Belabra

Nicknamed the tangler, the belabra has a domed shell about two feet across, usually black or dark gray, from which four eyes peer on short stalks. Underneath are twelve rubbery tentacles, a gray beak and a pale belly. Pulled inside its shell and keeping still, it looks like a large rock, and careless travelers often treat it as one.

In melee it keeps hopping so its shell covers its soft underside. Kicking off with its tentacles, it can glide up to 60 yards, 10 yards less when jumping into a breeze or crosswind and 20 less into a strong headwind. A ramming leap deals 2d4.

Anytime during a leap it can lash its tentacles around a target, needing an attack roll at +4. A tangled victim loses Dexterity bonuses to AC and the beak attacks him at +4. The grip itself is harmless, but once per turn the victim may try a bend bars/lift gates roll to break free, taking 1d4+2 from the barbs whether he succeeds or not.

The head and shell are AC -2. Its tentacles and AC 6 belly stay tucked away except when gripping prey, so they can be targeted only then. A cut tentacle sprays gray-white blood: every human, elf and halfling within 10 feet must save vs. poison at -3 or be half-blinded and sneezing, suffering -4 on attacks and 2 points worse AC for 3d8 rounds.

Solitary, the belabra lives mostly in temperate woodlands. It finds prey by sight and smell. It has a single sex, yet one cannot breed alone. Offspring sprout as buds lining the parent's stomach, which expels them after a gestation of six to ten months.

Belabras are prized because the young can be tamed. One caught young can learn simple commands and work as a guard or hunter like an attack dog, bonding with its master and staying at his side in battle; check morale only in unusually dangerous moments. Training takes 4d4 weeks, a skilled trainer, a supply of live animals to kill for practice, and the regular presence of the future master, and poor conditions can drag it out much longer. One raised for two years can learn to seize and hold a victim without killing. A captured young belabra sells for about 1,500 gp.