Drik

The drik is a squat, colossal lizard. Hatchlings are shell-less, but as they grow they ooze resin mixed with bone flakes that hardens into a dark gray, white-flecked carapace running from behind the skull to the tail. The scaly hide is deep brown, sometimes tan or yellow. Four stumpy legs with four great claws each hold up the body, and the huge head bears two black eyes, a maw that can swallow a human whole and a fringe of jagged tusks beneath the jaw. Beast masters from two rival city-states have captured so many young for their armies that wild driks are nearly gone.

Driks look sluggish, but their head and neck strike with startling speed and reach, as if they belonged to another animal. The bite deals 2d8. Needing three feet planted, a drik can claw with only one foreleg per round, for 2d10.

Its ram replaces all other attacks and works only against another drik or a similarly slow target of 25 feet or more, with at least 30 feet of run-up and no more than 60 feet of movement that round; a hit deals 2d12. Against structures no roll is needed: the ram smashes 1 foot of material per point below the structure's save (stone 7, metal or soft stone 9, wood 17). Wild driks ram only trespassing rivals; anything else, only at a handler's urging.

Wild families are ruled by one female who tolerates no other adult females. They graze badland plants or ambush slow animals, and drink at a dark-water oasis, the only creatures known to survive the warrior-king's poisons there. Captives make superb siege beasts, hauling towers and wagons or carrying weapons on their backs.

Every three years females lay eggs in the oasis; hatchlings join the nearest adult female, mature in two years and live up to 30. An adult weighs 5 tons, refuses to move under more than 2,000 pounds, and pulls 10 tons on wheels or drags 5 on a sledge. In war each drik obeys a psionic master, but foul-tempered captives kill many ordinary trainers, and none has ever bred in captivity.

Workmen soften the shell with torches and flatten it to mount ballistae and catapults, and to ram harder. One city's engineers instead clamp a wooden mold around a pinned youngster as its shell grows; one in three survives, with spectacular results. Engine numbers and damage vary by weapon and target.

Defilers in the warrior-king's service take eggs from the oasis and warp them with magic in a special menagerie. Only 20% survive, growing no taller than 18 feet. High driks are quiet, nimble bipeds with three-fingered hands, veined hide of blood red to black, smaller jagged shells of gray or black flecked with sickly green, reduced tusks, and rows of black razor teeth dripping green slime. They can learn a broken common tongue and still talk with driks. Perhaps insane, they are certainly sadistic.

The bite deals 2d6. Against a foe of man size or smaller but at least 3 feet tall, a natural 20 rips off a body part: on 1d10, a 10 takes the tail (or head if tailless), 8-9 the left leg, 6-7 the right leg, 4-5 the right arm, 2-3 the left arm, 1 the head. Bitten victims also save vs. poison or take 3d6 more. They wield giant weapons: club 1d8+6, long sword or spear 2d6+6, trident 3d6+6.

Commanding war driks with grunts alone, without psionics or much training, they serve as beast masters; if one dies its war drik rampages, ramming structures and even allied driks at random. Worse, each casts as an 8th-level defiler, 75% have psionic wild talents and 15% the powers of a 5th-level psionicist. Their keepers treat them well, though few servants survive a year in their care, and harming one invites the warrior-king's fiercest wrath.