Fantasy Monster: Hungry Hut

You can now support Shaper Of Worlds on Patreon.

Hungry Hut

A rather inconspicuous hut standing in a small grove.

CR 9; XP 6.400
NE Gargantuan Aberration

Init +1; Senses darkvision 60 ft., tremorsense 120 ft.; Perception +15

Defense
AC 23, touch 7, flat-footed 22 (+1 Dex, +16 natural, –4 size)
hp 114 (12d8+60); fast healing 10
Fort +9; Ref +7; Will +12

Defensive Abilities all-around vision; Immune disease, electricity, poison, slowed, staggered

Offense
Speed 10 ft.; creeping

Melee 3 tentacles +16 (1d8+10 plus pull)

Space 20 ft.; Reach 30 ft.

Special Attacks pull (tentacle, 20 ft.), swallowing maw (10d6 acid, AC 18, 22 hp)

Statistics
Str 30, Dex 12, Con 20, Int 11, Wis 19, Cha 13
Base Atk +9; CMB +23; CMD 37 (can't be tripped)

Feats Blind-Fight, Defensive Combat Training, Improved Critical (tentacle), Lightning Reflexes, Vital Strike, Weapon Focus (tentacle)

Skills Disguise +16 (+36 when mimicking buildings), Knowledge (local) +15, Perception +19, Use Magic Device +15

Languages Common, one other local language

SQ mimic building

Ecology
Environment urban or rural
Organization solitary, pair, or neighborhood (3–6)
Treasure standard

Special Abilities

Creeping (Ex) A hungry hut is such massive and lumbering creature, that it ignores difficult terrain, and displaces obstacles that are Large or smaller unless they are part of the ground itself and made of hard stone or harder substance fused with the ground. It can't be knocked prone. Only Colossal creatures or mythic magic can attempt to forcibly move it. Moving through a hungry hut's space requires climbing or running across its roof (and usually triggers swallowing maw).

Mimic Building (Ex) A hungry hut can assume a general shape of a Gargantuan building, such as a hut, a cottage, or a similarly sized house or a building (though never outhouses for some reason). A hungry hut cannot substantially change its size. While most of its body is hard and has rough texture, it can produce softer flaps to mimic things such as curtains. A hungry hut gains +20 racial bonus to Disguise checks to mimic buildings, and it can use it in place of Stealth to avoid being recognized as a threat. Disguise is always a class skill for hungry hut.

Swallowing Maw (Ex) When a Large or smaller creature is pulled to a space adjacent to a hungry hut, or takes an action that would provoke an attack of opportunity while adjacent to a hungry hut, the hungry hut can, as a free action, attempt a grapple check against the creature, swallowing it whole if successful. A hungry hut can have Large or up to four Medium creatures swallowed at the same time, digesting their remains in 1d4 rounds after they die while swallowed. Swallowed creatures gain grappled condition, and can attempt to escape by winning a grapple check, or cutting their way out with a light slashing or piercing weapon, dealing 1/5th of the hut's hit points in the process, similarly to swallow whole universal monster ability.

Hungry huts are quite likely a larger and more dangerous relatives of the common mimics. Too large to fit inside dungeons or most other constructions, they disguise themselves as small buildings instead, either pretending to be a cozy cabin at the edge of forest, an abandoned house in the slums, or, more rarely, together with a few siblings imitate a quiet thorp. 

At least once, denizens of a remote village came to a mutually beneficial deal with one of those creatures, directing bandits, invaders, and other undesirables to a hungry hut living in the middle of the settlement, claiming it to be the headman's house. It took three missing tax collectors and one royal messenger mistaken for the former for the ruse to be discovered. Allegedly, the monster's presence also helped keep in check misbehaving children and stray dogs.

Mawed Mansion (CR 12) are even more dangerous, Colossal-sized specimens with 16 HD. They have AC 27 (–1 Dex, +26 natural, –8 size), hp 184, Fort +12, Ref +6, Will +16; Atk 3 tentacles +15 (2d6+12 plus pull, 40 ft.); Str 34, Dex 8, Con 24; CMB +32 and CMD of 45. They have Iron Will and Improved Vital Strike in addition to hungry huts' regular feats. All their skill bonuses are 3 points higher, and their mimicking abilities are even more developed gaining +30 racial bonus for a total bonus of 49 when disguised as buildings. They occupy 30-ft. space, and have 60 ft. reach with their tentacles. Their swallowing maw inflicts 10d10 points of acid damage, escaping requires dealing 36 points of damage against the internal AC of 23.