Walktopuses lived in the mountains, and had 9 blisters on their inexplicably square... hips? that could be burst to release a noxious cloud of smoke. Something that grappled you and prevented others from assisting via a cloud of obscuring poison gas sounds like a pretty good monster, honestly. The aesthetic inspiration was some weird wire and shaft affair that I think was the internal mechanism of a blender or something.
THE WALKTOPUS
HD: 2- If you can hit them in their spine-pillar, they die pretty quick
AC: 13- They're flexible and quick, but squishy.
Attacks- 4-8 tentacles. Each tentacle pins 1 limb on a hit. Tentacles are severed if a player says they're aiming for one with a slashing weapon and hits, but losing tentacles does not cause HP loss, only the loss of an attack.
You take 1d[[attached tentacles]] of damage each turn you're being grappled, strangled, squeezed, etc. The leg tentacles can grapple too, but then the walktopus can't move.
Move- As human- they lose '1/4' of movement per leg tentacle lost, but jokes on you, they can flip upside down and use their 'arm' tentacles just as easily! And if you take out 2 from each, they can flip sideways and move horizontally like a really screwy horse!
Toxic Smoke Blisters- 5' radius of obscuring smoke, lasts until the end of the fight unless blown away. Being in the smoke makes you cough and screw your eyes shut- you're blinded for 1 round after leaving the fog too. Whenever you hit or threaten a walktopus, it usually pops a blister to protect itself. They have a keen sense of LOS, but cannot see in their own smoke, and generally only stay in their own smoke clouds if they're strangling someone. Works perfectly underwater. If you kill a Walktopus, you can harvest all the remaining blisters and huck them as grenades.
Motivations- Bioconstruct of the ancient Squidlords, whose ancient seafloor fortresses have been raised to the high mountains by tectonic action over the centuries. The Squidlords are long gone, but the durable Walktopi/puses remain and continue to enact their riot-control instinctual programming, choking out troublemakers and taking them to squidprison, and dispersing crowds with their gas.
Hellmaw, or Hellmouth. But really, they should have been 'bogmaws,' because they lived in swamps and their thing was that they were rubbery floating balls 6-feet in diameter that had a super long tongue and swallowed you up. They also had defenses that made them right bastards to kill, and though I was too kind to ever have them grapple and eat a player and then fly off/squirm down into the muck, the players hated them anyway.
Bogmaw
6HD
AC:16
Fly speed: 20. They can also drop out of the sky and take no fall damage, just bouncing squooshily
Tongue Speed- 60. Extends forever.
Bog maws probably can't detect you if you're further than 120' away. They usually are floating aimlessly about hunting for escaped prey, or submerged in mud or water, waiting to ambush the unfortunate traveller
Rubbery Bastard- Take half damage from physical attacks. Immune to bludgeoning.
Sticky Slimy Tongue. Drags the player 20' nearer each round, like a tape measurer sucking in its tape. I don't think tape measures were the inspiration though, I think it was some squishy green goo ball yo-yo thing that was all the rage in elementary school. The Bogmaw has infinite tongue, it's just a matter of how much is extended. Dealing 2 damage with slashing can sever the tongue, but there's always more.
In the original version the tongue lashed people to death but that just makes it kinda boring.
If a bogmaw swallows you, you're wrapped up by the tongue and then suffocated to death inside the thing. It's really hard to attack from the inside like this- -4 to hit, and only if you had a dagger. They're slightly translucent so at least other people can see you've been swallowed, and gauge your state of consciousness. The Bogmaw may fly away with you, or dive into murky waters, so really you just don't want to get caught.
Motivations: Eat things. Be a metaphor for the dangers of getting lost and drowning in a swamp. Be aerial encounters high in the sky, coming from clouds. They don't eat very often, and vomit up anything hard in a random bundle of loot.
Hellmaw pellet.
Roll another encounter for the area- the pellet contains bones, treasure, and equipment of whatever that encounter was.
This is a terrible enemy, but in a really good way.
HD-1
AC: 20
Metal Men are as tough as iron golems- most weapons have no chance of harming them, most spells do nothing against their terrible body, etc etc. If your players see a top-heavy stiff iron statue rolling about on wheels and their first idea is 'I should hit it with a sword,' the Metal Men are here to teach them the folly of their ways.
Attacks- 2 1d6 scything blades
Special Attack- Spinning Death- On smooth, hard ground, metal men can spin like a murderous helicopter, becoming a blur of flashing blades. Anyone approaching immediately eats 2d6 damage. They drift 10feet in a random direction each round they spin, and if they impact another spinning man they rebound violently but do not fall.
Move- x3 Human- The tiny wheels of a metal man propel them at ludicrous speed across the ground, though it takes them 3 rounds to get up to top speed, and to slow down. They don't corner well. Cobblestones and most worked dungeons that aren't TOO old and crumbling slow them to human running pace. In a forest or cave or something, they're slower than zombies.
They can be walled off by wedging a 10-foot pole across a dungeon hallway. The daring could actually approach and push them over. Stairs and doors foil them utterly. Magnets stuck to their head disable them and their eyes show static or pop-culture references depending on your age. I think these are great things to throw at newbie players.
FOOMFLAMBER
1d4 HP
AC 13 (15 for metal ones)
Surprise on a 5-in-6 if they burst from their home terrain
Foomflambers are some sort of harebrained elemental hybrid from Foreign Parts, because those Foreigners don't even use proper elements.
EARTH FOOMFLAMBER- Can swim through loose soil like it was water. Can spit pebbles at people. Does not create pebbles, it merely stores and spits them.
WOOD FOOMFLAMBER- Can swim through wood and vegetation. Can snag people with growing vines, possibly tripping them. Wooden weapons like quarterstaves and clubs pass through them harmlessly. I'm pretty sure this was the final evolution.
METAL FOOMFLAMBER
Immune to metal weapons and pretty hard to stomp to death. I think they could rust things, or maybe they could just eat metal. Having a bunch of these nibble on some poor guys fancy new platemail like a shoal of piranha could be funny.
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