Sea Spawn Minion

Minions look like revolting, slimy slugs six inches long. They have round, lamprey-style mouths for boring into flesh and hides much thicker than a garden slug's, likely to keep out the salt that would kill an ordinary slug. They never speak but stay in constant telepathic touch with their master.

The bite itself does only 1 point of damage, but its venom paralyzes for 1d4 turns unless the victim saves vs. paralyzation. Well before the victim can move again, the slug tunnels through the soft flesh beneath the back of the skull, wraps itself around the brain stem and seizes the host's higher functions.

A host keeps every memory, spell and proficiency and uses them normally; only the personality changes, growing cold toward friends and family as it waits for the slug's siblings to claim the rest of the town. Each day of occupation costs the host 1 point of Intelligence, and the lost wits stay lost even after rescue unless a wish restores them.

Only a priest can extract a minion. Cure spells merely heal host and slug alike. Cure disease or restoration forces the slug out, but it chews its way free for 3d6 damage to the host.

All slugs of one master share a telepathic link. When one is cornered or hurt it calls 3d6 other hosts to help, and the master may send aid as well. Most hosts are 1 Hit Die villagers, but there is a 25% chance the spawn have taken over characters with classes and levels.

When a master picks a village, it releases 3d6 minions and then another batch every night until the whole community is taken. About 1 in 10 are swept off by currents; most die, but roughly 1% of those grow into masters within a year. The rest swim to shore like eels, then slither like snakes. Their sticky slime lets them crawl up walls and across ceilings to drop onto sleepers.

Within hours of claiming a first host, the minions start feeding their master, kidnapping children and the helpless and throwing them into the sea at night. If that fails, a minion will walk its own host into the water.

Minions develop in a pouch over the master's stomach and are spat into the sea. Ashore they hide until they can strike unseen, then grow inside their hosts by eating brain tissue. They do not live long: once every villager is taken, the hosts hurl themselves into the sea and master devours slug and host together.