Carrion Eye (monster for sci fantasy games)

Carrion Eye

Carrion Eyes begin as a smooth cylinder or orb (30in circumference) floating a few feet above the ground, with a large apertured eye at one end. When they encounter dead creatures, the Eye will roll on the corpse, which will be stuck to it through the Carrion Eye's strange energies. These energies can also reanimate limbs of the corpse to activate special abilities or even attack with weapons. The Eye's control of these limbs are as if they were it's own naturally, and its preferred mode of conveyance is to crawl with them. Sometimes they are so decayed they become little more than tentacles or claws, however.

A Carrion Eye will typically follow trails of corpses, absorbing them, until it finds whatever is killing things and begin silently stalking them. Once the Carrion Eye has doubled it's mass, it becomes agitated and desires to shed the current accumulation to begin anew. It cannot do this itself, however, and will provoke other creatures to attack it. The Eye's goal is to wound the creatures sufficiently in battle that it can begin new accumulation with their corpses after they have destroyed the current outer mass. (Either way, it'll try to flee after being reduced to half HP unless opponents are hurt sufficiently).

CLIMATE/TERRAIN: Fresh battlefields, sci-fantasy dungeons, silently following you
ARMOR CLASS: -2/22 (base body) 5/15 (accumulated tissue; basically when it's at half HP use the harder AC)
MOVE: Hover/scuttle 10ft/rd, maneuver 20ft/round if falling (permanent "feather fall" effect)
HIT DICE: 7-16,  base body always has 6 and accumulated mass the rest, see below
TREASURE TYPE: Might be some sweet loot on the accumulated corpses, or useful animal parts
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1-4
DAMAGE/ATTACK: Eye Ray for 5-16/ claws 1-4/ weapons
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Whatever abilities the creatures it's accumulated had, Eye Ray, Infinite Gaze
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Regeneration (base body only, 2HP/rd), Construct immunities (immune to disease/poison/charm/sleep); half damage from fire and cold to base body
INTELLIGENCE: Cunning
SIZE: M - L
Eye Ray: 5-16 points of energy damage;

Infinite Gaze: anyone staring into the Eye's lens is transfixed by the seemingly endless depth - save VS Petrification (or roll under WIS-2) or be transfixed

Carrion Eyes move completely silently until they have absorbed a decent amount of dead stuff.

Here's a chart if you need some quick ideas for what weird abilities it's accumulated:

1	Rotting arm holding longsword (1d8)
2	Rotting monster/animal claw (1d6) (50% poisoned)
3	Wizard arm holding orb with stored spell (roll level and spell randomly)
4	Undead Arm with Drain: 1. Ability score 2. Level 3. Age/Time 4. Remote Blood sucking
5	Beholder Eye Stalk (roll randomly)
6	Monster Head with Breath Weapon
7	Monster part with Fear effect (1-2) or Charm (3-4) like a siren’s head
8	Monster part that grants Carrion Eye Invisibility (1-2) or Improved Invisibility (3-4)
9	Some kinda flame thrower or laser gun limb
10	Carrion Crawler stalks
11	Field of Electricity like Flaming Hands but Electrical damage; metal armor doubles damage
12	Anti-magic field

Every 8 points of damage it takes has a 10% chance of eliminating one of the special abilities, as the accumulated corpses are destroyed/knocked off/burned/etc.

If this seems confusing, maybe run the base body as one creature and the accumulated ick as a second creature, where they can't hurt the first one til the second one's dead.

(pictures from Takato Yamamoto)