Gargantuan
Construct
CR 20
Neutral
Terramachis
Overgrown Lantern Colossus
A hulking, rusted automaton the size of a small keep, Terramachis lumbers with the slow inevitability of an avalanche. Its iron plates are stitched with creeping sod and tufts of grass, fungi and small saplings erupting from seams; moss muffles the clank of its joints. Where a face should be sits a carved jack-o'-lantern helmet, its carved grin split by three vertical eyes that burn with cold amber light. It carries a crooked staff crowned with a gnarled root and a phantom wick that whispers and spits cold flame. Wherever Terramachis passes the ground darkens and the crops around its path wilt, but the grass atop its back grows greener, fed by some unearthly communion between machine and soil.
Armour
19
natural armor (reinforced plates)
Hit points
330
20d20+120
Speed
30ft
Challenge
20
25,000 XP
STR
20
+5
DEX
8
-1
CON
22
+6
INT
14
+2
WIS
18
+4
CHA
12
+1
Saving throws
STR +11, CON +12, WIS +11
Skills
Perception +11, Intimidation +9
Resistances
bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
Damage immunities
poison, psychic
Condition immunities
charmed, exhaustion, frightened, poisoned
Senses
darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 21
Languages
understands Common and Giant but can't speak
Multiattack. The Terramachis makes two Slam attacks and one Staff Strike.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 19 (3d8+5) bludgeoning damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 19 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Staff Strike. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 20 ft., one target. Hit: 27 (6d8+5) bludgeoning damage plus 18 (4d8) necrotic damage as the staff's lantern siphons life into the moss on its back.
Harvesting Gloom (Recharge 5–6). Terramachis plants the tip of its staff in the ground and unleashes a column of cold, earthen shadow in a 60-foot line that is 5 feet wide. Each creature in that line must make a DC 19 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 54 (12d8) necrotic damage and its hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the necrotic damage taken. On a successful save, the creature takes half damage and its hit point maximum is not reduced. A creature whose maximum is reduced to 0 by this effect dies and its corpse sprouts a small, inert sapling that withers after 1 hour.
Overgrowth Grasp (Recharge 6). Terramachis slams the ground; vines and fungus burst from a 30-foot radius centered on it. Each creature of the Terramachis's choice in that area must succeed on a DC 19 Strength saving throw or be restrained as earth and roots bind them. A restrained creature can use an action to attempt a Strength check against DC 19 to break free. The area becomes difficult terrain for 1 minute; the roots wither sooner if Terramachis moves at least 30 feet away.
Pumpkin Guard. When a creature Terramachis can see hits it with a melee attack, Terramachis may cause the pumpkin helm to flare. The attacker takes 10 (3d6) fire damage and 10 (3d6) cold damage.
The creature can take 3 legendary actions per round, choosing from the options below.
Detect. Terramachis makes a Wisdom (Perception) check.
Vine Lash. Terramachis makes one Slam attack or causes a whip of root to strike a target within 30 feet: Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 30 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d6+6) bludgeoning damage and the target is pulled up to 10 feet toward Terramachis.
Lantern Flicker. Terramachis fires a jagged bolt of cold flame from one of its three eyes at a target within 120 feet. Ranged Spell Attack: +11 to hit, range 120 ft., one target. Hit: 22 (5d8) cold damage. If the target is a plant creature or an object made of wood, it takes an additional 11 (2d10) necrotic damage.
Summon Rootwight. Terramachis calls up a Rootwight from the earth (use the stats of a wight but re-skinned as an animated, fungal-covered corpse of a small humanoid with vulnerability to fire). The Rootwight appears in an unoccupied space within 60 feet, acts on Terramachis's initiative, and lasts for 3 rounds or until destroyed. Terramachis can't summon another Rootwight while one exists.
Scholars of the Ironwood Academy argue the Terramachis are relics of an age when artisans fused elemental earth to clockwork to guard ancient farmlands. Over centuries, weather and wild growth have turned one such sentinel into the creature folk now whisper of on moonless Hallowtide nights. Farmers on the Wrenfeld Range tell of a single gigantic automaton that rises from a ruined orchard at the turn of each autumn, its pumpkin helm lit with three hungry lamps. The ruined workshop where it first awoke is recorded in the journals of the antiquarian Nerev Kilnwright, who named the construct 'Terramachis'—earth-machine—in his brittle notes. Terramachis prefers lonely groves, ruined estates, and the threshold between cultivated fields and wildwood, where it will patrol a broad circuit. It is not mindlessly hostile: it zealously defends what it deems its patch of earth, and it will harvest living things to feed the verdant growth on its back. Some cults — notably the Gleaning Covenant of Voren Marsh — venerate the machine as a harvest deity, leaving offerings of seed and soot to pacify it. Raiders who hunt those cults learn quickly that the Terramachis is neither mere guardian nor simple guardian-automaton; it is a slow, relentless force that reshapes land around it and can call up rootwork and shadow to bind intruders.
A gargantuan construct of patch-rusted iron and hammered bronze plates roughly the height of a two-story house. Its torso is wide and squat, segmented like a seed pod, with broad, slab-like shoulders that sprout a carpet of grasses, small ferns, and the occasional sapling. Chains and old irrigation pipes dangle like tendrils. Joints are bolted with swollen rivets and sealed by leather flanges now softened into moss. The head is a carved pumpkin-shaped helm of dull orange metal, cut with a grinning maw and three vertical eye-slits filled with flickering amber light; the inner edges of the cutouts are scorched as if from an eternal candle flame. In its right hand it holds a staff of twisted root and iron, about as tall as a man, crowned by a hollow lantern of bone and vine where a ghostly candle burns. The left arm terminates in a broad hand of layered plates and hooked fingers capable of uprooting stone. Scale reference: Terramachis stands roughly 25–30 feet tall; a human figure reaches close to the base of its shin. Textures: heavy crosshatched rust, shaggy moss tufts, fibrous roots, and rigid, pitted metal. Artist should emphasize imperfect, overgrown machinery, the three-lensed jack-o'-lantern helm, and subtle bioluminescent fungi dotted on its shoulders.
Made with the free LoreKeeper Monster Generator · D&D 5e-compatible stat block · Free to use at your table · Licence
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