Tomb Tapper (CR 13)
Huge Construct
Alignment: Always neutral
Initiative: +0; Senses: Listen +16 and Spot +16
Languages: understand Common, Netherese, and Undercommon, cannot speak; telepathy 100 ft.
AC: 25 (-2 size, +2 Dex, +1S natural) touch 10, flat-footed 23
Hit Dice: 16d10+40 (128 hp); DR: DR 10/adamantine
Fort +5, Ref +7, Will +7
Speed: 40 ft., burrow 10 ft.
Space: 15 ft./15 ft.
Base Attack +12; Grapple +30
Attack: Adamantine +1 throwing returning maul +22 melee or slam +20 melee or adamantine +1 throwing returning maul +14 ranged
Full Attack: Adamantine +1 throwing returning maul +22/+17/+12 melee and bite +15 melee or 2 slams +20 melee (2d6+10) and bite +15 melee or adamantine +1 throwing returning maul +14 ranged
Damage: Adamantine +1 throwing returning maul 3d8+16/19-20/x3, bite 2d8+5, slams 2d6+10
Special Attacks: Maul, spell-like abilities
Abilities: Str 30, Dex 14, Con -, Int 14, Wis 11, Cha 16
Special Qualities: blindness immunities, construct traits, immunity to fire, repair, resistance to cold 10 and electricity 10
Feats: Cleave; Improved Critical (maul); Iron Will; Power Attack; Weapon Focus (maul)
Skills: Appraise +14, Listen +16, Search +18, Spot +16, and Survival +16 (+18 following tracks)
Advancement: 17-32 HD (Huge)
Climate/Terrain: Underground
Organization: Solitary, pair, team (3-4), or dig (10-20)
Treasure/Possessions: Double items, maul
Source:
Lost Empires of Faerûn
This ebon giant stands more than 15 feet tall. Its face is a blank, smooth oval, and its body is smooth and featureless except for an enormous maw that gapes in the center of its torso. It wears no armor or clothing but carries a huge, two-handed hammer.
Tomb tappers, also called thaalud, are ancient constructs first created many centuries ago by the mighty arcanists of Netheril. Designed to be tireless weapons in the arcanists' battles against the phaerimms, the tomb tappers became an independent race of intelligent constructs after Netheril's fall. Now they roam the deep places of the world, seeking magic.
A tomb tapper is a faceless being made of enchanted rock and iron. It stands about 16 feet tall and weighs about 16,000 pounds. Each one carries an enormous maul.
Thaalud are driven by their ancient imperatives to hoard magic, and they often tunnel into forgotten crypts to pillage their treasures - hence their common name. Nor are these creatures above robbing adventurers of their magic items. Thaalud revere magic to the point that they usually conceal their prizes in hidden vaults instead of making use of them.
A tomb tapper can burrow through solid stone with its iron-hard talons and rock-shredding maw. A tomb tapper does not leave a usable tunnel, but its passage creates a cylindrical area of pulverized stone 10 feet in diameter. Other creatures that can't burrow through rock can still burrow through the tomb tapper's rubble, and anyone willing to dig can shovel out enough rubble to make a passage.
Tomb tappers understand Common, Netherese, and Undercommon, but they do not speak. They can communicate with others using telepathy, but they rarely say more than "Drop your magic items and run away."
Combat
Tomb tappers make good use of their tremorsense and burrowing abilities to approach potential enemies from all angles, often emerging from the rock in unexpected places.
Blindsight (Ex): A tomb tapper can ascertain all foes within 120 feet as a sighted creature would. Beyond that range, it treats all foes as having total concealment. Negating a tomb tapper's sense of hearing (for example, by using a silence spell) negates this ability.
Blindness Immunities (Ex): Because it is sightless, a tomb tapper is immune to gaze attacks, visual effects, illusions, and other attack forms that rely on sight.
Construct Traits: A tomb tapper has immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, death effects, necromancy effects, mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects), and any effect that requires a Fortitude save unless it also works on objects or is harmless. It is not subject to extra damage from critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, or energy drain. It cannot heal damage, but can be repaired. It has darkvision out to 60 feet and low-light vision.
Maul: Each tomb tapper is created with an adamantine +1 maul sized for it. In the hands of a tomb tapper, the weapon gains the throwing and returning special abilities. A thaalud that loses its maul searches tirelessly for it. If a maul is destroyed, the thaalud that created it can make a new one from 100 pounds of adamantine after one year.
Repair (Su): A stone shape effect repairs damage equal to 1d8 + caster level if used on a tomb tapper. The creature can use its own spell-like abilities to repair itself.
Spell-Like Abilities: At will-detect magic; 7/day-stone shape; 3/day-spike stones (DC 17). Caster level 8th.
Telepathy (Su): A tomb tapper can communicate with any creature within 100 feet that has a language.
Tremorsense (Ex): Tomb tappers can automatically sense the location of anything within 60 feet that is in contact with the ground.
Construction
While the secrets of thaalud construction have long been lost to the world at large, the tomb tappers know the secret of making more of their kind. They usually choose to replace destroyed individuals, but they never increase their total number.
Five thaalud cooperating with each other can fashion a new tomb tapper in 100 days. The exact requirements of the ritual are not known, but the tomb tappers must fashion the new individual's body from stone, iron, and at least 10,000 gp worth of adamantine.
IN THE REALMS
Tomb tappers were created during Netheril's great battle against the phaerimms. The tomb tappers' obsession about magic items sometimes takes second place to opportunities to strike against their ancient adversaries.
When adventurers are deep in their cups, they sometimes talk about "The Tomb." The legend is that the tomb tappers have a central vault, a sort of temple, deep beneath what is now the Anauroch Desert. The area nearer the surface is within the ban imposed by the sharns to contain the phaerimms, but the earth miles and miles below the surface might be free of the ban. The legend is that all the magic items the tomb tappers seize eventually make their way to that vault, making it the single richest hoard in the Realms. If the legend is true, it's also probably one of the best defended hoards in the Realms.