Semitropical Desert

Under crowded conditions, these normally inoffensive relatives of the grasshopper change color, breed uncontrollably, ravenously consume any available vegetation, and wreak vast destruction to farms and settlements. The largest swarms, known as plagues, can include billions of locusts and cover hundreds of square miles. Locusts in these swarms are larger and more aggressive than common ones, making the swarm a true danger to everything edible in their path and even to inedible objects as well.

Giant locusts have a hunger akin to their smaller cousins, but only rarely do they gather in the endless numbers of their tiny kin. A mature giant locust measures just over 4 feet long and weighs 50 pounds.

Giant scorpions are monstrous versions of the more common desert scorpion. They are likely to attack any creature that approaches. Giant scorpions usually charge when attacking, grabbing prey in their pincers, then lashing their segmented tails forward to kill their victim with injected venom. Giant scorpions are just over 8 feet long from head to the base of the tail; the tail adds an additional 8 feet or so, although it is usually curled up over the scorpion’s back. Giant scorpions weigh between 2,000 and 6,000 pounds. Giant scorpions normally feed on other giant vermin, as well as large mammals that they paralyze with their venom, but they will attack and eat any living creature that ventures too close. In turn, giant scorpions are preyed upon by purple worms and other large predators. Giant scorpions engage in complex courtship rituals when they mate, grasping each other’s pincers, arching their tails, and performing a circular “dance.” Soon after mating, the male usually retreats to avoid being cannibalized by the female. Female scorpions do not lay eggs; they give birth to live young in broods of a dozen or so. The mother carries her brood on her back until the young are old enough to fend for themselves and hunt their own prey. Giant scorpions live in underground burrows, either as solitary hunters or in small colonies, and will sometimes take up residence in man-made ruins or dungeons if food is plentiful. Giant scorpion colonies are usually made up of scorpions from the same brood that have yet to strike out on their own. Other species of scorpions exist as well, some smaller but most quite a bit larger and favoring different terrains, such as forests, plains, or even underground.

The hate-filled inheritors of an ancient curse, lamias appear as lean and attractive women from the waist up, while below they possess the bodies of powerful lions. Even their humanoid features bear distinctly feline traits, their eyes slitted and feral and their teeth like predatory fangs. A typical lamia stands over 6 feet tall, measures more than 8 feet long, and weighs upward of 650 pounds. Lamias are attracted to the ruined and forsaken parts of the world. Crumbling keeps, abandoned cities, and forgotten monuments all satisfy these deadly hunters’ cruel aesthetic— particularly those in arid or otherwise lifeless environs. Foremost, though, lamias favor decrepit temples. They delight in seeing the shrines of good deities in ruins and go out of their way to bring hardship to thriving holy places. Lamias look to the eldest female of the group as their leader, mother, and shaman, cleaving to her with fanatical reverence. While lamias shun most religious followings— viewing such as the source of the curse that blighted them with bestial forms—lamia elders claim to hear the whispers of the scouring desert winds and know the cold whims of the stars, drawing upon such mystical sources to lead their people. The lamias presented here are but the most common and least powerful members of this cursed race, with others bearing serpentine, avian, and even more perverse forms.

Possessing the savage instincts of lions with the cunning of brass dragons, dragonnes combine the fiercest features of these noble creatures into predators both awe-inspiring and deadly. The origin of dragonnes generates endless speculation. The odds of these creatures being direct crossbreeds of dragons and lions are quite remote, for numerous reasons: the two creatures rarely share the same territories; few creatures as clever as brass dragons would choose to mate with simple lions; and dragonne abilities differ significantly from those of metallic dragons. While otherworldly breeding experiments and magical mishaps remain possibilities, few satisfying explanations make themselves apparent. Although many creatures rightly fear these ferocious hunters, few dragonnes are blatantly evil—most are just highly territorial and seek to defend their homes and hunting grounds from interlopers. Creatures that draw too close to a dragonne’s lair are typically met by the resident’s fearsome roar, followed by its claws and fangs if this warning is ignored. Those who attempt to settle in a dragonne’s territory find themselves harassed constantly until they decide to leave or the dragonne is slain. These intimidating predators spend the majority of their time on the ground, even when in combat, since their wings prove somewhat ungainly. They typically search for prey and intruders from the air, then land nearby to charge and pounce. Despite their deadliness, dragonnes form strong bonds with those they consider members of their pride, sometimes even adopting creatures of other races. A character with the Leadership feat can take a dragonne as a cohort. Such characters must have an effective leadership level of 10th. Most dragonne cohorts gain levels in barbarian, fighter, or ranger. A dragonne measures between 10 and 12 feet long and weighs up to 1,200 pounds.

Lammasus are protectors of the weak and ever-vigilant champions against evil. These noble creatures dwell in crumbling desert ruins or other remote areas, where they tirelessly fight against the forces of darkness, hoping to defend those they consider lesser races from the evils that often lurk in such places. Although most of these winged sentinels prove wise and knowledgeable about those who would seek to do evil in their lands, many races find lammasus arrogant, dismissive, and patronizing, taking umbrage at their superior attitudes and affectations. Such reactions confuse and sometimes insult these highly honorable creatures, who seek only to do good and aid those weaker than themselves. Lammasus who witness members of other races actively combating evil typically prove more sensitive and address such allies as equals. Should good-aligned creatures prove their skill and overcome any differences of attitude they might have with one of these majestic beings, they find a true and noble ally and an invaluable resource for those hoping to defeat evil. Lammasus are quite parental toward those who join their cause, bringing a lifetime of experience to any struggle. This often makes them stern, but those who know lammasus find them to be extremely caring about those they protect. A lammasu eagerly lays down its own life to protect those in peril if such a sacrifice might win the day. Most lammasus are 8 feet in length and weigh approximately 900 pounds.

Cliff giants are benevolent but reclusive creatures that dwell in deserts and badlands, carving out snug cliffside caves or building stone huts on top of mesas. Broad-shouldered, with features as sharp as chiseled stone, cliff giants can reach a height of 14 feet and weigh over 1,300 pounds. As if sculpted from layers of stone, cliff giants’ skin color is a deep reddish brown, with quartz-like streaks or veins of color that crisscross in shades of ivory, dull yellow, or bright white. Cliff giants live up to 800 years old. Although kind, cliff giants prefer solitude and spend their lives in seclusion from other humanoids to form a stronger bond with the natural world. This bond often leads them to see large expanses of land as their responsibility and all living things within as their charges. Many track cycles of the weather, animal migrations, and the lairs of dangerous monsters by painting elaborate pictograms on high cliff walls. Cliff giant family units stay together for about a decade, after which time children live with one parent or the other until fully grown and able to survive on their own (at about 20 years old). Marital bonds between cliff giants are strong despite their inclination for solitude; a married pair of cliff giants may raise and bear children in this way once every century, and when living apart they communicate with each other on a monthly basis using animal messengers. Cliff giants respect their elders, and some pairs living together are an adult giant with an old parent or grandparent.

A living mirage is a cloud of shimmering air that dwells in warm and cold deserts and calm stretches of open ocean. Although those who have lost loved ones to living mirages revile them as cruel deceivers, living mirages are in fact mindless, without any motive beyond feeding on the water and minerals found in living bodies. They manage to show hallucinations of what a victim desires not because of any intelligence on the living mirage’s part, but because the victim’s own mind generates the illusions.

Swift, cunning, and perpetually ravenous, the yrthak terrorizes the barren wastelands in which it makes its home, swooping down from on high to blast prey with bursts of pure sound. Though technically blind, as its eyes are tiny and barely capable of vision beyond a few feet, the yrthak senses its surroundings via acute hearing and echolocation. While its powerful jaws and claws are equally capable of taking down opponents, the yrthak generally prefers to wheel through the sky on its membranous wings, firing bolt after bolt of sound into its prey, and exulting in the thrill of the hunt. An adult yrthak is 20 feet long and weighs 1,500 pounds. Yrthaks spend most of their time aloft—a yrthak hunt often lasts several days, with the yrthak skimming roughly 100 feet over the ground in its wide-ranging search for live prey, only resorting to grazing on carrion in direst need. While they have near-human intelligence, yrthaks generally do not seem interested in forming societies of their own—although the sight of a clutch of yrthaks tormenting a captured morsel might seem to indicate otherwise.

Whether because of disruptive magic, unearthed deep elements, or alien technology that fell calamitously from the sky, ash giants are victims of their barren terrains. Yet they somehow survive and even thrive in these desperate lands. Ash giants have an uncanny ability to bond with the enormous and often mutated vermin they share the landscape with, and sometimes use the largest of these creatures as mounts. Ash giants are brash and violent, and their humor is incredibly dark. Killing someone through a prank is just as funny as tripping a friend while on a hunt. While not inherently evil, lifetimes of being antagonized by other tribes have practically bred violence into their minds. Ash giants are 10 feet tall and weigh 1,200 pounds.

A seps is an exotic snake-like creature whose powerful jaws contain acidic venom so potent that it quickly dissolves prey into liquid. An adult seps is 30 feet long and weighs 1,500 pounds.

Sepses are born live. A hatchling soon grows up to 7 feet long and weighs 10 pounds.

Desert blights are personifications of blistering heat, thirst, and the bleached bones of all creatures that have ever died among arid dunes. They are particularly fond of forging alliances of convenience with free-willed mummies and other desert undead to combine their power and scourge the living from their already harsh domain. Often, a desert blight sets itself up as the mastermind behind the scenes, urging its undead allies to march upon the living realms while it remains safe in the deeper reaches of the wasteland. Although desert blights have no inborn method of creating new undead minions and allies to replace those inevitably lost in such wars, they understand that in the great deserts of the world, there is no shortage of lost cities to recruit replacement troops from as the need arises. The most canny desert blights seek to dominate necromancers to help bolster their armies.  A desert blight measures 5 feet in diameter and weighs 200 pounds.