Giant Octopus

Sailors dread these 'cuttlefish.' Normally gray to brown, a giant octopus can wear almost any color or pattern, from green or inky black to blue speckles and red bands, and often passes its arms off as seaweed. Camouflaged, it has only a 10% chance to be noticed, usually because of its eyes. Its cruel deep yellow beak opens on a vivid orange mouth.

Malicious and clever, it attacks swimmers and small craft to eat the crew, and several may gang up on a bigger ship. Any vessel they seize loses way and halts within three turns.

Two arms anchor it while six strike for 1d4 each, then constrict for 2d4 every round until loosened or cut. A victim pulled to the beak is bitten for 2d6. A target shorter than 8 feet can be grabbed by just one arm at once. Roll on each hit: 25% both of its arms are pinned and it cannot attack, 25% the tentacle circles its body leaving both arms free (-1 to hit), otherwise one arm is caught (-3 to hit). The grip is Strength 18/20; a creature that strong can hold the arm and stop the squeezing, but stays caught while the octopus hauls it toward its mouth. Freedom requires cutting the tentacle with 8 points of damage, separate from the hit points of the creature's 8 Hit Dice.

With three or more arms severed, there is a 90% chance it flees behind a black ink cloud 40 feet high, 60 wide and 60 long that blinds all inside, then hides camouflaged in or near its lair. Severed tentacles take two to three months to regrow.

Aside from teaming up on big prey, giant octopi are loners in warm, shallow to middling waters. They lair in wrecks and sea caves, where any treasure is just leftovers from past meals. Patient ambushers, they stay in a tiny area and let food come to them. They mate each spring and abandon their eggs on a reef.

Survival comes first. Hurt or hungry, it scavenges anything from small crustaceans to seaweed. It hunts mostly at night, and many a sailor lost from the late watch was snatched over the rail by one. Lucky sailors who kill one turn its tough, waterproof hide into fine rain ponchos, but most hunters want the ink, which can be used to write magical scrolls.