Please no more _____ (specific monster name in post) in the first book of the AP!

[Grafz]

The monster is a stealth creature so I don't want to ruin it. To be clear I've avoided reading about it (since I'm a player in these games) so the creature stats I'm quoting below might be slightly off.

Name

Spoiler:

Gelatinous Cube

APs that I've run into it

Spoiler:

Age of Ashes, Extinction Curse, Agents of Edgewatch

It also shows up in (many) other adventures but...

The problem

Spoiler:

The GM says... "The room seems unusually clean" or "You see an unattended item" or "a body appears to be hovering in mid air" and my brain is like 90 hit points, speed 20, 2 action engulf, resistant to...

It's also a challenging slog for a standard group. With its size, invisibility, paralysis, engulf, and ongoing acid damage it's a tough, memorable encounter. Which means the 2nd or 3rd one is very obvious.

I swear there was one adventure, a homebrew, where we opened the door saw the body "floating in mid-air with a sword near it" and we literally just closed the door. That would have been the 5th cube.

I also (weakly) think that it's a really big difficulty spike for newer groups?

The (understandable appeal) to the writer (supposition on my part)

Spoiler:

It's an iconic creature, it helps explain dungeon ecology (the place is not filthy because...., the resistances and other elements (low ac, high hit points, low speed, immunity to precision, etc) require some parties to radically change up their tactics or get wrecked, it has no motivation* (so it slots in easily to the dungeon ecology)

For being a complex creature many DMs know how to run it without much explanation.

*=except in age of ashes when it's written like its intelligently planning its attack locations, subsequent APs have had a better sense of how the creature operates (or at least the DM has been able to make adjustments)

Alternative suggestions

Spoiler:

New oozes? New sub-sentient creatures that dispose of waste? New stealth creature?

Thinking about the difficulty spike for new players I'd be inclined to break it up a bit.

a) smaller stealthier foes
b) a large creature with engulf
c) an ooze

I think the memorable ooze in plaguestone is better? Its more clearly signposted as "dangerous encounter" for sure.

There may not be a perfect replacement (it's pretty iconic) but...