Coral [Lankhmar]

Coral is the chalky tube-skeleton secreted by the small animals living inside it. It comes in nearly any color, from drab green or brown to vivid red, yellow, and orange, and white as well. Ordinary coral is little danger to adventurers; the death and giant varieties are another matter.

Death coral looks exactly like ordinary coral and is impossible to tell apart from it. It never leaves its shell, feeding on tiny sea life with its little tentacles like any other coral. When a large creature, a fish or a diver, comes too close, as many polyps as can reach it, usually 1-10, lash out. Each makes its own attack roll and deals 1 point on a hit, and the victim must save vs. paralyzation at +5 for every hit. One failure paralyzes the target for 1d4 rounds, and it usually sinks onto the bed, which is nearly always fatal: the next round, 1-100 polyps can strike the helpless body.

Every polyp has just 1 hp, but there are so many that ordinary fighting is pointless. Even area spells do little lasting harm, since the colony runs about 5 feet down into the reef or seabed and roughly half its animals are deep inside at any moment. When danger threatens, the ones at the surface pull back into the depths too. Its two Armor Classes cover the rock (AC 6) and the polyps (AC 10).

Sea folk who know of it are rarely at risk. Tritons, mermen, locathah, and sahuagin commonly plant it as a guard or trap, though they must keep careful track of which coral is harmless and which is not. Barracuda and some other sea animals are immune to its paralysis and eat both rock and polyps, and certain starfish and urchins graze on it as well. Most intelligent sea races treat it as a delicacy, much as humans regard snails. As with normal coral, red-orange, pink, or white pieces count as fancy gems worth 100 gp each if polished and unchipped. The listed treasure is usually whatever the last victim dropped nearby.

Giant coral grows in pillars 2 to 8 feet across and 2 to 20 feet tall, always in the precious shades of red-orange, pink, or white. Its inhabitants look nothing like normal polyps; they are long, black, sluglike serpents sized to fill their openings exactly, with mouths full of rough bony plates that bore through rock, armor, and ship hulls.

They wait for prey to near their reef, then shoot out of their tubes to full length to bite. Damage is 1d4 per Hit Die, so a 4 HD specimen deals 4d4. Now and then one swims free of its tube, where it is AC 0, to attack a boat or swimmer, but in open water it is slow and only AC 8. The tubes are smooth as pearl within but edged outside with razor ridges 4-6 inches high and several feet long that deal 1d10 to anyone touching them. Pressed hard, the creatures retreat into the reef, and only fools chase them there, since open pockets let many of them attack at once.

Everyone counts giant coral as a menace, though rumor says it lets certain eels and lampreys live among it. The tube coral has no trade value, but intact tube complexes are priceless shelters for many marine creatures, intelligent or not. Its listed treasure is the leavings of earlier victims.