Froghemoth

The froghemoth's body is 18 feet long and 10 wide, yellow underneath, pale green along the flanks and mottled darker green over the back and its heavy, bowed hind legs. Two tentacles at least 15 feet long grow from each shoulder, green above and yellowish below. Its nostrils sit on stalks, and its three eyes, amber tinged with green and slit with bright green, orange-rimmed pupils, ride on a single stalk it can pull back into its body. Submerged with only its eye and nostril stalks breaking the surface and its tentacles trailing up the bank, it looks like a clump of weeds.

It waits half sunk in swamp water or crouched among thick plants to ambush prey. It uses its tongue on targets about 10 feet away and its tentacles on anything farther. A tongue hit on a natural 19 or 20 whips a man-sized or smaller victim straight into the mouth to be swallowed whole; larger creatures are bitten instead. Swallowed victims take 4d4 damage per round, pass out after two rounds and are digested at -10 hit points. While still conscious, they can fight back only with a dagger or a weapon no longer.

On any other tongue hit, the victim makes a surprise roll. If it is not surprised, it may grab something solid like a tree or rope by hitting AC 10. Failing that, it is pulled in and bitten the same round. If it holds on, it gives up its attacks and makes opposed Strength checks against the froghemoth's Strength of 19, needing to succeed and roll higher, or else it is pulled into the mouth for 5d10 damage per round. The check repeats each round until the monster dies, retreats or loses its tongue. Exposed, the tongue is AC 6 and is cut off by 12+1d4 damage, which sends the froghemoth into a frenzy that doubles its tentacle damage for 1d4+1 rounds before it pulls back to recover if still under attack.

The tentacles can seize up to four separate man-sized foes, constricting for 1d4+4 damage each round until the tentacle is severed or the victim spends a round wrenching free with a successful open doors roll. Each tentacle is AC 2 and is cut off by 1d4+18 damage. The body is AC 4. Ordinary fire does no harm but has a 20% chance of driving it back one round; very hot fire such as a fireball, or a burning hands of 10 or more points, deals half damage. Lightning inflicts only 1 point per die and slows it for one round. It will chase fleeing prey onto land for two or three rounds before heading back to the water. Lost tongues and tentacles grow back in 1d4+1 weeks.

Froghemoths live only in vast swamps or fresh water no deeper than 100 feet. On land they lurch along in clumsy hops at half speed. Every nine years they return to a spawning ground to mate, each pair leaving 10 to 100 foot-long eggs in the shallows and abandoning them.

The young, called tadhemoths, look like fish with four pectoral fins and two tails (2 HD, AC 4, bite 2d4). They grow a foot a month for the first 6 months, then a foot every 2 months until full size. Tentacles begin to form at 6 months and legs at 10, and by 12 months the tadpole stage is over. Bite damage climbs as they grow (3d8, 4d8, 4d10 and so on). Tadhemoths eat each other: only 10% live beyond a few days, and just 1% to 4% reach adulthood. Barring violence, a froghemoth may live 100 years.

Wherever it lives, a froghemoth is almost certainly the top predator, and only dragons or well-prepared adventurers stand much chance against one. Tadhemoths cannot be trained, but someone might capture one and release it where it will serve as a ferocious, if unreliable, guard beast.