Jabberwock

Reliable descriptions are rare, because its burbling leaves survivors with a jumble of fragments instead of a whole picture. The best account comes from the sage Osric Pellane, who studied one closely before he died on a recent expedition. He described a heavy, dragonlike body on strong hind legs; long forelimbs, each with four prehensile, feathery talons about 4 feet long; a long, sinuous neck carrying a huge head with great front teeth; graceful wings; and a slender tail. Its scales are tawny, like dulled gold, darkening to brown on wings and claws, with moss growing in the seams. The feathery fringes on its claws may actually be a parasitic growth akin to hanging moss. Red pupils sit in its baleful yellow eyes, which cast beams of light, an eerie sight drifting through a dark wood.

It can rear up and stagger a few steps on its hind legs, wings beating for balance, to pluck a victim out of a tree. Though it can fly, it seldom leaves the cover of the canopy. It resembles a dragon but has no breath weapon and no urge to hoard.

Its relentlessness is what makes it terrible. Once it singles out a target, every attack goes to that one creature until the victim is dead and eaten, the jabberwock is slain (which almost never happens), or the target escapes by teleportation or something similar. Its senses rival a true dragon's, finding hidden or invisible foes, and it hunts its chosen prey anywhere within its forest. Its usual attack is a bite, its snaky neck letting the head strike surprisingly far away.

The creature mutters constantly, a deep bubbling rumble audible to 200 feet. Anyone hearing it must save vs. spell at -4 or be confused, and unlike the wizard spell the effect lasts as long as the victim stays within earshot. Victims also hallucinate and misjudge distances, things seeming far nearer or farther than they are, which imposes -3 on their attack rolls. The burble also works like babble, the reverse of tongues: speech slurs and blends into nonsense hybrids, crippling communication.

Its eye beams work like a wand of paralysis, freezing anyone who fails a save vs. paralyzation, and it radiates the same fear aura as true dragons. It can pin a man-sized victim helpless in one forepaw, gaining +2 to bite a creature held this way, or +4 if held in both paws.

When a large, capable, coordinated party truly threatens it, it explodes into motion: two claws (1d10 each), two wing buffets (2d10 each), two stomps (2d6 each), a bite (3d10) and a tail lash (2d8), each at -2 to hit. Anyone struck must save vs. paralyzation or be knocked flat or hurled back (50% each), freeing the beast to return to its chosen victim.

Only vorpal weapons truly hurt it; every other weapon deals nonlethal subdual damage against its scales. Even its eyes are shielded by tough, semi-clear inner lids, and its formidable magic resistance turns aside most spells.

It lives only in dense, untouched primeval forests, alone, and treats every creature it meets as prey, except druids, whom it ignores, and sylvan beings such as dryads, treants and forest gnomes, who sense it coming and slip away. Most scholars believe only one exists at a time, as with the tarrasque or phoenix; certainly no forest holds more than one.

Pellane argued it is a genius loci, the forest itself made flesh to drive off intruders. If so, every vast, ancient wood could raise its own, though no second one has been recorded. Kill it and a new one arises inside a generation, in its old forest if logging and settlement have not spoiled the place by then, or else in some distant wood. No young jabberwock has ever been seen, and though it does not seem to age, it may keep growing all its life.

For all its savagery, it does its forest great service, its mere presence deterring loggers, settlers and plunderers. It probably neither knows nor cares why it exists; it simply does the job by being a superb predator.