GRELL

The appearance of this dreadful creature is fearsome indeed — a body like a giant exposed brain approximately 5-ft in diameter and with a frontal beak, below which trail ten 6-ft long tentacles. The body of the grell is a drab olive color streaked with white; the tentacles are pale olive-green.

Grell are usually found underground but are occasionally seen in ruined/abandoned buildings. They are particularly dangerous and vicious, dropping on their victims from above whenever circumstances permit.

The beast 'flies' by a levitation process, small inflections of the tentacles controlling horizontal movement. It is maneuverability class D.

All ten tentacles are brought to bear on a single victim. Each inflicts 1-4 hit points of damage and carries small spines which can inject a venom into the victim; this will paralyze the victim unless he makes his saving throw against paralyzation at +4. 

If any one of the tentacles succeeds in paralyzing a victim, each melee round thereafter two tentacles will remain anchored on his body, the grell lashing with the other eight tentacles (for 1-4 hit points of damage each) and rending with its beak for 1-6 hit points of damage. None of these attacks, after the initial paralyzation, requires a 'to hit' roll — once the grell has grasped its victim, lucky is he who escapes alive.

Any hit on a tentacle will render it inoperative (though if the creature survives, the tentacle will regenerate in 1-2 days) but the damage is not subtracted from the creature's hit points — only by hitting the body can the grell be damaged in the usual way. The body and tentacles all have AC 4.

Grell are immune to lightning but otherwise have standard resistance to normal and magical attacks.