Deep Dive - The Aurumvorax
While some might see a cuddly cat or a ferocious honey badger, the Aurumvorax trumps all of them. The Aurumvorae are dangerous predators that fly into a frenzy when creatures get too close, it smells metal on you, if it is just a bit hungry, or for any number of other reasons. In fact, it doesn’t even need a reason. It just wants to eat, and you and your coin purse are on the menu.
1e - Aurumvorax
Frequency: Very rare
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 0
Move: 9” (3”)
Hit Dice: 12
% in Lair: 30%
Treasure Type: Incidental
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage/Attack: 2-8
Special Attacks: See below
Special Defenses: See below
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Animal
Alignment: Neutral
Size: S
Psionic Ability: Nil
Level/X.P. Value: VII/2850 + 16/hp
Monster Manual 2, 1983 TSR Inc.
This terrifying badger first appears in the adventure Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (1980) and then reprinted in the Monster Manual 2 (1983). Also known as the golden gorger, if that nickname doesn’t tell you all about the creature don’t worry, we’re here to tell you. They are mean and vicious, like the beloved honey badger, and will rip you apart. Despite their small size, only a foot-and-a-half tall and three feet long, they weigh over 500 pounds. Their muscles and bones are deceptively heavy, and despite their immense weight, they are incredibly fast. Probably because they have eight legs to scurry about on.
This tough hide provides them with a plethora of advantages. The Aurumvorax takes half damage from bludgeoning weapons, so when your party’s dwarf slams their hammer into the golden badger, they will be frustrated by their lack of success. Additionally, regular fire is little more than a nuisance to these very upset cats, and even magical fire only deals half its normal damage to them. If you hunt one of these down and hope a cloudkill will save you, since fireball won’t, you are going to be very disappointed since poisons and gasses do not harm them at all. We guess that the gasses just cannot permeate their thick hide and their lungs are built out of lead-lined bricks. Basically, the Aurumvorax don’t care.
If maybe you are hoping to avoid these terrifying spider-cats, we recommend avoiding the plains or lightly forested areas, which kind of makes it sound like you should avoid all of Fantasyland. If you do find them, well, more likely they find you since they are ambush predators, you are in to be a treat. They have a 50% chance of surprising their prey and quickly charging into battle. Their main method of attack is to bite onto their prey, dealing 2d4 damage, and then never letting go.
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, 1980 TSR Inc.
If they do bite you, get ready as every round they automatically deal 8 damage from their bite, and then get to use 2d4 of their claws to make attacks against you. That’s right, at minimum, you have to watch out for 2 of their claws, or all 8 of their claws as they start raking and tearing into your flesh. If you are hoping they’ll eventually let go of you or you can escape their chompers, the statistics of the Aurumvorax helpfully inform us that only death will unlock their jaws. It doesn’t specify any particular creature’s death, so we suppose these danger-weasels will only let go once you die, or in the unlikely event that they die.
If you are successful in killing an Aurumvorax, even with their 12-hit die and incredible defenses, you do get a reward. No, it’s not the many, many new scars and gaping wounds, but rather its corpse. The Aurumvorax is a beautiful creature with eight legs all ending in razor-sharp golden claws. Its teeth, which were just recently latched onto you, are copper in color, while its whiskers and mane are a tawny-bronze color. Additionally, its coat of fur is golden in color, probably where its nickname, the golden gorger, comes from. While there is no inherent value assigned to the body of an Aurumvorax, imagine how killer it’d look if you got it taxidermied and placed in your study in a ferocious pose!
In Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, the Aurumvorax is alone in a menagerie - this is because it ate everyone else in there. Seeing as how the ‘Barrier Peaks’ is actually a giant spaceship, we can only imagine the horrific monsters that must’ve also been in the menagerie, what the Aurumvorax did to survive, and just how powerful these aliens must’ve been to contain such a foul creature.
Dragon #132, April 1988 TSR Inc. / Jim Holloway
The Ecology of the Aurumvorax appears in Dragon #132 (April 1988), written by Mark Feil, and tells the story of a wizard who has a pet Aurumvorax. This seems like a monumentally bad idea to us, but what do we know? In the article, the mage must explain to a vain noble all about the Aurumvorax, though leaves out the important bits like how the creatures are immune to poison and resistant to bludgeoning damage… which ends how you might imagine, a dead noble and a happy Aurumvorax with a full belly.
In addition to the noble sacrifice to the great Aurumvorax, we also get a bit more information on these noble-weasels. First off, Aurumvorae are required to consume a considerable amount of gold, along with delicious meat, to live. One can only assume that this is where its golden color comes from, although it is not specifically stated. We also find out that when you kill the rapid weasel and, for some reason, decide to have Aurumvorax steaks for dinner, you’ll be subject to severe metal poisoning. It will cause anywhere from severe cramps to a painful death. We recommend you forgo this path and roast the creature, which will separate the gold from its corpse. Then you can buy all the steaks you want.
In addition, an Aurumvorax can give birth to a litter of 5-8 cuddly gold badgers. Her spawn are angry all the time and will attack pretty much anything that crosses their path, not caring about life or death because they are incredibly hardcore predators. The mom will raise them with love unless there is no gold nearby, at which time she will eat them to survive. If you do find one of these pups, they can be trained to be a pet if you get them young enough. Hopefully, you can regenerate fingers if you decide to take one home from the animal shelter as they are known for having a particularly bad teething stage.
2e - Aurumvorax
Climate/Terrain: Temperate Hills
Frequency: Very rare
Organization: Solitary
Activity Cycle: Day
Diet: Carnivore (see below)
Intelligence: Animal (1)
Treasure: Special
Alignment: Neutral
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: 0
Movement: 9, Br 3
Hit Dice: 12
THAC0: 9
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage/Attack: 2-8
Special Attacks: 2-8 claws for 2-8 each
Special Defenses: See below
Magic Resistance: Nil
Size: S (3’ long)
Morale: Fearless (19-20)
XP Value: 9,000
Monstrous Manual, 1993 TSR Inc.
Found in the Monstrous Manual (1993), there is precious little new information about the Aurumvorax. Tread lightly when you enter their territory because our tiny golden badger will charge you with the fury of a thousand burning suns, and that’s when it’s in a good mood! They are jealous creatures, defending said territory against all creatures, including other Aurumvorae. Of course, if it’s the mating season, which happens once every eight years, they will let that special friend come on in for a visit. It’s a short-lived relationship. After a week, the visitor will leave, and the female will give birth to her litter of golden babies.
There’s a good amount of information about what you can get from the Aurumvorax if you manage to kill one, and that’s a big ‘if’. The hide can be turned into a beautiful cloak of strength and beauty worth up to twenty-thousand gold. Depending on how bit the Aurumvorax was that you killed, the armor class of your cloak is going to be different. A small, merely thirty-pound cloak is AC 4, forty pounds is AC 5, and fifty pounds is AC 2, all of which provide a +4 bonus on saving throws against non-magical fire and a +2 bonus on saving throws against magical fire.
In addition, you can decide to roast the creature, since they devour precious ore like gold, allowing you to recover the metal that gives them their immense weight and toughness. Roasting the Aurumvorax produces 150-200 pounds of gold, and if the hide is left on the creature, you gain an additional 20 to 40 pounds of gold melt from the creature’s corpse. Even its teeth and claws are worth a single gold piece each! You will be loaded if you can take down an Aurumvorax, and you somehow survive… which is good, you’ll need all that money to pay for your hospital visit. Turns out, being mauled by Aurumvorax is an act of god and isn’t covered by insurance!
Speaking of gods, Demihuman Deities (1998) provides a bit of information on the Aurumvorax, specifically that they are sometimes used as messengers of various gnomish and dwarven gods. While we don’t think of Aurumovorae as the most… divine of beings, they at least look the part with fur of gold and teeth of death.
Lastly, the famed mage Elminster talks about the Aurumvorax in Elminster’s Ecologies (1994). Poor Elminster sprained his ankle when he wandered into Aurumvorax territory, stepping into one of the many holes the burrowing creature made. It lived in the plains rimmed with woods, rich with gold which the Aurumvorax needed to eat to survive. The Aurumvorae eventually had to leave their normal territory within Cormanthor, located within the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, since they had devoured all the gold in their native land. It’s a shame they couldn’t simply feed on more adventurers to supplement their gold needs.
Luckily, natural selection helped the Aurumvorax survive, as they adapted to be able to digest not just gold but gems and other precious minerals. These Aurumvorae also reduced the amount they needed to consume by hibernating for up to 3 months. When you’re curled up in the mud, dreaming of gnawing the fingers from an especially tasty adventurer, you don’t need to eat your daily diet of gold. They are very light sleepers, so if you stumble upon a sleeping Aurumvorax, it will awaken, hungry and pissed that you interrupted its slumber.
One last odd tidbit. In the spring, the Aurumvorax suffers from allergies. Yes, you heard us right. It sneezes like crazy, which, while annoying to the Aurumvorax, can ruin not only your day but your metal armor too. Its snot corrodes metal, so stay far back unless you want your shiny armor to dissolve into nothingness as it sprays boogers all over you. And then bites you. And never lets go.
3e - Aurumvorax
Small Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 10d10+10 (65)
Initiative: +7 (Dex)
Speed: 20 ft.; burrow 5 ft.
Armor Class: 23 (+1 size, +3 Dex, +9 natural)
Attacks: Bite +11 melee, 4 claws +9 melee
Damage: Bite 1d4, claw 1d3 each
Face/Reach: 5 ft. by 5 ft. / 5 ft.
Special Attacks: Improved Grab, Rend 2d3
Saves: Fortitude +8, Reflex +10, Will +0
Abilities: Str 11, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 3, Wis 12, Cha 12
Skills: Listen +7, Spot +7, Hide +9, Move Silently +4
Feats: Improved Initiative, Multiattack (claws), Iron Will
Climate/Terrain: Temperate hills and mountains
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 7
Treasure: Special (The aurumvorax's hide, if undamaged, is worth in excess of 3,000 gp.
Alignment: Always neutral
Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk, 2007 Paizo Publishing
Sadly the Aurumvorax has a tragic backstory in this edition, only appearing as a web-exclusive monster in the Wizard of the Coast’s blog series Monster Mayhem in January of 2000, and not appearing again until 2007 with the adventure Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk.
The web-exclusive, written by Steven E. Schend, goes into great detail, not about the Aurumvorax, but about dwarves and the dwarven relationship to Aurumvoraxae. Apparently, dwarves love Aurumvorae, but not in a human-dog relationship, but more in a human-fly relationship. Aurumvorae are incredible pests, destroying dwarven crafted metal, like chewing off the heads of pick-axes, or damaging stone floors with their copper-bone claws. In addition, dwarves hunt these gold-fur wolverines as good-luck wedding day charms with the groom and friends hunting down, skinning, and presenting the fur of an Aurumvorax to the bride as either a warm blanket or a wedding cape.
Dwarves hunt these creatures down by leaving a trail of gold dust and goat blood, that ends in a small boxed-in crevice or crag where the dwarves can safely be high up from the cornered honey badger. They then use long pikes to stab down at the creature, attempting to pin the creature down with a spear to the back of the head where the neck is since apparently, Aurumvorae have a weakness to being stabbed there. This pins the creature down while the other dwarves spring into action with axes, cutting off its eight legs so that it bleeds out. After which they gather all of its teeth, claws, and pelt for their wedding favors. We can’t help but feel a bit sad for our poor Aurumvorax who just wanted to maul one or three of the dwarves in peace.
Luckily, the Aurumvorax gets a bit more information about it in Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk where the party may have to deal with two of these curious kittens. The lore surrounding these creatures continues to talk about how ferocious they are, and how they’ll never let you go once they sink their teeth into your delicious flesh.
But they aren’t ferocious because they work up on the wrong side of the cave, instead, they are ferocious because the scent of gold sends them into a frenzy. See, they don’t attack other creatures and will use a warning bark and growl to keep others away from their lair. If that doesn’t work, because you are a dumb adventurer, or if it smells any amount of gold on you, it flies into a frenzy and attacks, latching on to you and rending through your armor and flesh. It simply wants to devour all your gold and meat, who are you to deny it?
This adventure also explains that Aurumvorae can survive without gold, it just means that they fly into an eating spree where they attack anything and everything they see. They have an insatiable hunger and so it’s probably best if you see one, to throw all your gold on the ground and hope it’ll be too busy munching on your life’s savings than on your life.
5e - Aurumvorax
Small Monstrosity, Unaligned
Armor Class 15 (natural armor)
Hit Points 36 (8d6 + 8)
Speed 30 ft., burrow 20 ft.
STR 14 (+2) DEX 13 (+1) CON 12 (+1) INT 3 (−4) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 6 (−2)
Saving Throws Str +4, Con +3
Skills Perception +3, Stealth +3
Condition Immunities petrified
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 13
Languages —
Challenge 2 (450 XP) Proficiency Bonus +2
Tunneler. The aurumvorax can burrow through solid rock and metal at half its burrowing speed and leaves a 5-foot-diameter tunnel in its wake.
Multiattack. The aurumvorax makes one Bite attack and two Claw attacks.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d8 + 2) piercing damage. If the target is a creature wearing armor of any type, the aurumvorax regains 4 (1d6 + 1) hit points.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) slashing damage. If the target is a Medium or smaller creature, it is grappled (escape DC 12). Until this grapple ends, the aurumvorax can’t use its Claw attack on another target, and when it moves, it can drag the grappled creature with it, without the aurumvorax’s speed being halved.
Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, 2022 Wizards of the Coast
The Aurumvoraxes’ final appearance is within the adventure anthology Journeys through the Radiant Citadel (2022) in the adventure Gold for Fools and Princes. Sadly, they are severely nerfed into just CR 2 creatures, when in the past they have been closer in power to CR 7 or 8 creatures. That’s not the only nerf these golden-kittens receive as now they only get two claw attacks each round, but we suppose making nine attacks in a single round might be a bit much, but even a fun rend ability could’ve helped make up for it.
Looking at the sparse information provided, the Aurumvorax is an aggressive omnivore that ambushes creatures that are double its size or smaller. Since they are small creatures, that means a group of adventurers are still on the menu. This is good, since Aurumvoraxes supplement their diet with metal, whether worked or ore, and adventurers are known for carrying metal armor and weapons, as well as being made of meat - a favorite meal for these murder-weasels.
If you do fight these creatures, we hope your party is made up of solely the unarmored. While it may end with you covered in numerous claw marks, its better than the Aurumvorax biting your full-plate-wearing fighter, and regaining hit points because it fed on the metal it scraped off with its teeth. Every time it makes a bite attack against a creature wearing any type of armor, including leather or hide, it regains hit points as it munches on a mid-combat snack. When fighting an Aurumvorax, maybe the best defense is not having any defense.
At least you don’t have to worry about any resistances or immunities while fighting them since they are only immune to being petrified, not a common condition effect that adventurers have on hand. This means that fireball or cloudkill spell will have full effect on them, and you can hit them with your hammer as much as you want since it’ll only make them angrier, but still deal full damage to them.
Luckily, we do get a second Aurumvorax with the Aurumvorax Den Leader since in this adventure five of them are working together. There is a magical reason for it, but it is interesting that there is a ‘den leader’ seeing as how these creatures were once highly solitary and would gladly rip and tear into other Aurumvoraxes that they found. We can’t imagine wanting to fight one of these creatures, let alone a pack of them who all hunger for our coin purse.
Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, 2022 Wizards of the Coast
Aurumvorae, or Aurumvoraxes if in 5th edition, are incredibly dangerous creatures with a heart of gold, but not in a good way. They are dangerous predators who think they are kings of the foodchain and that everything else is their prey that they get to munch on as much as they want. You can try to fight them off, but remember, Aurumvorax don’t care.
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