Dragger

A dragger looks like a large rock, much like its galeb duhr cousins. It has one pair of limbs that double as hands and feet, plus a vast mouth that, when shut, passes for a crack in the stone. Natives of the Plane of Elemental Earth, they swim through solid rock.

It waits half-sunk in the floor, hidden by hallucinatory terrain that it can create at will across a ten-foot square around itself. Anyone who walks onto it is attacked by the huge jaws, and counts as AC 10 for this, ignoring Dexterity. A miss sends the dragger down into the rock to safety, and it comes back to the same place 2d4 turns later.

On a hit it clamps onto one or more limbs, usually feet. Next round it relaxes its grip briefly to gulp the victim down, giving the prey a save vs. paralyzation to squirm loose, with +1 for each helper pulling on them. Failure means being swallowed, and a round later the dragger sinks away to digest in peace. If the dragger is killed before it can leave, freeing a swallowed victim takes 14 rounds, and its digestive acids deal 3d4 per round meanwhile. It can digest anything but gems, which make up any treasure it has.

Any weapon can hurt a dragger, but edged and piercing ones deal half damage. Spells generally do nothing, with these exceptions. Magic missile works normally. Move earth makes it release unswallowed prey and flee for 14 turns. Stone to flesh drops it to AC 10 for the duration and pins it if it is inside stone; if only partly buried, it can tear free in 1 round taking 2d4+2 points of scraping damage. Stone shape can force its jaws through one movement and hold them, either clamped shut or gaping to spit out a victim. Transmute rock to mud heals it completely; otherwise it recovers 1 hit point per day.

Most live in natural caves, though plenty haunt the tunnels under a certain port city, where many smugglers have met their end. Draggers are sexless loners. When steady eating pushes one past 6 HD, it splits into two to four 2 HD draggers and expels all the gems it has swallowed. The offspring may linger together a while but drift apart as they grow. They never interact yet never fight one another; two may share a busy hunting ground for a time but usually move apart by instinct. Some go dormant inside solid stone for long periods, ignoring prey, for reasons no one has explained.

Meat-eaters, draggers take birds, reptiles and mammals, ignore plants except those that walk, and eagerly eat fungi. They make no judgments about food and do not prefer large prey over small or the reverse. Whatever the result, a dragger makes only one feeding attempt every three hours or so and lets other targets pass after that try. It can go months or even years without eating.