#redback gorger

[thecreaturecodex]

Redback Gorger

Image by Johnny Duddle, © Simon and Schuster

[Sponsored by @glarnboudin. An Awfully Beastly Business is a series of chapter books for young readers, set at a nature reserve for monsters. I read the first of them, and it was okay I guess. I'm definitely not in the target audience for them, but likewise if I was eight to ten when they came out, I could see myself having fixated on them. The redback is the cover monster of the second book, Sea Monsters and Other Delicacies, in which the villains hope to use it as the centerpiece of a seafood feast of exotic monsters. In order to avoid giving the redback just an adjective name, I resorted to the "adjective verber" formula beloved of Magic the Gathering and 4e D&D.]

Redback Gorger CR 17 N Magical Beast This creature resembles an octopus with the face of a frogfish. It has a craggy exoskeleton covering its body, studded with red plates along its back. It has eight tentacles, each of which is as thick as a tree trunk and lined with suckers that ooze a black resin. Growing from its head is a very long, flexible appendage ending in an eyeless blue snake’s head.

Redback gorgers are among the rarest of sea monsters—rarely is there more than one adult per ocean basin on any given planet. They are long-lived ambush predators—they spend most of their time resting or slowly swimming along the abyssal plains, then move higher into the water column to hunt. Although their jaws and tentacles are strong, they prefer to incapacitate their prey by injecting it with a super-cooled venom, carried in the fangs of their false head. The false head can smell, hear and sense heat, and can strike around cover. The redback gorger feeds primarily on large fish and small whales, which it paralyzes with its venom and then swallows without a struggle.

Despite their massive territorial requirements and rarity, redback gorgers can communicate through infrasound vocalization, similarly to whales and elephants, and use this to demarcate territorial boundaries and determine fertility status. Redbacks mate only once or twice in their long lives, but produce around a million tiny planktonic eggs during each mating event. The vast majority of larval redbacks are eaten while still tiny and planktonic.  On the rare occasions a redback gorger appears on the surface, it may probe its surroundings with this false head, giving the impression that a sea serpent or plesiosaur lurks below the surface instead of a much more dangerous predator. They can survive on land for brief periods, but only emerge onto land as an act of desperation.

Redback Gorger              CR 17 XP 102,400 N Gargantuan magical beast (aquatic) Init +6; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +18, tremorsense 60 ft.

Defense AC 32, touch 9, flat-footed 29 (-4 size, +2 Dex, +1 dodge, +23 natural) hp 283 (21d10+168) Fort +20, Ref +14, Will +14 DR 10/magic; Resist cold 20,electricity 20, fire 20; SR 28 Defensive Abilities deep dweller, fortification (50%)

Offense Speed 30 ft., swim 50 ft. Melee bite +27 (2d8+10 plus grab), sting +27 (2d6+10/19-20 plus poison), 8 tentacles +25 (1d8+5) Space 20 ft.; Reach 15 ft. (30 ft. with sting) Special Attacks critical envenomation, swallow whole (AC 23, 28 hp, 4d6+16 bludgeoning)

Statistics Str 30, Dex 15, Con 27, Int 2, Wis 20, Cha 16 Base Atk +21; CMB +39 (+43 grapple); CMD 62 Feats Blind Fight, Combat Reflexes, Critical Focus,Dodge, Improved Critical (sting), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Mobility, Multiattack, Power Attack, Spring Attack Skills Climb +15, Perception +18, Stealth +0 (+12 underwater), Swim +23; Racial Modifiers +12 Stealth underwater SQ water dependency

Ecology Environment any ocean Organization solitary or pair Treasure none

Special Abilities Critical Envenomation (Ex) If a redback gorger succeeds on a critical hit with its sting attack, it injects two doses of its poison simultaneously. Deep Dweller (Ex) A redback gorger is immune to cold and pressure damage due to water depth, and can move vertically through the water column without penalty. False Head (Ex) A redback gorger’s sting attack can move around obstacles, allowing it to ignore any cover except for full cover. Poison (Ex) Sting—injury; save Fort DC 28; duration 4 rounds; effect 4d6 cold damage and 1d6 Dex drain; cure 2 saves. Tentacles (Ex) A redback gorger’s tentacles are treated as a single secondary attack.