okay, here's what my friend and i figured out.
there's no upper body on this thing, its just a set of gills connected to 5 tentacles. there's no real body to it at all. the gills, with the [CONTYPE:UPPERBODY]tag is trying to connect to something that isn't there. even if it didn't have that tag, its still a floating tentnacle with gills, and is dying because there's no place to put the brain.
we tried giving it the BASIC_1PARTBODY:BASIC_HEAD: tags and we'll see if those will work.
that didnt' work, so i removed the "CON:UB" tag from the tentnacles, that didnt' work, so i tried to add the [UPPERBODY] and [LOWERBODY] tags to the "gills" body type. i also added the [COLDDAM_POINT:1000][HEATDAM_POINT:100000] tags.
and it STILL didnt' work. am i missing something else?
body_Default_extended2
[OBJECT:BODY]
[BODY:5TENTACLES]
[BP:RFT:right upper tentacle][CON:LB][liMB]
[GRASP][STANCE]
[BP:LUT:left upper tentacle][CON:LB][liMB]
[GRASP][STANCE]
[BP:MT:middle tentacle][CON:LB][liMB][GRASP][STANCE]
[BP:RLT:right lower tentacle][CON:LB][liMB]
[GRASP][STANCE]
[BP:LLT:left lower tentacle][CON:LB][liMB]
[GRASP][STANCE]
[BODY:GILLS]
[BP:GILLS:gills][UPPERBODY][LOWERBODY][BREATHE]
[CREATURE:Cthulhu_Spawn]
[NAME:Cthulhu Spawn:Cthulhu Spawn:Cthulhu Spawn]
[TILE:'C'][COLOR:7:0:0]
[BIOME:ANY_OCEAN][FREQUENCY:100]
[SWIMS_INNATE][SWIM_SPEED:1400]
[AMPHIBIOUS]
[LARGE_ROAMING]
[BEACH_FREQUENCY:50]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[BODY:5TENTACLES:GILLS:HEAD:2EYES:2LUNGS:HEART:GUTS:ORGANS:SPINE:BRAIN]
[FAT:2][SIZE:4]
[CARNIVORE]
[liKES_FIGHTING]
[NOFEAR][NO_SLEEP]
[COLDDAM_POINT:1000][HEATDAM_POINT:100000]
[ALL_ACTIVE]
[CANOPENDOORS]
[BLOODTYPE:G]
[CAN_LEARN]
[MODVALUE:10]
[CLUSTER_NUMBER:5:10]
[ATTACK:MAIN:BYTYPE:GRASP:lash:lashing:1:2:LASHING][ATTACKFLAG_WITH][ATTACKFLAG_CANLATCH]
[ATTACK:MAIN:BYTYPE:GRASP:lash:lashing:1:2:LASHING][ATTACKFLAG_WITH][ATTACKFLAG_CANLATCH]
[ATTACK:MAIN:BYTYPE:GRASP:lash:lashing:1:2:LASHING][ATTACKFLAG_WITH][ATTACKFLAG_CANLATCH]
[SPEED:850]
[DAMBLOCK:25]