Desert Stirge

Desert stirges look like big, feathered mosquitoes and bear little resemblance to other stirges beyond the hanging beak the whole family shares. Theirs is a dull sand-yellow and a bit over 6 inches long. Reddish-brown feathers blend perfectly with the sand. The wings are short stubs that cannot carry the creature aloft, though some observers insist it can glide.

Six yellow-brown taloned legs meet at the middle of a long, beetle-like body, making this the most insectile of all stirges. The claws dig burrows to escape the day's heat and anchor the stirge to its prey. Most striking of all, it can spring 20 feet straight up or nearly 50 feet forward.

Weaker than its kin, a desert stirge attacks as a 1 HD creature except when it pounces on a surprised target. Its method is to jump onto a victim's back from hiding, and that first strike is rolled as a 4 HD monster. Buried and camouflaged, it is hard to spot, so characters without desert survival proficiency should take a surprise penalty, and the DM is encouraged to grant +4 to the opening hit against a surprised victim, like a backstab. Stirges do not coordinate, but several often burst from the sand together to catch prey off guard.

A hit does 1-2 damage, then drains 2 hp of blood automatically each round it stays on. At 8 hp it is full, drops off, scuttles away, and burrows in to sleep. Desert stirges attack only proper prey, almost never without surprise, and quit the moment they are sated; one that misses its first strike is more likely to check morale and burrow away than keep fighting.

What it lacks in danger it makes up in tenacity. An attached desert stirge adds 5 to its morale, and its grip and powerful legs rule out a save or Strength check to tear it away unless helpers with a combined Strength of 30 heave together. Its chitin-covered legs, small and hard, require a hit against AC 1 for anyone swinging at them.

Colonies are small, and rarely do more than 10 hunt the same ground. Their burrowing and odd looks earn them nicknames like 'sand crabs' and 'desert beetles,' but their short, scaly coat is genuine feather, and they have no exoskeleton, which rules out both theories.

They keep no nests or lairs, wandering wherever prey is found and sleeping under the sand through the hot hours. Their presence is easy to guess, since they typically bury themselves within 100 yards of their drained victims. Luckily they are the stirge least likely to bother humans: their beaks fail against any armor tougher than studded leather, so armored folk are ignored.

Desert stirges have excellent sight and 240-foot infravision but none of the family's keen smell. Instead they hear superbly and feel the faintest ground vibrations, tracking prey and noticing intruders instantly. Hearing prey, a stirge burrows up near the surface and opens the chitin shields over its eyes; underground it is blind and moves by sound alone, and the shields close again while it feeds.

Sounds sometimes wake them for a morning or afternoon snack, but otherwise they never come up in daylight. Their slow metabolism lets them doze a full day for each point of blood swallowed and go three times that long before feeding again. They gorge whenever possible, storing the excess as a fatty hump above the tail. Well-fed sleepers dig so deep they are very hard to find, and one that is found wakes only to sunlight, loud noise such as digging, or injury, then escapes by leaping or burrowing deeper. Little more than a nuisance to humans, they are still hard to locate and kill. They keep no treasure.