it and live to tell the tale say it is like reliving a painful memory of loss from their own past.

Behavior

1 Patrolling its lair, singing a lament

2 Attacking a ship

3 Protecting marine wildlife from hunters

4 Migrating to a new lair

Signs

1 Eerie wails and sounds that resonate in deep sea waters

2 Huge, dark shadow moving below the ocean surface

3 Pairs of large puncture marks in the ice, especially at the edges near the water

4 Wreckage, debris, and floating corpses from a destroyed whaling ship

Encounters

Wailruses haunt the Bleak Gate, as well as the arctic oceans and seas of the Material Plane.

CR 11–16 wailrus ; wailrus with 2 walruses , giant walruses , sahuagin , or hunter sharks

Treasure 340 pp, 4 jade worth 100 gp each, scroll of calculated retribution , axe of chilling fear , fizzy lifter

CR 17–22 2 wailruses ; wailrus with sahuagin champion , necromancer , giant shark , or plesiosaurus ; wailrus with 2 giant sharks or ghosts

Treasure 1000 gp, 900 pp, royal robe worth 2500 gp, peridot worth 500 gp, topaz worth 500 gp, quiver with 10 +2 crossbow bolts, potion of diminution , osseous plate

Monster Type Description

Undead are supernatural creatures or spirits that are no longer alive but are still animate. Some have been reanimated by magic spells, such as skeletons . Others, like vampires , are the products of an evil ritual or curse.