Deepspawn

Picture a huge leathery ball, blotched gray and brown, with six limbs: three grasping tentacles and three limbs ending in toothy mouths. More than forty long eye stalks retract into the body; it never extends more than three or four at once, and keeps those well back from danger.

A deepspawn usually lies half sunk in a slithering heap of treasure that hides its limbs, so a tentacle here and a mouth there can look like separate monsters. Loose coins can slow attackers and, at the GM's discretion, absorb some blows.

It opens with a hold spell, repeatable every third round. Held victims are seized and squeezed while other tentacles fight with weapons, including fighter-usable magic taken from past prey. It loves to keep a foe busy with steel, then bite from behind.

A tentacle can slap for 1d4+1, lift and carry with 17 Strength, work keys or blades, or constrict. Grabbing needs a hit unless the target is held. Squeezing deals 1d4, then 1d4+1 each round; a victim who breaks loose that round takes just 1 point. A captive may be swung as a club, dealing 1d2 to anyone struck, spoiling their spells and forcing saves for fragile gear; the captive is unharmed unless bashed onto spikes or blades.

Each tentacle has 2 HD and lets go if edged or pointed weapons deal half its hit points to one spot. Otherwise both sides roll 1d20 plus Strength each round, and a higher total frees the victim.

ESP and water breathing are at will, and heal (self only) once a day. Threatened with death, it hurls stockpiled weapons, uses any magic it owns and flees by a prepared route. It seems immune to every known poison, perhaps because it brews so many in its young, and slowly regrows limbs and stalks at 2 hit points a day.

Native to the deep underworld, the deepspawn lets its children do its fighting, lairing in caverns, dungeons or ruins ringed by traps and guardian spawn. Past them, it waits in a defensible chamber with at least one exit. Dwarves, drow, duergar, cloakers, mind reavers and aboleth have all failed to wipe them out. Two seldom live within 30 miles on the surface, though underground they may sit on different levels close together.

It eats anything organic, preferring fresh meat. By some unknown means it can grow and bear any Prime Material creature it has ever devoured, though not undead or other duo-dimensional beings. Gestation takes 1d4 days by size and complexity, fed by meat, plants and water or blood, after which the parent splits open. Offspring inherit natural attacks, spell-like powers, alignment and intellect, but no class abilities or learned skills. They act within a round of birth, if perhaps clumsily at first, and nothing, even magic, can turn one against its parent.