Sea Spawn Master

The master is a big, scaly humanoid of sickly green, sheathed in poisonous mucus. Black claws match its dark, pupil-less eyes, and thick fins run from scalp to tailbone, usually draped with drifting fungus, weed or shreds of flesh. Huge webbed hands and feet drive it through the water, and its huge jaws hold twin rows of jagged teeth. It speaks no known tongue but talks telepathically with its slug spawn and with any creature they control, language or no.

The master cannot survive out of water; stranded, it suffocates in 10+1d6 rounds while trying to flee or kill whoever keeps it from the sea. Heroes who want it dead must go below the murky surface and accept all the usual underwater handicaps.

It prefers that others fight for it. Twice a day it can call aquatic help telepathically, an effect like monster summoning IV limited to sea creatures, each arriving 1d4 rounds after the call. If pressed, its claws deal 1d6 apiece and its bite 1d10. Anyone damaged by the bite must save vs. poison or contract a rot that keeps the wound from closing; that bite damage cannot heal until a cure disease spell is applied.

Its rotting, slimy hide works like oil of slipperiness, so grappling it is nearly hopeless and nets, webs and similar snares fail. It uses this to slip through fishing nets and steal the catch, leaving puzzled fishermen hauling up nothing but slime.

By day it lurks in a shallow cave, reef or weed thicket near its current target, drifting in a trance while it directs its dimmer minions. The lair holds bones, rags and a few coppers and trinkets, but since it occasionally devours stronger prey there is a 20% chance of treasure types W and J.

A master grows from a minion that escapes back to sea, and only 1% of those survive to adulthood. The young thing develops like a tadpole on a diet of fish, sprouting limbs over twelve months. Its telepathy and summoning appear at four months, and its slime coat is complete by maturity. Fish keep it alive, but once it tastes human flesh it craves more and goes looking for a seaside town to harvest.