Beleghost Bestiary — Boss Dossier XV
Something the Valor Mines' own collapse should have killed, years ago, that instead learned to use the cave-ins as a weapon.
The mines already have a boss that opens armored and only gets more so (The Rockheart, stacking DR from the first hit onward). The Hollow Warden was built as its inverse on purpose: it starts exposed, stays exposed through the middle of the fight, and only gets hard to hurt once it's already brought the ceiling down on itself.
A bone-deep grip on whoever's nearest — 2d8+6 bludgeoning, and a failed DC 17 Fortitude save drains 1d4 Strength on top of it. Nothing subtle, just weight.
Everyone within 8 meters loses their footing on a failed DC 18 Will save — a real fighting penalty (−2 attack, −2 AC for 3 rounds), not the full Confusion the module's other mine-adjacent boss already uses. Deliberately a lesser, more targeted effect so the two don't read as reskins of each other.
A moment's warning as dust starts falling, then the ceiling comes down — 4d6 bludgeoning to everything within 8 meters, plus a stun on a failed Fortitude save. The rubble that buries it afterward doesn't hurt it — it becomes DR 10 for the rest of the fight, armor it only earns once, at the very end.
A pure Aberration 7 keeps the module's "real creature" convention (no invented class fiction). HP (72) sits at the same ~15% padding as the compendium's other physical bruiser builds — enough to survive the two open phases without the DR ever feeling unearned once Cave-In finally lands.
Built from scratch, cloned from the module's umber hulk base for the model and Aberration racial entry, then rebuilt entirely. Valor Mines already ran a general spider/horror/bat encounter table but had no named boss.
| Resref | vm_hollowwarden |
|---|---|
| Scripts | vm_hw_spawn · vm_hw_round · vm_hw_death |
| Spawn table | case 106, always / 12% chance, count 1–2 |
| Area wiring | Valor Mines sparky_variables, slot enc04 |