Remorhaz 5e Guide: Heated Body, Swallow, and a Winter Pass Encounter
This guide uses the 2014 D&D 5e rules and SRD 5.1. Open the for its statistics. The winter pass, retrieval job, and pursuit behavior are original encounter material.
Monster overview
A remorhaz is a Huge monstrosity with a long segmented body, rows of clawed legs, and a broad head armed with mandibles. Its body radiates enough heat to injure creatures at close quarters. In a snowbound pass, meltwater and steam can reveal that a predator is moving beneath the surface before its head breaks through.
The CR 11 adult can burrow below a trail, grab a traveler in its jaws, and swallow them on a later turn. A pass with patches of bare rock and loose ground gives the party decisions before any of that happens. Place a warning sign well before bite range and let the players choose where they stand when it surfaces.
How to run Heated Body and tremorsense
A creature takes 10 (3d6) fire damage if it touches the remorhaz or hits it with a melee attack from within 5 feet. Simply standing nearby doesn’t deal damage. A character attacking with a reach weapon from outside 5 feet avoids the melee-hit trigger if they keep their distance. The remorhaz is immune to fire and cold damage, so plan for other damage types.
Its 60-foot tremorsense detects and pinpoints vibrations when the remorhaz and their source are in contact with the same ground or substance. It has a 20-foot burrowing speed and a 30-foot walking speed. Solid rock stops its burrow, but it can detect footsteps through connected ground and come up beside the rock if it has a route. Use ridges of shifting snow or plumes of steam to show where it’s close to the surface. Earth between a buried remorhaz and the party can provide total cover.
How the bite leads to Swallow
The bite reaches 10 feet and deals piercing plus fire damage. When it hits a creature, that creature is grappled and restrained with an escape DC of 17. The remorhaz can’t bite another target during that grapple. Use the normal grapple and restraint rules if an ally can move the victim or the monster beyond its reach. The victim can also use an action to try to escape.
Swallow uses a separate action. It makes another bite attack against a Medium or smaller creature already in its jaws. On a hit the creature takes the bite damage, the grapple ends, and the creature is swallowed. Call out the grapple as soon as it happens so the party knows when it can intervene.
A swallowed creature is blinded and restrained, has total cover from effects outside the monster, and takes 21 (6d6) acid damage at the start of the remorhaz’s turns. If a creature inside deals at least 30 damage to it in a single turn, the remorhaz makes a DC 15 Constitution save at the end of that turn. Failure forces it to spit out every swallowed creature, which lands prone within 10 feet. Damage from allies outside can kill the remorhaz. Once it dies, a swallowed creature can use 15 feet of movement to escape the corpse and exit prone.
Ready to run — The storm lantern
Situation. A courier reached the pass shelter after one remorhaz overturned their sled. The brass storm lantern still hangs from the sled’s rack. The shelter keeper needs it to light the return trail for a caravan due before dark.
Layout. The party arrives on a bedrock shelf overlooking a 60-foot stretch of snow and loose gravel. The shelf is 20 feet above the sled, which lies directly below its edge. A broad ramp connects the shelf to the trail 40 feet west of the sled. A 4-foot-wide cleft at the back of the shelf leads to the shelter trail. The remorhaz begins 5 feet below the loose ground, 30 feet east of the sled.
Opening. From the shelf, the characters can see the lantern’s wire handle and a steaming seam in the snow moving away from the sled. The courier lends them a 50-foot rope with a hook. They know the monster surfaced when the sled struck the gravel, and that it left the lantern behind.
Choices. Two characters can lower the hook from the shelf, snag the handle, and pull up the lantern in one minute. With both characters on the rock and the hook handled gently, the remorhaz keeps following the old sled trail east during the retrieval. If the party is already in initiative, one character can spend an action to lower and set the hook with a DC 12 Dexterity check. A second can spend an action to haul the lantern up after a successful hook. On a failure the hook slips and can be tried again. These are rulings for this scene.
If combat begins. Roll initiative if someone steps into the loose gravel or lets the hook clatter against the sled. The remorhaz turns toward the disturbance. It moves using its burrow speed until it surfaces, then uses the ramp if it needs to reach the shelf. If it grabs a character, it tries to swallow them on its next turn if the grapple holds and the target is the right size. It withdraws into the snow at 50 hit points or fewer. The cleft is too narrow for the Huge creature to squeeze through, and its walls are solid rock.
Finish. Returning the lantern earns 200 gp and lets the keeper signal the caravan. Without the signal, the caravan waits at the last safe shelter. If the party retreats without the lantern, the keeper asks them to help find a different route.
Prepare for your party
A bite averages 50 damage before any follow-up, so use the encounter balancing guide to check whether the party can survive a direct fight. For a safer retrieval, leave the lantern detached from the sled and put the ramp farther from the shelf’s edge. For a harder one, let a strap snag the lantern on the rack. The party can still free it from the shelf by lowering a hooked blade and taking an extra action to cut the strap. The steam, loose ground, and visible escape route can also frame other northern wilderness encounters.