Swords & Wizardry: the Sucker Serpent

This post is designated Open Game Content as outlined in section 1(d) of the Open Game License.

The origin of these horrible little monsters is unknown, however, their aggressive nature and voracious appetites are known far and wide.

Sucker serpents are possessed of neither sight nor hearing, but are able to detect vibrations in the air caused by movement.  Thusly, they tend to congregate around frequently traveled areas of jungle, forest, or other woodlands where they can conceal themselves in the underbrush or other ground cover.

When something moves through such a nest of sucker serpents the coiled beasties will spring out at the moving object and attach themselves to it with their large, suction-cup-like mouths.  They will then begin frantically stabbing the object with the near dagger-like stinger at the other end of their serpentine bodies.  Should the object they’ve attached themselves to prove to be unliving (a wagon, for instance, or a zombie) they will quickly detach themselves and launch towards another moving object.  Chaos quickly ensues should a small caravan pass through a nest of a dozen or so sucker serpents.

Sucker serpents will not stop attacking until all movement has ceased, whether that’s by death or escape.  At that point, the sucker serpents will slither over to the nearest victim, cup its mouth over a collection of stab wounds, and suck out the victim’s vital fluids.  They will move from victim to victim until all are sucked dry and then the entire nest will move to a different location.

Sucker Serpent
Armor Class: 7 [12]
Hit Dice: 1-1
Attacks: stab
Special: stab is automatic once sucker is attached*
Move: 12 leaping, 9 slithering
HDE/XP: 1/15

* A sucker serpent needs only make one attack roll, which is to see if its sucker mouth has attached itself to its target; treat non-living objects such as wagons and the like as having an AC of 9 [10].  Once a sucker serpent has attached itself to its target, no attack roll is necessary for the stab to cause damage – it will do so automatically until it is pulled off.  Luckily, the sucker serpent’s sucker is not very strong and it can be pulled off by rolling the target’s strength value or less on a 20-sided die.