Quill

Imagine a big porcupine whose quills alternate with bands of thick armadillo-like leather. Each cluster of spines sits on its own small, strong muscle, so the quill can flex and rattle them with startling speed and force. Its long, powerful tail ends in a dense knot of spines, and one swipe can slay a mail-clad man outright.

Quills rarely start trouble and tend to keep a polite distance from humans and demihumans. If someone insists on coming closer, the first warning is a volley of 1-4 spines per round at a single foe up to 20 feet away, THAC0 20, each dealing 1-3 and lodging in the flesh. Should that fail, it bites, which is minor, and lashes with its tail for 1d6+1, leaving 1d4-1 spines embedded. It cannot fire spines and fight in melee in the same round.

Punching or clawing a quill is foolish: every hit draws 1d4+1 spines back into the attacker for 1-3 each. Even a hand weapon provokes 1d4-1 spines. These reflexive strikes use THAC0 20, and any that hit stay stuck. Missiles and thrown weapons are safe.

The barbs are nasty. Yanking a spine free costs 1 hp, avoided only if whoever does the pulling succeeds at a Dexterity check with a -4 penalty or an unmodified healing proficiency check. Leaving it in stops the wound healing and adds a cumulative 10% daily chance of festering. A festering wound deals 1 hp per day, unless the victim saves vs. poison, until three saves in a row succeed or someone casts cure disease.

Quills are common in the grasslands and scrub of the neutral planes, but they turn up where no grazer should survive: the shrieking tunnels of the plane of howling winds, the iron battlefields of a plane of endless war, the burning wastes of the first layer of the Hells, and the war-ravaged first layer of the Abyss. They live in small families of a mated pair with young of various ages. Newborns have 1 Hit Die and spines too soft to injure, though they still sting. Neither aggressive nor territorial, quills back away from predators quickly.

Their spines can be made into blowgun darts or similar light weapons, and an armorer proficiency check lets someone mount them on flat plates at the shoulders, elbows or knees. The DM decides if this deters anyone; usually it looks fierce but does nothing in combat.

Quills devour anything green given time, from grass and brush to bladevine, bloodthorn and even ironmaw roots, turning inedible plants into barely edible meat. A hungry traveler can survive on one if careful catching it, and hungry fiends hunt them, though small ones like imps or spike devils should seek easier prey. The flesh tastes poor yet sustains life and is a delicacy in parts of the lower planes. Shy, mostly nocturnal foragers, quills are often tougher to locate than travelers assume. They dig mazes of burrows only 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 feet across and dive into them at any threat; even a determined fiend thinks twice about digging one out.