Thousandtooth

A thousandtooth is what remains of a medusa after deliberate mutation: an oversized human head whose jaws bristle with oversized fangs beneath blank gray eyes. Behind it, in place of a body, sits a rounded lump of flesh sprouting 8+1d4 heavy, scaly limbs, every one ending in a venomous snake's head. It walks clumsily on three or more of the lower limbs, and some grow two spindly arms out of the flanks of that fleshy mass as well.

Its petrifying power is weaker than a medusa's but still deadly. Merely coming within 30 feet forces a save vs. petrification at +2; failure starts a slow change into stone. On the next round the victim is slowed, as the spell, though the hardening skin grants +1 to AC; on the third, the change is complete and the victim is stone. Up close it bites with its human mouth and with up to eight snake-limbs, and anyone a snake head bites must save vs. poison (type F) or die. If it glimpses its own reflection, it too must save vs. petrification at +2.

The thousandtooth is a lone predator that claims a few square miles. Unable to run down prey, it lurks in country with plenty of cover and lets victims come to it. Once a year one of its snake limbs drops off and slithers away as a separate creature. After a year living as an ordinary snake, it starts eating enormous amounts of food, then hibernates for a week and emerges as an adult thousandtooth, fully powered and ravenous.

It attacks anything in its range it sees as a rival or a threat. Its territory fills up with statues, and the predators it drives off crowd into nearby lands.