Dagorran

Picture a huge frog with gleaming golden skin, green eyes, powerful jumping legs and a mouth full of razor teeth. Between its shoulders sits a growth of green crystal, the seat of its psionic and tracking gifts; the pack leader's crystal is noticeably larger than the rest.

Dagorrans make no meaningful sounds. A deep croak escapes them now and then, but they speak only through limited psionic images and impressions.

A pack follows the psionic trace that most intelligent or psionic creatures leave behind, and can pick up a trail days old. The hunt usually opens with the detonate science aimed at the ground beside a victim, so that flying debris does the killing. Anyone who survives the blast sees the frogs vault toward them and bite in mid-leap. This counts as a charge, adding +2 to damage, though the reckless lunge gives opponents a -2 initiative modifier. Once a bite lands the frogs are locked in melee, and breaking off to charge again lets foes strike them as though they were fleeing.

While the others leap and bite, the leader uses control body on whichever enemy has the fewest psionic strength points left, which the beasts sense instinctively. A beaten pack pulls back and peppers its foes with ballistic attack. Their other devotion is inertial barrier.

Any mantis warrior in a party becomes the sole target of the pack, with the lowest-PSP mantis warrior chosen first if there are several.

Packs follow a rigid pecking order. A challenger circles the leader in a ritual dance, the rest form a ring, and the two fight to the death. The loser is eaten by the pack. When the challenger wins, its crystal swells to leader size over the next 5 to 10 days.

They hunt in the cool of evening and night and sleep through the heat. A well-fed pack buries itself in sand by day, leaving only bulging eyes and nostrils showing, and dozes unless something blunders close. Then the leader sends a silent psionic signal and the sand erupts.

Dagorrans were once widespread on the desert world, but hunting has pushed them close to extinction. Warriors prize the golden hide as armor, wizards use it as a component for protective spells, and spellcasters of every stripe want the crystal for mind-affecting potions. Mantis warriors, worse still, consider the meat a delicacy.

They remain plentiful only in the wastes around one city-state, whose guards use them as trackers. Nobles and the heads of merchant houses also keep them to rid gardens of rodents and other small pests.