Monster: Sharkmaid

Frequency: rare
No appearing: 90%: 1, 10%: 2-3
Armour Class: 7 (AT 10+3)
Move: 24"
HD: 2
% In Lair: 5% (alone)/100% (with children)
Treasure Type: K; P in lair.
# Attacks: 1
Damage/attack: 2-12
Special attacks: charm
Special defenses: none
Magic Resistance: normal
Intelligence: Average
Alignment Chaotic Evil
Size: M
Psionic Ability: nil
Level/xp: II / 28 +2/hp

Sharkmaids appear to be normal mermaids but are highly predatory carnivores with several rows of razor-sharp teeth.

When encountered, there is a 10% chance that the sharkmaid has one or more daughters with her. In this case, there will certainly be be a lair nearby. A single child will have 1d4 hit points. movement of 9" and will fight in self-defence only, doing 1d6 damage with its razor-like teeth. A second child will have a full hit die, move at 12", and do 1d8 damage.

Normal morale is 55% but with children this goes up to 65%. Should morale fail, however, the mother will leave the children to their own devices.

Most of the time (60%) sharkmaids will be accompanied by a school of normal sharks hanging around for scraps. If there are no sharks with the maiden, there is likewise a 60% that a school will show up within 2d6 rounds of her making a kill. Numbers and size of sharks as per MM.

Although on good terms with non-intelligent sharks of all sizes, sharkmaids are other wise on openly antagonistic terms with basically all other forms of life and in particular dolphins and mermen.

A sharkmaid will attempt to kill any and all intelligent lifeforms she meets, whether for food or not. Against males she will use her charm ability, which is good to a range of 12" but only against a single target, which she must be able to pick out either by line of sight or, somehow, by name or distinctive call (e.g., "Are you lonely, helmsman?"). The charm allows a save but, once under the sharkmaiden's thrall the victim will desire nothing more than to kiss those luscious, perhaps suspiciously large lips. The first bite from the suddenly too-wide-to-be-real mouth breaks the charm, but for most victims that is far too late.

Females are immune to their attentions but it is not unknown for a sharkmaid with a child to use it as bait, either instructing it to thrash about (if older) or simply leaving it alone to panic (if younger) in the hope that a woman's maternal instincts will kick in and tempt her to "rescue" the child.

Once a ship or boat is alerted to the presence of a sharkmaid it should be possible to stop her from picking the crew off one-by-one, but those shipwrecked on rafts or even walking along a tropical beach may find themselves in grave peril.

Individual treasure takes the form of tarnished silver trinkets rather than actual silver pieces, and any lair will simply be a small underwater cave suitable for shelter from storms. Although their eyesight is good by human standards, sharkmaids will not venture to depths where the sun never reaches.

They breed by ingesting the genitals of male human/demi-human victims as part of their normal feeding and give birth to live young which they suckle. The whole thing is very Freudian, but the sharkmaids do not care about that and would probably just eat the old faker if he tried anything.