Otyugh

Appearance

The otyughs of Grizburg wallow in the refuse pits of Rustwater, their bloated hides dripping with sludge and corroded filth. Tentacles lined with broken metal teeth whip through the heaps, while eyestalks sprout and retract as needed, peering through clouds of rot and smoke. Their stench alone can empty an alley before their bulk even lumbers into view.   ---

Origins

While most claim otyughs crawl from the foul Elemental intersections of decay and hunger, Grizburg’s breed is shaped by industry. Generations of toxic runoff, failed alchemy, and Zothra-Khaar’s whispers in the Depths have twisted them into living landfills. Each carries within it fragments of rusted chain, bones of drowned dockhands, and shards of slag melted into their flesh.   ---  

Habitat

They thrive beneath the Sko River’s banks, moving unseen through the labyrinth of sewage channels and refuse pits. In Greendocks, they nest under collapsed barges and forgotten furnaces, surfacing only at night to feed. Entire sections of Rustwater are abandoned when an otyugh claims them, the air itself turning sour with its presence.   ---  

Ecology

Otyughs eat anything: meat, metal, garbage, carrion, or chemical sludge. Their tentacles dredge refuse into cavernous maws, and their rot leech disease spreads like a curse among those who resist. They reshape their appendages for the hunt—growing new legs to chase, new eyes to stalk, or more tentacles to drag prey down into muck. Their bodies are not just adaptable, but grotesquely inventive.   ---  

Behavior

Though sluggish in appearance, otyughs are cunning. They lurk motionless beneath garbage until movement draws their attention, then strike with brutal efficiency. Limited telepathy allows them to bait intruders with false promises of truce or warnings of danger, luring the unwary into their stinking reach. Once grappling, their rot leech drains life as easily as marrow from bone.   ---  

Use by Factions

The Rust Barons see them as tools, sometimes herding them into rival foundries to collapse entire structures in nights of feeding. Criminal guilds dump corpses into their lairs as both sacrifice and disposal, forging unspoken pacts with the beasts. Rumors claim a particularly vast specimen dwells beneath Brinkburn Ironhold, fed by cartloads of slag in exchange for its silence.   ---  

Cultural Role

Riverfolk call them “Rot Idols.” Some claim their endless hunger is a mirror of the city itself, devouring its own in order to survive. Street prophets in Rustwater scrawl prayers into piles of waste, hoping the otyugh will read them through its eyestalks and grant protection. For the desperate, even a monster of refuse can become a god.   ---  

Legends

Old Muckfingers swears he once saw an otyugh climb straight out of the Whispering Depths, its body stitched together from corpses and chains. It spoke in voices not its own, promising wealth to anyone who fed it. The crew who believed are long gone, their bones gnawed to rusted splinters. Whether the tale is true or not, every dockhand agrees: the deeper the pit, the hungrier the beast.   ---  

Closing Words

In Grizburg, even trash grows teeth. Otyughs are the city’s shadow made flesh: adaptable, ravenous, and always waiting beneath the refuse. To see one rise is to remember that nothing, not even garbage, is free of hunger. See full stats on D&D Beyond