Grell

Grells are a monster from Fiend Factory which then floated over to Dungeons & Dragons' Fiend Folio. They got an entire chapter dedicated to them in Lords of Madness.

The Basics

Grells are ambush predators mainly found in ruins and the Underdark. They look like floating brains with spiky jellyfish tentacles and bird beaks. They are immune to electric attacks and can paralyze prey with their tentacles. Because they don't have eyes they perceive the environment with their sharp hearing and a shark-like electroreception sense. Their electroreception sense allows them to communicate with each other completely silently through electrical impulses.

The second edition Monstrous Manual introduced that grell live in a hivelike colony. They are egg-layers. The alpha of the colony is "patriarch"; betas are "philosophers" with the rest warriors. Patriarchs are immotile masses of tissue; but if encased in an airship, they can take to the skies or even deep space beyond. They answer to an "Imperator" of all grell. They have no place in an ecology beyond Apex Predator; if they show up, expect the death of all rival sentients until they get bored of the hunt and move off.

Warriors can use grell-specific weapons, like the Lightning Lance. The language is a mixture of chirps, tentacle-movement, and psi. Non-grell lifeforms are only prey, or inedibles, or predators to them.

Despite that grell society is A Thing, those grell which most adventurers encounter are, still, feral grell who choose to live like animals, either solitary or in small packs.

3rd Edition Lore

Grell made their (re)debut in 3e for its second Monster Manual - bypassing that edition's Fiend Folio, for whatever reason. This lot are subterranean by choice, but later that description allows they might lurk around quicksand (jungles?). Although they are very intelligent and are capable of using magic, and (in later lore) even creating magic items, they are completely obsessed with eating.

As for what grell eat: again, that'd be us. Unlike many other aberrations, they are not interested in conquering the world or ruling over other intelligent creatures. They only want to spread themselves across as many lands and worlds as possible and feast on delicious food. They usually don't communicate with other species and rarely trade or form alliances with other creatures. And because they prefer to hunt their food and aren't interested in slaves they usually don't take other creatures as prisoners.

Grell are born genderless, but can choose to permanently turn male. Grell that are still genderless will temporarily turn female if they mate with a male.

While most grells choose to live like wild animals, they also form colonies which do have an advanced civilization. Grell philosophers in these colonies study wizard magic. They are recognizable by all the magic bling they wear. This edition made explicit that their magic items, such as the Lightning Lance, are made in-house, using a combination of alien science and magic. This creative art is known as grell alchemy. Casters that know grell alchemy get a bonus to spell penetration checks and their spells become harder to identify and dispel by those who do not. This edition retcons what grell patriarchs are like, now they are just the largest and strongest grells in a colony. The book doesn't say anything about the grell imperator.

Grells are generally not religious as the idea of worship is alien to them and they don't believe in an afterlife, although some colonies offer sacrifices to evil gods out of admiration for being the greatest predators. Grell clerics are possible but very rare and mainly see their chosen god as a source of power they have made a deal with.

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