Planar Bestiary
Neonates are a marine species that hails from worlds of the Material Plane incredibly distant in time and space. Neonates slipped through dimensional and/or temporal ruptures and now can be found in the Plane of Water as well as some seas of more familiar Material Plane worlds.
Neonates have sleek forms, sinewy as eels, though they are bigger than most eels (about 5 feet long) and have forelimbs tipped with vicious claws. Also unlike eels, they are intelligent and can form neonate groups, called broods.
Neonates are the stalled middle stage of the life cycle of a much deadlier creature. Some factor in their new environment keeps them from maturing further, which is lucky for any other creatures in the area, but a point of concern among neonates. Some have come to believe that neonates, as a species, have been magically cursed. They seek far and wide, including across planar boundaries, for someone with the expertise to provide a fix. Neonates can't produce larvae that grow into more mature neonates without at least one individual reaching the final state of their life cycle to spawn more. If the last neonate perishes before this happens, that's the end for this species.
Motive: Defense; cure their species' "curse" of stalled maturity
Environment: Anywhere in or near water, usually in groups of two or more
Health: 9
Damage Inflicted: Minor wound (3 points)
Armor: 2
Movement: Immediate; short when swimming
Modifications: Tasks out of water as level 1; stealth (in water) as level 5
Combat: A neonate attacks twice each round, once with their bite and once with their claws.
Alternatively, the neonate targets a creature within short range with a mental attack (a "psychic hook"), inflicting 5 points of Intellect damage (ignores Armor) on a failed Intellect defense task and—on a second failed Intellect defense task—forcing the target to spend their next turn cowering or running in fear.
A neonate can telepathically communicate with a target damaged by their psychic hook as if the target were another neonate for several days.
Interaction: Neonates are intelligent, able to communicate telepathically (assuming they first connect to a non-neonate with a psychic hook attack). But most instinctually act to protect their kind. They are unwilling to work against other neonates. It is not unusual for a neonate to sacrifice themself so that other neonates can survive, if the situation warrants it. Their most urgent desire is to discover the source of their inability to spawn new young.
Use: An ancient ruin, sealed for thousands of years, was recently revealed. Explorers who return tell tales of amazing treasures, as well as a colony of "eel monsters" that all answered to a fecund and powerful progenitor "queen."
GM Intrusion: The neonate's attack inflicts an additional 3 points of damage from electricity, and the target character is stunned, losing their next turn.