Blueringed, Octopus

Octopus, Blueringed

CLIMATE/TERRAIN                Shallow Subtropical Oceans
FREQUENCY                            Uncommon
ORGANIZATION                      Solitaire
ACTIVITY CYCLE                    Any
DIET                                        Carnivore
INTELLIGENCE                       Low (2)
TREASURE                              Nil
ALIGNMENT                           Neutral
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NO. APPEARING                     1-2
ARMOR CLASS                       7
MOVEMENT                           sw 3
HIT DICE                               1+2
THAC0                                   17
NO. OF ATTACKS                  1 / 8
DAMAGE/ATTACKS              1d3 + poison / 1
SPECIAL ATTACKS               Poison
SPECIAL DEFENSES             Nil
MAGIC RESISTANCE            Nil
SIZE                                       S
MORALE Average                  (9)
XP VALUE                              140 XP

The Blueringed Octopus is a small 8-armed sand-hued octopus with blue rings on its body and arms. Besides this, it looks like any normal octopus.
Its color allows it to blend in with the ocean-floor, giving people only a 40% chance to detect them when camouflaged.

COMBAT
The Blueringed Octopus never attacks humans unless threatened or frightened; its primary food are small fish and other aquatic creatures that are small enough to digest. When the Blueringed Octopus is forced to attack, it strikes at a single target with all its tentacles, trying to attach itself. When it hits with two of its tentacles in the same round, it has gained enough support to pull itself to the opponent where it can attach and attacks with its beak.
The tentacles can take two points of damage ( each ) before being seperated. When the Octopus scores a hit with its beak, it injects a strong poison in its opponent. The poison is of type B, and should be enough to kill most opponents. Besides this, the Blueringed Octopus is normally no threat, and will propably flee if left alone.

HABITAT/SOCIETY
When hunting, the Blueringed Octopus has great patience, and can lie in wait in a single spot for a long time, waiting for its prey. The Blueringed Octopus mates once every spring, leaving the eggs in a reef for themselves like most other marine creatures. This is one of the few times, where more than one Blueringed Octopus are found together, even they are known to band together in times of little food.

ECOLOGY
The Bluringed Octopus' diet mostly consist of small marine creatures like crabs, small fishs, oysters etc. that they can overcome with their poison and beak When the prey is scarce, the octopus is known to attack larger creatures, but never those which are more then half its own size. Humans are only attacked when the octopus feels threatened. The octopus itself are hunted by larger marine creatures plus giant species of their own prey. The Blueringed Octopus can, if treated with care, become an excellent diet for humans. Some fishermen even specialize in the capture of this highly poisonus octopus, in order to sell it to high-paying restaurants.