Beholder and Beholder-kin I, Death Kiss [1071]

Climat/Terrain Any remote
Organisation Solitary
Fréquence Très rare
Diète Carnivore
Cycle d'activité Any
Intelligence 13-14 - Hautement intelligent
Trésor I, S, T
Alignement Neutre Mauvais
Nombres 1
Classe d'armure 4/6/8
Mouvement Au sol :
Vol : 9" - Classe de vol : B
Nage :
Enfouissement :
Web :
Dés de vie 1-8+76 HP
Thac0 11
Nbre d'attaques 10
Dommage / attaques 1-8
Attaques spéciales Blood drain
Défenses spéciales Regeneration
Résistance à la magie Nil
Taille H - huge ( 12+' to 25' )
(6-12’ in diameter)
Morale 17-18 - Fanatique
Valeur en XP 8000 XP

Commentaires : The beholder is the stuff of nightmares. This creature, also called the sphere of many eyes or the eye tyrant, appears as a large orb dominated by a central eye and a large toothy maw, has 10 smaller eyes on stalks sprouting from the top of the orb. Among adventurers, beholders are known as deadly adversaries.
Equally deadly are a number of variant creatures known collectively as beholder-kin, including radical and related creatures, and an undead variety. These creatures are related in manners familial and arcane to the traditional beholders, and share a number of features, including the deadly magical nature of their eyes. The most extreme of these creatures are called beholder abominations.
The globular body of the beholder and its kin is supported by levitation, allowing it to float slowly about as it wills.
Beholders and beholder-kin are usually solitary creatures, but there are reports of large communities of them surviving deep beneath the earth and in the void between the stars, under the dominion of hive mothers.All beholders speak their own language, which is also understood by all beholder-kin. In addition, they often speak the tongues of other lawful evil creatures.
Combat : The Death Kiss, or bleeder, is a fearsome predator found in caverns or ruins. Its spherical body resembles that of the dreaded beholder, but the eyestalks of this creature are bloodsucking tentacles, its eyes are hook-toothed orifices. They favor a diet of humans and horses, but will attack anything that has blood. An older name for these creatures is eye of terror.
The central body of a death kiss has no mouth. Its central eye gives it 120-foot infravision, but the death kiss has no magical powers. A death kiss is 90% likely to be taken for a beholder when sighted. The 10 tentacles largely retract into the body when not needed, resembling eyestalks, but can lash out to a full 20-foot stretch with blinding speed. The tentacles may act separately or in concert, attacking a single creature or an entire adventuring company.
A tentacle’s initial strike does 1-8 points of damage as the barb-mouthed tip attaches to the victim. Each attached tentacle drains 2 hit points worth of blood per round, beginning the round after it hits.
Like the beholder, the death kiss has variable Armor Classes. In ordinary combat, use the following table, though situations may dictate other methods (should the creature be attacking with a tentacle from 20 feet away, then no attack on the body or central eye may be made, while attacks on the stalk and mouth are still possible).
Roll
Location
AC
Hit Points
01-75
Body
4
77-84
76-85
Central Eye
8
6
86-95
Tentacle stalk
2
6
96-00
Tentacle mouth
4
See following text
A hit on a tentacle-mouth inflicts no damage, but stuns the tentacle, causing it to writhe helplessly for 1-4 rounds. If its central eye is destroyed, a bleeder locates beings within 10 feet by smell and sensing vibrations, but it is otherwise unaffected.
Tentacles must be struck with edged weapons to injure them. They can be torn free from the victim by a successful bend bars/lift gates roll. Such a forceful removal does the victim 1-6 damage per tentacle, since the barbed teeth are violently torn free from the tentacle.
If an attached tentacle is damaged but not destroyed, it instantly and automatically drains sufficient hit points, in blood, from the victim’s body to restore it to a full 6 hit points. This reflex effect occurs after every non-killing hit on a tentacle, even if it is wounded more than once in a round. This cannot occur more than twice in one round. The parasitic healing effect does not respond to damage suffered by the central body or other tentacles.
A tentacle continues to drain blood, if it was draining when the central body of the death kiss reaches 0 hit points. Tentacles not attached to a victim at that time are incapable of further activity. A death kiss can retract a draining tentacle, but voluntarily does so only when its central body is at 5 hit points or less; it willfully detaches once the victim has been drained to 0 hit points.
Ingested blood is used to generate electrical energy – 1 hit point of blood becomes 1 charge. A death kiss uses this energy for motor activity and healing. An eye of terror expends one charge every two turns in moving, and thus is almost constantly hunting prey. Spending one charge enables a bleeder to heal 1 hit point of damage to each of its 10 tentacles, its central body, and its eye (12 hit points in all). It can heal itself with one charge of stored energy every other round in addition to its normal attacks and activity.
Each tentacle can store up to 24 charges of drained energy, the body capable of storing 50 charges of drained energy. A severed tentacle is 70% likely to discharge its cumulative charges, when severed, into anything touching it; each charge delivers 1 hit point of electrical damage.
Finally, bleeders can ram opponents with their mass. This attack does 1-8 damage.
A death kiss may “shut itself down”, remaining motionless and insensitive on the ground, and can remain alive in that state for long periods of time. To awaken from its hibernation, the creature requires an influx of electrical energy, considerable heat, or the internal shock caused by a blow, fall, wound, or magical attack; any of the above stimulants must deal at least 5 points of damage to the death kiss to awaken it. Adventurers finding a hibernating death kiss usually provide such stimulation, thinking the sleeper helpless prey.
Eyes of terror are solitary hunters, fully inheriting the paranoia and ego of their cousins, the beholders. If they encounter one of their kin, the result is often a mid-air struggle to the death. The loser’s body becomes an incubator and breeding ground for the death kiss’ offspring. Within one day, 1-4 young will “hatch”. Each new bleeder has half its parent’s hit points, and fully matures in 1 month.
The death kiss has an organ in the central, upper body that is a valued ingredient in magical potions and spell inks concerned with levitation (and may be sold like beholder eyes). In addition, a brain or nerve node, deep in a bleeder’s body hardens into a soft-sided, faceted red gem upon the creature’s death. Called “bloodeyes”, these typically fetch a market price of 70 gp each. They are valued for adornments since they glow more brightly as the wearer’s emotions intensify.