A question of Gargantuan barding

[Movin]

The questions:

How much weight would a purple worm lose from becoming skeletal? (1)

How much weight in iron would it be to cover a Purple worm's carapace in two inch thick plate mail(2)

I'd like to know this as it is quite possible this thing will fall from a ceiling in the near future and my DM runs with the 3.5 CW weight to damage ratio for large objects (3)

I'm also aware of the time drain crafting such an item would be normally, but my character happens to have armorsmithing ranks and the spell fabricate.

(1 The Remorhaz is a huge creature of similar dimensions to the purple worm it is 10,000 pounds
Englarge person states that a size spike increases the creature by 2x height and 8x weight So my rough estimate is 80,000 pounds and 70 ft long from tip to tail for a living purple worm

(2) yes I am aware plate mail is much thinner than this, even for a gargantuan creature. hence why I haven't just multiplied the weight factor by eight on an armor type and moved on.

(3) Page 159 CW *but the system is essentially a 200-1 ratio*

If anybody has some advice on how I might figure this out it would be appreciated. I also fully accept and enjoy the number of cat girls I am killing with this line of discussion.

[Mojorat]

being worms they likely don't have a skeleton.

[Movin]

I always figured exoskeletons count what with its +22 nat armor I figured it had one.
If that's not the case though then it is a gaping hole in my logic for this critter, thanks for pointing that out.

[Cpt. Caboodle]

Movin wrote:

How much weight in iron would it be to cover a Purple worm's carapace in two inch thick plate mail(2)

Assuming the armor would be roughly the form of a hollow cylinder, 60 ft long, 10ft diameter and a thickness of 2 inches, and with steel having a density of 7.8g/cm3, the weight of the armor would be about 66 metric tons, or somewhere around 146000 pounds.

Good luck lifting that thing, wormy...

[Movin]

Well that is both questions answered satisfactorily.
Need to rework the idea of a skeletal worm as by RAW they lack a skeletal system and carapaces/ exoskeletons are not technically a skeletal system.
*sigh* I guess my dream for the interior of the worm being a tumble dryer of doom shod in metal, covered in spikes, with waves of metal shrapnel shards flying about will remain such.
Now the body cavity is going to be filled with squishy organs, yuck.

Admittedly a Zombie worm is actually a better choice what with the bonus HD and keeps it out of combat. I have no intention of ever entering this horrifying closet troll into initiative as the party is APL 11.
How we survived a CR 16 worm in conditions favorable to it I will never know. Great thing the ride around the Underdark in though.

I suppose I'll just have to stick with the idea of reasonable armor weight for a 37 Str worm of gargantuan size. Heavy full plate barding it is.

my next time at the GM chair will now likely involve a Gnome, an artifact level set of ring gates and a few dozen ten foot tall tungsten pillars.

Thanks for the assistance, don't mind the dead cat girls as you leave.