Silatic

A silatic is a constantly trembling, shapeless mass 5 to 7 feet across with two pseudopods it uses to probe things for edibility. It can flatten itself to just 1 inch thick, which makes it an excellent hider. Graceful as it drifts through open space on its fanned-out body, it becomes a clumsy crawler under gravity, dragging itself by its pseudopods.

A silatic fights only when someone interrupts its meal or keeps it from feeding. Each adult pseudopod can reach 50 feet and strikes for 1d6+4 bludgeoning damage. Usually one stays attached to the meal while the other fights; if the silatic is wounded, it lets go and attacks with both.

Three kinds are known, gold, platinum, and iron, with silver rumored, and each has its own special attack.

To feed, it latches on, secretes a fluid that dissolves metal (taking three rounds), then soaks up the liquid metal through its skin (three more rounds). The fluid harms no living thing. Any metal it attacks must save vs. acid, at -5 if it matches the silatic's type and at -2 otherwise.

Sensing metal inside a wooden ship, it first tries to creep aboard, and failing that bashes through the hull near the metal. Against metal hulls the damage is 1 hull point each turn, while wooden hulls take ordinary combat damage.

A silatic eats only the metal it is made of, so a platinum silatic eats nothing but platinum, and it senses that metal within 100 feet. Needing no air, it prefers the void between worlds to planets. Silatics live alone in places others think uninhabitable, and two of the same type attack each other on sight and fight to the death.

Space miners kill them on sight, and planetary folk hunt them relentlessly. One gold silatic that reached a great city's reserves multiplied into dozens, and the resulting gold shortage wrecked the city's economy.

Lacking any starhelm power, silatics travel between worlds as stowaways, often clinging to the outside of a hull. After absorbing about 100 lbs of metal, a silatic finds an empty spot and divides into two 3 1/2-foot offspring, which wander off dazed in opposite directions and come to their senses five hours later to hunt for food. If they split in a confined space, they fight to the death on waking.

When a silatic dies, only metal eaten in the past week survives, typically 1d10 pounds for each Hit Die; the rest dissolves into jelly.