Debbi

Shorter than most working dogs at about two feet tall, a debbi is a shaggy cross between a hyena and a baboon. It has the big ears, strong jaws and snout of a bone-cracking scavenger on the lithe body of a monkey, and its little hands can use tools. Its sharp fangs are for snarling displays, not biting. Debbi are hateful, greedy creatures without a shred of mercy.

A debbi's power is fear. It stamps its feet in a slow beat and screeches until its fur crackles with sparks and a magical chill spreads through the air. Every creature within 20 yards when the display starts is affected as by a fear spell, once per turn, and the fear lasts two rounds for each debbi in the pack. Packs usually perform together, forcing many saves on everything nearby to improve their chances of clearing the area. A creature that saves against a particular debbi is safe from that one for at least an hour, after which it must save normally again. Debbi are immune to all magical fear and always know exactly when their effect is about to lapse.

In melee a debbi swings a crude club for 1-4 points of damage, but most are cowards whose magic is all bluster, and they run from real resistance. Expert climbers, they scramble up palms and pelt foes with stones and other missiles too light to hurt anything human-sized, though the barrage may distract a spellcaster.

Every other desert animal hates the debbi for chasing it off its own kills and water. The thieves pay at night, however, when they sleep. Too selfish to keep watch for one another and too weak to escape a determined lion or cheetah, they often fall to the very predators they robbed by day.

At dawn and dusk packs harass camps, scattering mounts, rifling packs for food and grabbing any meal abandoned while the campers flee their fear. Even with no food to steal, they gleefully shred whatever they can before the owners return. Within a pack, a harsh pecking order lets the strong bully the weak, and the young suffer at their elders' hands unless their mothers watch closely.

Treasure means nothing to them; only food does, and food can sometimes buy them off. A pack that seizes good hunting ground or clean water soon fouls it with offal, rubbish and half-eaten carcasses, and always spoils an oasis on the way out. Anyone who drinks there must make a Constitution check at -4 or contract intestinal parasites.

Debbi hair can be made into a talisman enchanted to inspire fear of the bearer, as a fear spell once per day, so desert shamans and city wizards alike hunt them. An undamaged hide sells for up to 200 gp.