Rogue Moon

A rogue moon is a roughly round creature about as large as a whale, armored in thick, flexible scales of orange to bright yellow. On one side sits a big mouth full of teeth suited to all kinds of food, flanked by two constantly waving stalks. Small vents dot the rest of the body, and dozens of spikes lie flat against the scales, pointing back from the mouth. It glows in the dark, so from far off it can pass for a small moon.

Over the ages it has learned that travelers and monsters drift toward unfamiliar lights. When prey closes to a few hundred yards, it goes dark and glides forward unseen. Within 30 feet it suddenly inflates to ten times its size and raises its spikes, and the rush of its expansion pulls smaller creatures toward it unless each makes a Dexterity check to grab hold of their ship. Those pulled in are impaled automatically for 1d12 damage and must save vs. poison at the start of the next round or be paralyzed for 1d6 turns.

The inhalation can drag in a ship as well, which usually hits a round after its passengers. The moon may simply sidestep it; if not, the collision deals 1 hull point to the ship, 1d10 damage to every passenger (including those stuck on the spikes) and 5d8 to the moon.

If attacked, it bites for 1d10. When the fight ends it shrinks to normal size, shakes off its paralyzed victims and eats them.

Rogue moons are solitary wanderers of the darkest parts of the void, drifting erratically a few hundred miles each month. They do not mate. Every five years one releases moonspawn, a thin, glowing cloud of gas and microscopic eggs that holds together instead of dispersing. Its scent lures other rogue moons across thousands of miles; the first to arrive is fertilized and, a year later, casts off a dozen 1 HD young that immediately drift off. Anything else touching the moonspawn ruins it.

They move by venting air through their scale openings, storing air from passing pockets or from around large bodies, and they can also creep along surfaces by rippling their spikes like a sea urchin. A rogue moon that lands on a ship will use the ship's own air to push off. It does not need to breathe, but in a perfect vacuum it cannot move and will eventually die, helpless.

A rogue moon can go months without food. Starving, it falls into a torpor lasting up to ten years, waking if something approaches; past ten years it withers and dies.

Its liver is a fine ingredient for potions of reverse gravity, and the venom glands at the base of its spikes, under the scales, are used in sleeping drugs. Treasure from earlier victims may survive in its gut if made of, or sealed in, something acid-proof.