Ok, I'll post a picture of the monster here, and tell you what I was planning.
The monster is called a Wood Beholder, and it looks like this:
Attacks
It has 5 "legs" it uses to walk around, (albeit VERY slow) and 5 other appendages it uses to attack.
Appendage #1 and #2 are just trunks ending in sharp points used to impale its victims.
Appendage #3 carries two flowers. The first is one that casts a sleeping gas. This will come out in a spray, kind of like a dragon's breath, and will put people into dreamland. The second flower is the one containing the silencing gas, which will make people lose their voices so they can't cast spells.
Appendage #4 is a yellow flower that shoots its seeds from its branch. These seeds are called wood ticks, and when one is shot directly at the adventurer, it does damage, kinda like being hit with a large wooden melon. It also then gets up and starts attacking people who are fighting the Wood Beholder. Eventually, these scurry off, burrow, and grow into another Wood Beholder. Wood ticks have low HP and are easily killed off, but they give the Wood Beholder flanking bonuses when shot behind the attackers. It can fire up to 5 wood ticks during the encounter.
Appendage #5 is a large bud which shoots tons of poison darts.
The Wood Beholder also has vines it can use to grab and hold people from 15 feet away.
Drops
The flowers on this Wood Beholder are highly valuable as materials for fancy clothes among high society, especially among the women. Every time the nobles of the land get together and have a party, it is considered prestigious to have a dress made with the petals from one of these plants. They are a rarity, being so far away from civilization, and attempts to grow them have either failed, or turned out disastrously for the grower. The flowers only bloom at full maturity, which means the grower is having to take care of this large, highly moody, and aggressive plant for years before he sees any flowers. Nobles who have sent men to try and get these flowers usually end up with some men being killed, and captains of soldiers get pissed that their employers would send their men off for something as trivial as a party. For this reason, these flowers only end up on the market through sheer luck or a group of hunters skilled enough to find one, and kill it.
Background
The Wood Beholder is not a true beholder, but is only called that by the locals because of its various attacks and its many branching appendages. Fairies sometimes keep these as pets and even give them names. Fairies are also very offended when outsiders refer to these pets as Wood Beholders, because as many people know, Beholders are abominations, and to compare their beloved pets to one of those is an insult worthy of a severe beating. They refer to these creatures as Octotrees.
Story Hook
What I plan to do in my campaign is to have the adventurers, while travelling from one town to the next, stumble upon a group of various merchants on the road. They are all on the way to the next town, but are stopped on the road below a small hill for some reason.
When the adventurers go up and talk to them, they tell the adventurers to look over the hill, but to do it slowly and quietly. They then see that a Wood Beholder is blocking their path. Each merchant has several caravan guards, and the guards are negotiating with each other who is going to fight this thing off so they can get their goods to the next town, and it turns to bickering and accusations being thrown about.
The adventurers will probably either negotiate a price to fight it, or fight it for free. Either way, that is the hook I will use to get them into battle.
After they finish the battle, a bunch of fairies show up, and are horrified they have killed off their beloved pet! They want compensation in the form of 500 gold pieces! The adventurers can decide to compensate these fairies, or tell the fairies to slagg off.
If they pay the fairies, the story ends there. But if not, the fairies promise to be waiting for them the next time they come back down this road, and they will bring a couple more of their pets along. The one they killed was also a younger one, and the ones they are bringing are even bigger and nastier.
Aftermath
If the adventurers come back down that road, sure enough, the fairies will have two bigger nastier monsters waiting for them, as well as several other fairies to help dispel any effects the mages might use on their Wood Behol...ahem, Octotrees. The adventurers will then have to decide whether they are prepare to fight two more Wood Beholders plus their very pissed fairy friends, or tough it out in the forest and try and find another way back to their town.
Another plot hook could be...
If you don't feel like killing off your players with the second Wood Beholder/Fairy fight....
The fairies decide to negotiate with the adventurers. The head fairy tells them her daughter has taken a liking to one of the adventurers (or NPCs with the adventurers) and wants to take his hand in marriage. All it would require is one night for the wedding and one night for the honeymoon in the fairy village, then though they would still be considered married, he would be free to go off doing whatever he was doing before, only with occasional visits back to the fairy village. If they say no, the fairies will consider this to be a second grave insult in less than a week towards their people and customs, and for that, they will have to die!
Stats I have so far for the Wood Beholder
Huge Tree
Hit Dice: 9d8+55 (104 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 5 ft. (1 square)
Armor Class: 19 (+2 Dex, +7 natural), touch 12, flat-footed 17
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+6
Attacks: Impale 2Arms +12 melee (2d6)
Shoot Wood Mite +8 ranged (1d6+1)
Clinging Vine +8 grapple (no damage, but player is held in position.
Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks:
Sleeping Mist DC16 Asleep for 1d4 rounds
Poison Mist DC16 Poison I effect
Silencing Mist DC16 Silent effect
Special Qualities:
Saves: Fort +8, Ref +0, Will +6
Abilities: Str 30, Dex 10, Con 21, Int 2, Wis 13, Cha 7
Skills:
Challenge Rating: 6
Alignment: Usually lawful evil
I got the stats from an Elephant, which is a comparable to fighting this, except the Wood Beholder is much slower, but much more dangerous.
