Kaluk

This greater spirit embodies human avarice and punishes the greedy. It resembles a lean elephant walking upright, with a huge potbelly, elephantine legs and the brawny arms of a strongman ending in blunt stubs useless for tools or weapons. Leathery black hide under a thin coat of short silver hair reeks of rotten meat. It has hare's ears, a trunk, two bulging violet eyes and a pair of crimson tusks curving 5 feet outward. A glittering cape of golden scales sweeps the ground behind it. It speaks with all animals as well as the trade tongue and local human languages.

Driven by limitless hunger for wealth, a kaluk confronts victims and demands every coin, gem and valuable they carry. Weapons interest it only if made of precious metal or set with jewels, and magic items only if they are enchanted gems or jewelry (a pearl of the rising tide, for instance). The slightest resistance brings a merciless attack.

It gores twice per round with its tusks for 2d6 each, and may use detect invisibility and ESP whenever it likes. Thrice daily each it can cast suggestion and steam breath and wrap itself in a stinking cloud 10 feet in radius. Once a month its touch places a victim in temporal stasis with no saving throw, lasting until ended by dispel magic or temporal reinstatement. Charm, sleep and hold spells do not affect it.

Kaluks keep no lair, roaming hills and woods near human settlements in search of marks, and venture into towns only when rural pickings are thin, fearing reprisal.

Sexless, a kaluk renews its kind as its 500-year lifespan draws to a close by seeking a notoriously greedy human, sometimes on the advice of an agent of the celestial court of heaven. It freezes the chosen one with temporal stasis, carries him to a hidden grove and chants and dances around him for a whole day, then sets its horns on his head. He transforms into a new kaluk, and the old one crumbles into a heap of black bones that the newcomer must bury in a deep grave dug with its tusks.

A square of joss-paper, about 4 inches across, made from bamboo pulp and flecked with gold leaf, will buy off a kaluk. It pins the gift to its cape, forgets the victim entirely and hurries to a stream or other mirror to admire itself. Only someone with the paper-maker proficiency can produce joss-paper good enough to satisfy it.

A kaluk swallows and instantly digests all the treasure it takes, magic items included, so a slain one yields nothing. Many folk treat it as a symbol of excess and carve its head on utensils, pottery and amulets as a warning against gluttony. One of its arm or leg bones serves as a club +2, a branch rubbed with its powdered tusk becomes a divining rod (as the spell) for 1d4 days, and its golden cape may sell to collectors for up to 10,000 coins.