Lurker

This underground scavenger resembles a large manta ray with a rocklike gray belly. Flattened on a ceiling it is only 10% detectable unless prodded. Too slow to chase, it drops onto prey and wraps around it (-4 to surprise). The victim takes an automatic 1d6 damage per round and suffocates in 1d4+1 rounds no matter how much damage has been dealt, unless they break loose or the lurker dies first. It never lets go while alive, and those trapped can fight only with short weapons already in hand.

Solitary opportunists, lurkers fly on gas from internal sacs, a useful ingredient for potions of levitation. Eggs are laid in a gluey mass near the ceiling; the mosslike, rectangular hatchlings drop to the floor and eat vermin until they can fly. Buyers wanting living guards pay 900 gp per egg and 1,100 gp per hatchling of lurker, trapper or miner.

A denizen of lightless caverns, the trapper molds its shape and color to the floor and raises a central bump like a chest, becoming 95% undetectable. When prey steps onto the center, its edges curl up and enclose them, dealing 4 points plus the victim's Armor Class each round (6 for AC 2), and the victim smothers in six rounds regardless of damage. Only death or being brought to 1 hit point makes it release. Heat and cold cannot harm it.

A typical trapper spreads over 400 square feet, a big one up to 600. It stays balled up for 1d8 hours digesting, and the remains it passes form its treasure hoard. Its eggs are a pebbly mass, its young resemble flat stones, and its hide makes nonmagical +1 leather armor.

The miner is a tailless, brown or green-brown manta with bony frontal and dorsal ridges. It mostly eats small forest animals, but for larger prey it burrows under a trail and pokes 1d20+5 toxic, twiglike barbs up through the dirt. A passerby has a 25% chance of treading on one, 75% if surprised; an unsurprised druid or ranger has 5% per level to spot and identify them. Anyone pricked must save vs. poison; failure means 2d20 turns of paralysis. Once all movement above has ceased, the miner rises and engulfs its prey like a trapper.

It ripples slowly overland like a snake but burrows faster through soil, sand and gravel, and buried as it is, it is rarely attacked. Each barb has a venom sac at its root; small creatures use the barbs as blowgun darts or, grips wrapped, as daggers. Eggs are buried several feet down, and the young eat burrowing animals during their first year.