black pudding

Weighing over 9 tons, a black pudding is a destructive subterranean ambush predator. Commonly amassing in a fluid shape not unlike an inky blob of oil or slime, the membrane of a black pudding is highly corrosive and quickly makes work of flesh, wood, cloth, and metal alike, leaving only stone untouched. The tactic most often utilized by the mindless and sluggish creatures is to drop onto their prey or engulf them and constrict around their bodies, crushing and liquifying everything that they can get ahold of. They are exceptionally notorious for a unique reaction to being cut open, in that their cell membrane quickly undergoes mitosis in response to some kinds of damage, creating two "offspring" puddings almost instantaneously. This terrifying ability to rapidly reproduce in the heat of battle can cascade and quickly overwhelm any potential prey the black puddings may sense nearby. Black puddings, like most oozes, lack sight, and instead sense their surroundings with a fine layer of hair-like cilia and a fine sensitivity to changes in air pressure.