Tizheruk
This serpentine beast undulates through the water. Its scaly skin and its flesh are clear, revealing its red-and-brown organs.
CR: 5 XP: 1,600
N Large magical beast
Init: +3 Senses: darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision Perception: +7
Defense
AC: 18, touch 12, flat-footed 15 (+3 Dex, +6 natural, –1 size)
hp: 52 (5d10+25)
Fort: +9 Ref: +7 Will: +2
Offense
Speed: 10 ft., swim 40 ft.
Melee: bite +12 (2d6+10 plus grab) or tongue +12 (grab and pull)
Space: 10 ft. Reach: 10 ft. (20 ft. with tongue)
Special Attacks: pull (tongue, 15 ft.), swallow whole (1d6 acid damage, AC 14, 5 hp)
Statistics
Str: 24 Dex: 17 Con: 21 Int: 2 Wis: 13 Cha: 6
Base Atk: +5 CMB: +13 (+17 grapple) CMD: 26 (can’t be tripped)
Feats: Power Attack, Skill Focus (Stealth), Weapon Focus (bite)
Skills: Perception +7, Stealth +6 (+14 in water), Swim +19, Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth in water
SQ: compression, see-through skin
Ecology
Environment: temperate rivers or marshes
Organization: solitary or pair
Treasure: none
Description
Compression (Ex) A tizheruk can use its compression ability to remain in waterways as shallow as 8 inches deep. While compressing itself against the floor of a body of water, a tizheruk gains a +4 circumstance bonus on Stealth checks.
See-Through Skin (Ex) Because so much of a tizheruk’s body is transparent, a creature swallowed whole by it has line of sight to creatures outside the tizheruk, and creatures outside the tizheruk can see any creatures that were swallowed whole.
Tongue (Ex) A tizheruk’s tongue is a primary attack with a reach equal to double the tizheruk’s normal reach (20 feet for a Large tizheruk). A tizheruk’s tongue deals no damage on a hit, but can be used to grab a creature and pull it closer. A tizheruk does not gain the grappled condition while using its tongue in this manner.
The tizheruk is a vicious freshwater predator that wreaks havoc in the lakes and rivers it inhabits. To make matters worse, tizheruks also frequently travel inland via smaller streams where animals and humanoids might think themselves safe. When a tizheruk swims upstream in such waters, it naturally compresses its muscles and organs, enabling it to remain in water less than a foot deep. It explodes to its full size as soon as it attacks, swallowing smaller prey or dragging larger creatures into the water before swimming away with its meal, crushing and potentially drowning its victim.
Though tizheruks subsist mostly on aquatic prey, they often supplement their diets with creatures caught on the shore, particularly sizable mammals such as deer or wild boars. To capture such creatures, a tizheruk extends its tightly coiled, whiplike tongue to snare one of its prey’s legs, then retracts the appendage to pull the creature to its mouth, where it can seize the creature and drag its prey into the water.
A tizheruk’s skin is nearly transparent, granting it natural camouflage beneath the water, where its rust-colored organs and tissue can easily be mistaken for the bed of a creek or stream. After gorging itself on fish or on land animals that wander near the shore, the tizheruk compresses itself on the bottom of a lake or river while it slowly digests its prey. Until then, its stealth is compromised, as the ragged chunks of flesh within its gullet are clearly visible, even if the tizheruk itself remains unseen.
An adult tizheruk is 15 feet long and weighs 200 pounds, though a tizheruk that has just fed may weigh up to two or three times as much. Larger tizheruks with the giant template are threats to even bigger prey.