A Horrible Discovery

Looking in another chamber, they discovered Roduka’s fear, the remains of a purple worm. The chamber was huge, housing the entire carcass. There were 4 small skulls hovering over the body, imbuing it with green necrotic light. They were working under the direction of a pair of humanoid undead. Finally, there were 2 zombies that appeared to be used to move the worm around as needed.

This encounter was a disaster for me as a DM. The party used surprise to great effect and then my initiative rolls put all of the monsters at the end of the order. On top of that, Leenia used her Solar Wrath, which has since been nerfed, to inflict a bunch of damage, and stun the creatures. So they did not act till the end of the third round, when they were pretty much dead.

Had the encounter run more normally, there was potential for at least one PC death. Instead, I don't think anyone even got injured.