Snail

These silicon-based gastropods are distant kin to garden snails, with rubbery gray-blue flesh and shells about eight feet tall at the crown, splashed with brilliant blues, reds, greens and yellows. From its head grow four to six tentacles shaped like clubs, each tipped with a ten-pound knob of hard, lumpy flesh. Two short sensory stalks on the sides of the head detect movement up to 20 feet away.

Each club hits for 1d8 and can smash wood an inch thick. A snail makes one attack per tentacle, attacking as a creature with that many Hit Dice (four tentacles, four attacks as a 4 HD monster, and so on), divided among one or two opponents in front or to the side. Every tentacle has 1 Hit Die and is tracked as a separate creature, going limp when reduced to 0. The snail fights until all its tentacles are gone, then pulls back inside its shell to die over 1d3 turns, wailing piteously the whole time with a 50% chance per turn of drawing a wandering monster. The body's hit points equal the tentacles' combined total, but it is shielded by the shell at an effective AC -8.

The shell scrambles magic. Any spell aimed at the snail has a 40% chance to malfunction, 30% to work normally, 20% to fail completely and 10% to rebound onto the caster. A malfunctioning spell is altered slightly at the DM's discretion and strikes the creature nearest the snail, which gets any normal save. Neither fire nor poison harms them, but they avoid bright light.

These peaceful grazers glide along dungeon and cave passages, using mouth glands that loosen lichen and algae so they can scrape them up. Provoked, they defend themselves fiercely and pursue attackers until they leave the 20-foot sensing range. Females bear 1d3 live young, which remain with her two years until their knobs reach five pounds. Adults come of age at four and can reach 20.

They are hunted for their shells, which weigh 250-300 pounds, sell for 5,000 gp and keep their magic for 1d6 months after death. A skilled armorer may craft 1-2 shields +2 from one, which affect spells as the shell did until the magic fades after 1d6 months, then remain nonmagical +2 shields. Each shell, freshly ground, also supplies the material for one robe of scintillating colors.

These giant conches of every sea and ocean grow up to 20 feet long. Their rubbery skin is AC 6, but the massive shells, colored anything from bright red to dull white with a pink interior, are AC -4. Tritons sometimes tame them.

When attacked, a sea snail retreats into its shell and releases a neurotoxin into the water, paralyzing every creature within 20 feet for 1d6 hours unless it saves vs. poison at -3. If the assault continues, the snail wails, and the following round 1d10 charmed tritons arrive, with 1d10 more every round until 50 are present, all fighting to the death for it. Shells start at 4,000 gp, twice that if flawless.