Umpleby

An umpleby is an eight-foot, 400-pound heap of tangled brown hair on two legs. Only its eyes and lips can be picked out of the shag. Met in its home woods, it neither attacks nor hides, but simply stands there gaping. It knows enough common to speak haltingly, though it seldom bothers to talk at all.

Umplebys fight only in self-defense and generally refuse to take sides for or against adventurers. When roused, they slap with their hands for 1d4 damage. Each one braids nets from its own hair and carries them wound around its waist, and it can hurl one up to 30 feet. Nets and its shock are saved for real threats.

Its body holds a large reserve of static electricity, 50 points of electrical damage per day, delivered by touch. This requires a normal attack roll unless the victim suspects nothing. Against this attack, metal armor of any kind counts as Armor Class 10, though magical and Dexterity bonuses still apply. It can dump the full 50 points in one jolt but more often rations it, typically 1d8+8 per touch. The moment the 50th point is spent, the umpleby falls asleep to recharge. Naturally, electricity cannot harm it.

Home is a cave or a burrow dug into the ground or a hillside. Umplebys are slow-witted loners whose attention never lasts long enough to form a community. Now and then a male and female meet in the forest and pair up just long enough to raise one offspring. When the youngster finally wanders off and fails to return, the parents lose interest in each other and drift apart. Nobody has seen more than three together.

Shiny things fascinate them. Even through solid rock, an umpleby senses any big cache of treasure (over 1,000 coins or 50 gems) within 100 feet, and such glitter is one of the few things that holds its focus. It piles a huge trove in its lair and will never reveal where that lair is, even facing death, though charm monster might change its mind.

Meeting a party, an umpleby often just shuffles along behind, contributing nothing yet refusing to be left. It blunders underfoot and cannot move quietly to save its life. Being always hungry and thirsty, it becomes utterly loyal to anyone who feeds and waters it, offering help and sometimes advice. That loyalty lasts only while its patron shares a fair cut of any coins or gems its aid uncovers. Shortchange it and it leaves, and chasing after it ends all cooperation.

In the wild umplebys mostly eat berries and fruit, but a friendly party can feed them almost anything. Their hair is extremely tough, 50% harder to cut, snap or burn than the strands of a magical web, and an intact hair net can sell for as much as 100 gp.

Their shock keeps most predators away. Blue dragons, however, consider them a light snack and sometimes fly out of the desert to hunt one. Umplebys, for their part, find volts especially loathsome.