Kappa

These amphibious humanoids haunt fresh water of every kind. About 2 feet tall and 20 pounds, hunched beneath a hard back shell, a kappa is easily taken for a small monkey at a distance. Green or blue scales, a potbelly with a kangaroo-like pouch, webbed turtle feet, razor-taloned webbed hands, rows of hooked teeth and round red or yellow eyes with underwater lids complete the picture. Cold-blooded and fishy-smelling, it breathes air and water and usually speaks the local tongue besides its own.

Its crown is a hollow bowl, edged by a ring of hair (worn long by scholarly or artistic kappa), and filled with water from its home. That water is the source of its strength.

Vain and erratic, kappa are often polite at first and can be soothed with flattery or gifts, but once insulted, hungry or cranky they drown victims without mercy.

All have 18/00 Strength (+3 attack and damage). They rend with claws, occasionally using daggers, darts or rocks, and their shell gives AC -2 against rear attacks. Each family knows its own martial arts style of 1-6 maneuvers such as Feint, Great Throw, Eagle Claw, Crushing Blow and Concentrated Push. A proud kappa may offer a wrestling bout: win and pass, lose and be eaten underwater. In its favorite, finger wrestling at the shore, both sides make a bend bars/lift gates roll each round (the kappa at 18/00); the one who alone succeeds wins.

One adult male in ten casts spells innately as an eastern sorcerer of level equal to its Hit Dice, favoring water magic, but only within a mile of home. Water-based spells never affect a kappa; it regenerates 1 hit point per round, and can rejoin a severed limb after 1d4+3 weeks of rest.

Emptying the head-bowl drops its Strength to normal (usually 10), halts regeneration, and costs it 2 hit points each round until refilled; in a pinch any fresh water serves. Few are fooled into bowing, but a foe can splash it out with a suitable maneuver or by succeeding at bend bars/lift gates.

One kappa in twenty curses up to four foes who defeated it. Four rounds after its death each must save vs. death magic or take a permanent -4 to attack and saving throw rolls, and anyone within 30 feet of a cursed character suffers -2 on those rolls. Only remove curse from a wandering eastern priest of 10th level or more lifts it.

Kappa den under rocks and bridges, and long exposure to salt water kills them. A reed-screened stump or rock marks the lair; below, stones hide a tunnel to a flooded cave with a treasure pit.

Families hold 2-6 adult males, as many females, and as many children as adults. Females chase down mates and lay 1-6 eggs yearly (half hatch), keeping eggs and then young in the pouch for as long as twelve months. Young walk, swim and talk from birth, mature in five years and live a century. Utterly selfish, kappa help kin only when safe and profitable. Neighbors toss name-marked food and trinkets into its water; rarely, a kappa respects a helpful, humble or fearsome human enough to teach its skills.

They eat people, cattle, sheep and fish, love cucumbers and melons, and prize horseflesh above all.

Kappa-ti are shell-less, faster giants of 5 feet whose Strength of 19 gives +4 to combat rolls. Common kappa find them revolting. Met alone or in pairs, they have a 75% chance to escape notice in the wild.

Larger, smarter and quicker on land, with tougher scales and red-glowing eyes, vampiric kappa keep all common kappa abilities. Their bite latches on and drains 1 Strength per round with no other damage, killing at 0; the hold ends if the kappa dies, its bowl is spilled, or the victim succeeds at bend bars/lift gates. Bitten victims have a 50% chance of a disease draining 1d3 Strength daily until cured or dead, after which rest restores 2-3 points per day. They live alone or in pairs and prey on anything, other kappa included.