Aura of Mortality. Creatures within 120 feet of the bone titan have disadvantage on their death saving throws. Whenever a creature at 0 hit points receives healing and returns to consciousness, they become frightened of the bone titan until the end of their next turn. In addition, magical healing in the area of effect is reduced to half, rounded up.
Bone Prison. When a Large or smaller creature is reduced to 0 hit points by the bone titan's slam attack, its unconscious body is drawn into the bone titan's body and it is considered restrained. While trapped within the bone titan, the creature is visible, but has three-quarters cover from attacks originating outside of the bone titan. When an unconscious creature starts its turn inside of the bone titan, it automatically fails its death saving throw. When a creature trapped in the bone titan returns to consciousness, they are immediately expelled from the bone titan's body, landing in an unoccupied space adjacent to the bone titan. If a creature dies while held within the bone titan, their soul is absorbed and the bone titan gains 4d8 temporary hit points. A creature that dies in this way cannot be revived by any means short of a wish spell, unless the bone titan is defeated, in which case they may be resurrected normally.
Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If the bone titan fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.
Magic Resistance. The bone titan has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
Turn Immunity. The bone titan is immune to effects that turn undead.
Multiattack. The bone titan uses its Soul-Rending Scream if it is available, and then makes three slam attacks. Alternatively, it may replace the slam attacks with six uses of its Wraith Shot.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +19 to hit, reach 30 ft., 15 ft. cube centered on a target within range. Hit: 36 (4d12 + 10) bludgeoning damage. On a hit or miss, the target and all creatures within a 15-foot cube centered on that target must make a DC 23 Dexterity saving throw, taking 13 (2d12) bludgeoning damage and falling prone on a failure, while only taking half damage and not falling prone on a success.
Wraith Shot. The bone titan opens its mouth, disgorging a swarm of wraith-like shadows that swirl around it before flying towards enemies the bone titan can see within 120 feet of it, assailing them with necrotic energy. Each target of a wraith must make a DC 23 Dexterity saving throw. A creature targeted by multiple wraiths makes a single saving throw at disadvantage. On a failure, creatures take 22 (4d10) necrotic damage per wraith that targeted them, and have their movement speed reduced by 10 feet per wraith that targeted them until the end of their next turn. On a success, a creature takes half damage and does not have its movement speed reduced.
Soul-Rending Scream (Recharge 5 - 6). The bone titan looses a grating scream that affects nearby creatures to their very cores. Every creature within 120 feet of the bone titan that can hear it must make a DC 23 Charisma saving throw, taking 35 (10d6) psychic damage on a failure and half as much on a success. On a failure, the creature is also stunned until the start of the bone titan's next turn. This features has no effect on constructs or undead.
The bone titan can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature's turn. The bone titan regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
Slam. The bone titan makes one slam attack.
Call Skeletons (Costs 2 Actions). The bone titan screams, summoning 5d4 skeletons or 2 giant skeletons, which crawl up from the earth into unoccupied spaces within 120 feet of the bone titan. If the bone titan uses this action again, all previously summoned skeletons fall apart into lifeless piles of bones.
Reposition. The bone titan moves up to its movement speed.
Description
A band of adventurers strikes out across the stinking bog, their path weaving between muddy sinkholes and stinking, stagnant pools. Beneath the fetid waters rest a thousand dead, the decaying remains of a great battle, fought many years ago. As the adventurers pause to rest their weary legs, a yawning pit opens beneath them. A sinkhole of mud, bones and putrescence threatens to swallow them whole, and crawling from its depths appears a horned, grinning skeleton larger than any creature they have ever witnessed. Opening its fanged mouth, the Bone Titan lets loose an otherworldly shriek, and begins dragging the earth back over its precious prey.
Grim Guardian. Accompanied by an aura of dread and the stench of rotting meat, a Bone Titan appears only in a location oozing with death and despair. Drawn to areas steeped in dense necrotic energy, these malevolent spirits are drawn to the scent of decay. Be it an ancient, bloody battlefield, the forgotten burial mounds of a lost civilization, or a mass grave left in the wake of a terrible tragedy, only the most gruesome of graveyards will attract the spirit of a Bone Titan, which quickly becomes intoxicated on the necrotic energies present, binding itself to the bones of the fallen and becoming trapped in the process. While the Bone Titan draws together the remains of the deceased, constructing itself an enormous, malformed skeleton out of a thousand dead, its essence becomes tied to the land it now inhabits, ensnared for eternity.
Bound By Bone. By the time it has finished constructing its new form, the Bone Titan inhabits a monstrous skeleton larger than any giant, rivaling the most ancient of dragons in size and terror. It spends most of its eternal imprisonment buried beneath the soil of its domain, observing the world above through the eyes of its undead servants. When it does emerge, the skeletal figure remains buried from the waist down, forever incapable of parting its essence from the land it inhabits. The skeleton, while gargantuan, appears mostly humanoid, but topped with a skull bearing otherworldly traits. These might include a crown of curling, obsidian horns, extra eye sockets numbering in the dozens, or a row of spear-like tusks protruding from the lower jaw. It is unknown why the Bone Titan affects its appearance so, or if the nature of its appearance is even a conscious decision on the spirit's part during construction.
Death March. As powerful as a Bone Titan is, it is greatly limited by its entrapment within the corrupted earth that first lured it to take form. As it cannot leave the confines of its necrotic domain, it instead seeks to expand the influence of its corruption, thus expanding the territory it may freely roam. To this end, the Bone Titan spends its time creating large, skeletal armies from the remains of the fallen that dwell within its lair, sending them out across the neighboring region to spread death and destruction. When travelers or adventurers enter its domain, the Bone Titan lays in wait before springing its trap, hoping to add such mortals to its undead ranks.
Enemy of All. A terror to behold and a plague if left unchecked, the Bone Titan is hated and feared by all who know of it. This enmity extends to the denizens of the Outer Planes, who view the Bone Titan as a vast and dangerous usurper of mortal-kind. Celestials and fiends alike hold contempt for this pathetic, imprisoned creature that wields a power greater even than their own. Some mortals who bear witness to the Bone Titan's might will even turn away from the gods, forming fanatical death-cults to worship one of these wayward behemoths in their place. Fearing for their influence and followers should the Bone Titan's growth be left unchecked, denizens of the Upper and Lower Planes will often find the appearance of one of these beings as a rare catalyst for cooperation. Extra-planar skirmishes and wars, even the mighty and eternal Blood War fought between devils and demons, will sometimes be placed on hold while a Bone Titan's threat is dealt with.
Undead Nature. The bone titan doesn’t require air, food, drink, or sleep.
Lair and Lair Actions
Bone titans are born from lands where death has seeped deep beneath the soil and begun to fester. A bone titan's lair is a grim, lifeless place, usually one associated with mortality and decay. Examples of such could include an ancient, blood-soaked battleground, the forgotten burial mound of an extinct civilization, or a tragic and gruesome mass grave, left behind after a senseless slaughter. Whatever the case, a bone titan will only appear in desolate, despair-filled locales where necrotic energies have infected the very land itself.
Lair Actions
On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the bone titan takes a lair action to cause one of the following effects; the bone titan can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row:
- A 20-foot radius section of the ground centered on a point the bone titan chooses within 120 feet of it becomes loose and muddy until the bone titan dismisses it as an action, uses this lair action again, or dies. The area becomes difficult terrain, and any creature that starts its turn in the area or enters the area for the first time on their turn must make a DC 18 Strength saving throw or have their walking speed reduced to 0 until the beginning of their next turn.
- A cloud of swarming insects fills a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on a point the bone titan chooses within 120 feet of it. The cloud spreads around corners and remains until the bone titan dismisses it as an action, uses this lair action again, or dies. The cloud lightly obscures its area. Any creature in the cloud when it appears or that ends its turn within the cloud must make a DC 18 Constitution saving throw, taking 14 (4d6) piercing damage and 14 (4d6) poison damage on a failure.
- Six enormous shards of bone erupt from the earth at locations of the bone titan's choosing. Each bone shard is 5 feet wide and 20 feet tall, and must occupy a space the bone titan can see within 90 feet of it. If the bone shard erupts within a space occupied by a creature, that creature must make a DC 18 Dexterity saving throw, taking 16 (3d10) piercing damage on a failure and half as much on a success, before being shunted to the nearest unoccupied space beside the bone shard. Each shard has 20 hit points, AC 15, vulnerability to thunder and bludgeoning damage, immunity to poison and psychic damage, and resistance to all other damage types. Shards remain in place until destroyed, until the bone titan dismisses them as an action, or until the bone titan uses this action again.
Regional Effects
The region containing a bone titan's lair is infected by the necrotic energy which created the bone titan, resulting in one or more of the following effects:
- The air within 6 miles of the bone titan's lair is thick with mist, which will occasionally take a vaguely humanoid shape, beckoning for travelers to break away from safer paths.
- Skeletons wander the land within 3 miles of the bone titan's lair. They are friendly to the bone titan and other undead, but attack all other creatures they meet.
- Plant life within 6 miles of the lair cannot survive; even healthy plants or those created by magic whither within seconds as they are consumed by necrotic energy.
If the bone titan is destroyed, all skeletons in the area are also destroyed immediately. All other effects fade over 3d10 days, though dead plant life may take longer to grow back depending on the area.
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