Landsquid (3.5e Monster)

''The sandy ground rumbles with a telltale buzzing noise as the massive cone shaped head of a landsquid breached the surface. Along its hardened and craggy skull, riders cling on inside protective bubbles, and two of its many tentacles stretched out with long metallic barbs.''

The landsquid (teuthis ergvahana) is an ancient creature which inhabits deserts and warm places with loose soil. They appear much like colossal squids, with eight normal tentacles and two long tentacles with barbed tips. Their heads are covered in a thick rocky shell with a spade-like metallic tip which seems to be vibrating. Their eyes are large rocky orbs cloudy and pale. They have terrible eyesight, but their eyes also function as ears allowing them to sense their surroundings through vibrations and noise. Their mouths are powerful beaks with crushing teeth inside, devouring minerals as it passes them by with their longer tentacles. They leave a trail of sandy waste in their wake.

They are primarily used as great mounts by desert people, employing them in the same sense one would use elephants. Large and powerful, they are used largely for their immense carrying capacity (up to a light load of 4,256 lbs and pushing or pulling 64,000 lbs for the average creature). They have been specially bred for rough and craggy surfaces to allow passangers to ride them. Their rapid burrowing abilities is a result of their vibrating tip, which pulverizes and resonates material in front of it and transforms it into a quicksand or mud consistancy for the duration the landsquid passes through. These same vibrations also act as its means of communication and as a form of siesmic echolocation to help it see underground.

Landsquids can be taken up as a desert themed druidic animal companion with a -12 level adjustment. They are 42 feet long and weight 90,000 lbs.

Combat
Landsquids are nonaggressive and only feed on small animals, underground fauna, and certain minerals which it scoops into its mouth while moving. It uses most of its tentacles for locomotion, using its two longer tentacles to fight and manipulate objects. If it cannot simply escape by burrowing, it grows aggressive and begins overruning creatures while charging, trying to keep as many prone as it can to minimize the number of targets which can fight it. It's tentacles are barbed, dealing both bludgeoning and piercing damage.

Murky Eyes : Landsquids have terrible eyesight, taking a -10 to all Spot checks. They are effectively blind beyond 30 feet, and roll twice against any miss chances, tailing the worse roll. Landsquids mainly use their tremorsight instead.

Overrunning Charge : Landsquids may overrun as if they had the Improved Overrun feat whenever they make a charge attack. Typically it burrows along the surface of the earth bowling over creatures en route to attack others.

Rough Shell : The landsquid's shell is rough and craggy, the nooks bred as safe spots for Large and smaller creatures to fit in. A landsquid can support a Huge creature but cannot dive underground with them, but Large and smaller creatures can hide inside the crags in the shell and allow the creature to dive with them in tow. Typically diving is a short afair due to breathing issues, but some landsquids are equipped with special harnesses to keep out stray dirt and provoke fresh oxygen when closed.

Rush : Once an hour as a full-round action, a landsquid can dart ahead in a straight line and move x10 its normal speed. It does not provoke attacks of opportunity for this movement.

Tremorsight : A landsquid can sense creature on or in the ground out to 120 feet as well as if it was seen normally.