Lutum

Undisguised, a lutum is a rolling lump of tan, jelly-like clay that pushes out limbs as needed and can hold a two- or four-legged shape. Few like that state. Using alter self (4/day, four hours per casting), a lutum passes flawlessly as a human, elf, half-elf or drow woman, and it nearly always chooses a stunning face, having learned that beauty opens more doors than plainness or a man's shape. Many claim to be wizards or druids to explain their powers; some copy real people, gaining that person's social access and leaving them a scandal to clean up.

Posing as a caster, a lutum opens with its innate powers and magic items, and in melee it prefers a weapon to keep up the act. Once exposed or pressed, it fights with two clay arms and a broad maw. A victim hit by all three attacks in a round is engulfed and suffocates in 1d4+1 rounds.

Besides alter self, it can use ESP twice a day and each of the following once a day: friends, stoneskin, passwall, stoneshape, clairaudience. One lutum in ten also becomes a 4th-level wizard. A favorite ploy: lure a man close, cast friends to keep him at ease, then strike from surprise and smother him. On a planet it may pin him with stoneshape and pound him to death, keeping passwall in reserve for escape.

Neither transmute rock to mud nor stone to flesh, nor the reverse of either, affects a lutum. Blunt weapons deal full damage, edged weapons half. Earthquake kills one instantly; move earth incapacitates it for 1d6 turns.

Lutums are so greedy that most refuse to share with their own kind and live alone, though some band into clans ruled by the largest member. They hunt magic and wealth by blending into human and demihuman society, and they especially prize items that let them hold a borrowed shape longer. Many also chase power, marrying a ruler and then either murdering the spouse to inherit or quietly pulling the strings. Where offices are elected, they campaign and often win on looks, poise and ruthlessness.

They roam from world to world, usually getting aboard ships as lovely women in desperate need of passage. A few have charmed crews into teaching them to fly the vessel, then taken it over.

Their origin is unknown: perhaps a mad wizard's earth-elemental experiment, perhaps a mimic offshoot from the plane of Ooze. They eat rock, minerals and clays. Sexless, a lutum splits in two only when its race needs strengthening, usually after clan members die, and both halves are full adults with all their abilities.