False Appearance. While the aurumvorax is asleep and remains motionless, it is nearly indistinguishable from a rock made of gold (DC 20 Investigation check to distinguish).
Grappler. The aurumvorax has advantage on attack rolls against any creature grappled by it.
Treasure Sense. The aurumvorax can pinpoint, by scent, the location of precious metals such as gold and platinum regardless of form including items such as coins, within 60 feet of it.
Brute. A melee weapon deals one extra die of its damage when the aurumvorax hits with it (included in the attack).
Metal Eater. The aurumvorax is able to eat metal as a source of food. Any object, including weapons and armor, made of metal that is damaged by the aurumvorax's bite attack takes a permanent and cumulative −1 penalty to damage rolls or if it is an object that provides a bonus to AC, such as metal armor or a metal shield being worn or carried, it takes a permanent and cumulative −1 penalty to the AC it offers. Armor reduced to an AC of 10, a shield that drops to a +0 bonus, or a weapon that has its penalty drops to −5 is destroyed.
Multiattack. The aurumvorax makes three attacks: one with its Bite and two with its claws.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) piercing damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 13). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, the aurumvorax can bite only the grappled creature and has advantage on attack rolls to do so.
Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (3d4 + 3) slashing damage.
Description
Golden Gorgers. The aurumvorax was a small, shaggy hole-dwelling creature with eight legs that was able to eat gold. It was sometimes used to locate gold, being able to detect and find its veins in the ground. It was not fearful and could become vicious, able to defend itself against formidable creatures like chimera.
As simple animals, they do not speak a language, and their innate jealousy at guarding their territory makes them uncooperative animals at best to encounter, when fully grown, an aurumvorax measured around 3' (1 m) in length and 18" (0.5 m) in height. It had a hide of 3"-long, golden fur, It weighed around 500 pounds (227 kg). Its eyes were silver, with bronze whiskers. Its claws and teeth were copper-colored.
Burrowers. The aurumvorax was found in light forests or near the timberline of mountains. Although it occasionally lived at the bottoms of ravines, it was more usual to find an aurumvorax burrow in the side of a hill. The burrow would normally extend through the top soil and into the rock beneath where its enormous weight could be supported. Where possible, the aurumvorax would burrow into rock rich in gold ore. The burrow normally contained a small reserve of ore nuggets as a food supply.
Solidary Creatures. Except when mating, the aurumvorax was solitary, patrolling an area of around ten square miles. They only sought mates once every eight or nine years, spending three or four weeks with a partner. The female usually gave birth to around half a dozen offspring.
Unusual Diet. The aurumvorax had to eat gold in order to survive (except the Cormanthor aurumvorax), although it would also eat meat and other metals. Without gold, it would become ill and die in around a week, unless it had access to platinum, which could prolong its life by three weeks. The gold in its diet gave the aurumvorax the color in its golden fur. Aurumvoraxes are carnivores with a diet supplemented by precious metals, generally gold. Their burrows often continue into solid rock and are usually littered with nuggets of ore as a food supply. The typical golden gorger is 3 feet long with coppery metallic alloy claws and and metallic fur that distracts enemies with its sheen even while the creature fights for one's life.
Brutal Family. The young of the aurumvorax were called kittens and were born hairless, with their eyes closed for the first two weeks. Most would die due to lack of gold, but the survivors stayed with the mother for up to six years before becoming fully grown and independent, although they could reach full maturity much faster if their diet was rich in gold, which was not normally an option in the wild. It was not unknown for the mother to eat its own young when gold was scarce.
Golden Sleeper. The aurumvorax could hibernate, usually during the winter, and during this time it buried itself in the ground. Although it usually breathed through its nostrils, while hibernating it breathed through its skin, a small patch of which it left exposed, above the ground. This could easily be confused for gold. It could be woken easily at any point during its hibernation, reacting fiercely and angrily to any disturbance.
Tough and Valuable. An aurumvorax's saliva was highly corrosive to metal. The aurumvorax was immune to all normal toxins and could not be poisoned, and blunt weapons did it very little damage as a consequence of its high density. It also had an extremely high tolerance to heat, being able to survive all but the largest of fires.
The meat of the aurumvorax was highly toxic to other creatures, resulting in metal poisoning. Aurumvorax could eat their own kind safely. If its corpse was incinerated, up to 200 pounds (91 kg) of gold could be left behind.
Aurumvorax hide could also be adapted to be worn as armor, which provided near-immunity to gold, but the intricate and time-consuming process of turning its hide into armor was very costly. The hide was sometimes made into a bed fur or a cape for a dwarven wedding. Parts of the aurumvorax, due to their combination of bone and metal, could be made into decorative objects or jewelry. The golden-furred hide was highly prized, capable of fetching any where between 15,000–20,000 gold pieces.
Fearless Combatants. Near totally fearless, aurumvoraxes charge into battle whenever they feel their territory or themselves threatened. They can also be lured out by the prospects of easy food, especially when refined gold is part of the lure.
While they rarely hesitate in battle, they always attack with their powerful bites first. Once that is engaged, they utilize their sharp claws. They commonly attack with at least two claws, but can use claw attacks depending on where they have locked onto a foe.
Subspecies in The Forgotten Realms. The Cormanthor aurumvorax could be found in the rimwood and midwood areas of the forest of Cormanthor. It was introduced to the forest in the 1000s DR by a group of treasure hunters from Ylraphon, in an attempt to discover gold in the area. Although the aurumvorax found gold, they became very protective over it, and devoured their masters when they tried to get to the gold.
Although the aurumvorax thrived in the plains of the rimwood east of the River Lis, making many holes in the ground in that area, the gold on which their diet was based was gone within a decade, and they were forced to adapt to a different diet. Their digestive systems adapted to allow it to eat iron ore, onyx, and other minerals. Its hide also changed as a result, becoming mottled with dull red and blue streaks. As a result, they only fetched 7,500–10,000 gold pieces, about half that of a regular aurumvorax hide. Cormanthor aurumvorax claws were usually bright green or purple, and could fetch up to 100 gold pieces and 1,000 gold pieces, respectively.
Like regular aurumvorax hides, Cormanthor aurumvorax hides could be turned into armor, although the type of near-immunity granted varied depending on the diet of the aurumvorax. It could potentially provide near-immunity against azurite, copper, gold, jade, onyx, opal, silver, or turquoise.
As a strange side-effect from the Cormanthor aurumvorax's non-native surroundings, about one in five suffered from allergies during the spring, causing them to sneeze, expelling their highly corrosive saliva up to 10' (3 m). (this can be represented as a spell like ability similar to the acid splash spell).
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