The Strange Bestiary
Dangerous things stalk the lightless Roads of Sorrow in the Night Vault, things terrible and fearsome that lie in wait to snatch the unwary and drag them away. Things like the night wyrm—probably.
Conjectures and half-truths are all that most people know about night wyrms because victims don't survive to tell the tale of the encounter. Instead, people know of it by the skin it sheds and leaves discarded in the deep places, by the cracked, slippery bones of digested victims, and by the infrequent glimpse of its lambent eyes that peer out from the darkness and pin observers in place with cold terror. And, of course, by the screams of snatched victims silenced with shocking abruptness.
The night wyrm looks like an enormous snake, easily 50 feet (15 m) long and possibly longer. Glossy black scales, each as hard as iron, cover its body and fade to grey on its underside. Two rows of three eyes march along its head, each emitting soft yellow light that intensifies when it closes in to make the kill.
Once it kills or paralyzes a victim, a night wyrm drags off the carcass and swallows it over the course of a minute. It takes the night wyrm several hours to digest a human-sized creature.
Motive: Hungers for flesh
Environment (Ardeyn | Magic): Anywhere on the Roads of Sorrow
Health: 18
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (6 points)
Armor: 3
Movement: Short another creature within short range of the initial target. If it succeeds, the secondary target is caught, and in subsequent rounds automatically takes 6 points of crushing damage. The caught target must succeed on a Might-based task to break free.
Interaction: The night wyrm is a predator and regards other creatures as food. It ignores other creatures while it digests a meal.
Use: The night wyrm is a patient and cunning hunter. The PCs might hear faint sounds of its movement or glimpse its gleaming yellow eyes from a distance as it stalks them through the Roads of Sorrow.
Loot: The night wyrm's droppings or gullet might hold a few cyphers, 3d100 golden crowns, and possibly an artifact that the creature could not digest.
GM Intrusion: The night wyrm's venom affects the character more strongly. Instead of being paralyzed for one round, the victim is paralyzed for one minute, though after a couple of rounds, she is allowed to make another Might defense roll to throw off the effects of the poison early.
GM Intrusion: The night wyrm misses with an attack but catches a piece of the character's armor (reducing the Armor value by 1 until it's repaired) or something the character is carrying.