Zorbo

At a distance a zorbo looks like a cuddly koala in black and white, and travelers who believe that sometimes die learning otherwise. Semi-intelligent, it can be spoken with only by those who can talk with bears.

Before a fight, a zorbo usually takes on the AC of something nearby, such as a big boulder. It spends a round pressing itself against the object, much like a bear rubbing its back on a tree, and that behavior signals aggression, not play. The object is unharmed, and the zorbo gains an AC based on the material (see the absorption chart) for 1-4 hours. Magic items that add AC on top of other powers, such as a long sword +4 defender or a staff of power, are always the last it absorbs.

Worse is its draining strike. Whenever it hits a foe who relies on enchanted defenses (enchanted armor, bracers of defense, a protective ring and so on), the item crumbles to dust with no saving throw and its magical plus improves the zorbo's AC for a full turn. If the item has no plus, as with bracers, the zorbo gains the difference between the item's AC and base AC 10; a zorbo at AC 0 hitting bracers of defense AC 6 destroys them and drops to AC -4. Artifacts survive. Against several items, choose randomly or use the chart. The absorbed pluses also apply to its saving throws that turn.

Meat-eaters that often come to prefer human and demihuman prey, zorbos settle near it in small caves, hollow trees or burrows they claw out, eating berries and fish only occasionally. Pairs usually mate for life, with a litter of one or two cubs each second spring, so a group is likely a family. At two years old the cubs are driven out to find their own lair or die.

In some remote deep forests, zorbos are said to form communities of 10 to 60, probably for protection. Watchful sentries guard them, warning of predators and sometimes signaling a strike on unwary passersby; straying too close may draw the whole colony.

Bears attack zorbos on sight, perhaps because of their look or because a zorbo's roar sounds like a crying bear cub. Properly treated zorbo hide takes enchantment beautifully: items crafted from it gain +1 on item saving throws if steeped in holy water and enchanted by full moonlight.