What is the closest Pathfinder 1e equivalent to the graboids from the movie Tremors? I'm trying to design an underground dungeon dive for an APL 8 adventure.
At nearly 30 ft. long, mature adult graboids are these giant underground sandworms that can move through dirt by burrowing extremely quickly. They have multiple long extendable tentacles from their mouth which they use to grab their prey. They are blind, but have tremorsense.
Best Answer
There are several massive burrowing wormlike creatures in PF. The most iconic is the Purple Worm, though at CR 12 it's possibly overpowered for a level 8 party if it is not serving as the end boss of the dungeon. The Death Worm can be used as a lower-level desert worm, though it has a lot of other abilities instead of being able to swallow creatures whole. If instead you want to emphasize the grabbing tentacles over the worm shape, you might also want to consider the Dust Digger, though it being CR 4 and merely Large probably means that the statblock would need to be adjusted for this adventure. Finally, you could reflavour the stats of a Remorhaz. It's normally native to cold terrain, but nobody is going to question a fire-aligned creature showing up in a desert. I wasn't able to find any fitting creatures that were naturally blind, unfortunately.
I have skipped over quite a few other worms that were either above the Purple Worm's CR 12 or heavily focused on something other than burrowing and eating people.