Dune Stalker

Dune stalkers are tall, emaciated, naked humanoids with huge egg-shaped heads, very long limbs and razor claws on hands and feet. Their dry, scratchy skin is reddish orange, and they are entirely hairless and never sweat. They have large eyes, long narrow noses, and chests that are enormously broad at the shoulders and taper to tiny waists.

Their broad chests draw in vast amounts of hot air and force it out through a resonating nasal chamber as a blast of sound: a cone 60 feet long, widening to 10 feet across at the end, that deals 2d6 to everyone inside and deafens them for 1d10 rounds, with no saving throw. Outside the cone it is heard as a weird nasal roar.

Up close, a dune stalker presses its lips to the bare skin of the most obviously good creature in reach and releases a sonic burst, the kiss of death. The victim must save vs. death or die instantly; success means one round of unconsciousness. This attack affects no one else, though onlookers hear a muffled trumpeting.

Only magical weapons can harm a dune stalker, which also has 30% magic resistance. Against a mixed group they go first for those carrying magic weapons, especially good ones, and they attack good beings whenever they meet them.

Natives of the para-elemental realm of magma, dune stalkers come to the Prime Material Plane only when summoned by a powerful evil wizard to perform a task, general or specific, and they cannot plane shift home on their own. They track as unerringly as an invisible stalker, picking up any track laid within the past day. Bound by the literal wording of their quest, they are freed once it is fulfilled to the letter, even if the summoner's intent is not, much as with a wish or limited wish. If they meet the intent but not the exact terms, they stay trapped, prowling the deserts and taking their fury out on anything good.

On the Prime they are always alone and visibly miserable. They hate cool and damp conditions, keep to deserts, move most freely under the blazing midday heat, and may not even hear sounds in the human range.

Their bones are bundles of hollow tubes twisted around each other, so strong they can hardly be worked. The hide is too rough for clothing but makes superb, long-lasting sandpaper prized by master woodcarvers.