Editing TEW - Beasts - Gelatinous

* Danger level: 1-8

You know that dropping feeling you’re getting on your head right now? That’s not dew, it’s a monster.  Things that have no head, no arms, nor ass. Blobs of Mana-enriched liquids, that only roam around eating. Slow-moving but dangerous when they get too big, so don’t put it off. Killing one can be complicated and is related to it’s size. When relatively small (dog-size to fat-man size), enough slices will do the trick. The tinier bits can be stepped on, releasing the Mana. The gargantuan ones, though, are more likely to envelope your sword before you can get a clean cut through. Bullets are totally useless, unless enchanted. The same goes for arrows. This guide recommends cannons to blow easier to manage chunks off. Be wary though, some slimes may grow faster, or be able to take different forms.

=Tree Eater=
Mid range creatures in size and threat, the Tree Eater bears a high degree of resemblance to the aquatic octopus in basic shape, abilities, and behaviors, and it is generally considered to be an invader form of such.

It deviates from standard octopus physiology in that it has a flexible webbing between its tentacles that extends almost to the tips, although this webbing can be retracted or bunched up near the body to remove it from harm's way or grant the tentacles better mobility. The head is almost indistinct from the body, revealed only by the eight eyes that ring the body, one just above and between any given pair of legs. The creatures mouth, like an octopus, is under the body at the central joint of the legs, and sits at the end of a flexible stalk that can extend up to the length of the tentacles, but is significantly less durable. Hide is flexible yet rubbery, extremely durable, and capable of limited color and even texture alteration. The standard size of Tree Eaters is approximately 300 pounds and 14 feet tall when walking on its tentacles. Specimens able to slide over 100 foot trees without having to climb have been documented.

Tree Eaters are uncannily intelligent, consistently passing all the benchmarks for high animal sentience. They seem fully aware of their own abilities and the world around them, using both to their advantage when possible.

A hunting Tree Eater will generally crawl along either the ground or through the trees, using its camouflage abilities to remain undetected. Some have even been seen walking along the tops of trees, their underside blue to match the sky and their upper parts green to match the foliage below.

When it finds a tree with a suitable amount of food, either fruit or resident creatures, it waits until an opportune moment relative to the prey's sleep cycle, then climbs onto the tree and envelops it with its webbed tentacles. Tree eaters prefer to cover trees smaller than themselves, but if the food is abundant, or the Tree Eater is hungry, it may elect to only cover a part of a much larger tree, usually the top, for its own safety from land bound predators. 

Once the tree is covered, it vents a gas into the enclosed space, which is a fairly powerful sleep agent that also seems to enable it to "see" by the scent of the gas, which does not cling to plant material (a Tree Eater consuming fruit will simply takes its time, feeling along branches for the food). After a few seconds of venting the gas, it extends it's mouth-stalk and begins to consume the sleeping prey.

Encounters with a Tree Eater are, like many with Wild Fauna, either difficult or simple. A tree eater that is eating is stationary, vulnerable, and likely not even interested in a fight. A Tree Eater on the move, however, is a highly mobile, devious, powerful creature that some hunters have reported almost seems to regard combat as play, backing off when it actually has the advantage to return again, and often leaving the hunters alive when it could easily kill and consume them all.

For this reason (along with their willingness to eat fruit, and overall lack of useful materials), Tree Eaters are a popular choice for Tamer-Hunters of all skill levels. They take to taming well, and are not nearly as temperamental as most creatures, especially if presented with "boredom breakers", in the form of simple physical puzzles, random pieces of material for them to mimic, and so on.

Tree eaters are hermaphroditic, reproducing when a pair meet randomly during their travels. Each Tree Eater will carry a set of eggs tucked up around the mouth in a pocket of webbing, depositing them in a few days on the next suitable food tree it finds. If the tree is fruit, it will simply leave the eggs and move on, but if the tree is prey animals, it will envelop the tree as normal, keeping the animals unconscious with its gas. This is the easiest and most profitable time to engage a Tree-Eater, as they are often weak with hunger, and the baby Eaters can be recovered and sold to Tamers.

Perhaps due to their hermaphroditic and supposed aquatic origins, Tree Eaters do not display the range of mutation that other creatures do when Mana-Saturated. As a rule, Tree-Eaters simply get bigger, and smarter. Some larger tree eaters, even non-tamed ones, have demonstrated an understanding of our speech, and at least one fanciful story recounts a hunter who taught a giant specimen to write with a tree upon a muddy field.

Always remember the following when deciding whether to engage a Tree-Eater in combat: you are about to fight a creature that can squeeze through spaces 1/20th of its own size, can see in all directions, can change its color and even texture to match its surroundings, has a potent knock-out gas, and is very likely smarter than you.

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