Anadjiin

The anadjiin comes from the scorching innermost planet of its star system. Vaguely humanoid, it has a tough reptile hide that turns most weapons, and a spiny crest like a stegosaurus's along the top of its head. That crest is packed with surface capillaries that shed heat in the hottest climates, but it also leaves the creature unable to survive the cold.

Two huge insectile eyes on the sides of its head give it vision all the way around, and its complex brain processes everything they see. Its mouth runs vertically, lined with vertical rows of razor teeth, and its chin is split, with a cleft on each side of the mouth. Once those jaws close, nothing short of killing it makes it let go, and even a dead anadjiin's jaw must be broken to free the victim. A thick tail serves only for balance and never as a weapon. Each hand bears six-inch claws that cut as blades of sharpness; every wound they cause bleeds an extra hit point per round until bound or healed.

Blind in darkness, it hunts by day and hides to sleep at night. It opens with speed and agility. Against a lone foe it bites and holds on until the prey dies, slashing wildly at the belly to spill the entrails and hasten death. Facing several foes, its genius intellect warns that clinging on would be suicide, so it bites without holding and concentrates on a single foe, generally the feeblest, until that one drops. Then it tries to frighten off the rest and carry its kill home.

It is a devoted mate and parent, ready to die defending its young, though in famine it may kill and eat its offspring to spare them starvation. Family groups cooperate to find food and never squabble over a kill; each takes a share equal to the effort it gave, a fairness rare among predators that earns the species real respect. Nobody knows if it speaks Common or any other tongue of the spheres besides its own, since no one has stayed long enough to learn.

It takes care to keep nature in balance, never hunting rare or endangered prey and feeling bound to take only what is most abundant. That is why anadjiin carried to other worlds hunt humans while those at home do not. On their own world they gladly prey on the plentiful halflings and tunnel brutes.