Malfera

"On candystripe legs the spiderman comes."

– The Cure

The Malfera is a stupid-looking monster elephant from the Dimension Of David Cook's Bad Acid Trips, specifically appearing as a humanoid elephant with horns, and tentacles sticking out of its chest, and crab-like pincer-claws for hands. This was introduced in X5: Temple of Death. Frank Mentzer realised "hey at least it's not a demon" so dumped it in the Companion Set; it is now a Mystara mainstay.

The malfera uses those crab-claws to draw its victim to those chest-a-cles. Low-pH chestacles, to the tune of 2d6/round. It's also got "poison breath" which only works when it bites with its (redundant) fangs. But you do get +3 on your save before you croak.

As an extradimensional you need MAGIC to hurt a malfera. Natural abilities include Knock so, don't bother locking your door at night. And it sees through invisibility.

Its (toxic) "Dimension of Nightmares" - which became Demiplane of Nightmares - didn't really take off in D&D; none of the later CM- or M- modules bother with it. It very likely inspired some aspects of Far Realm though. We're unsure where the malfera sits between Fiend Factory's gurgotch and the maelephant, which also look silly.

It was updated for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition in the Savage Coast Monstrous Compendium Appendix, and was updated to Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition in the Creature Catalog article in Dragon Magazine #343.