Earth Drake [Dark Sun]

More than one traveler has walked past an earth drake thinking it was a rock formation. Its hide is a mix of gray, black and brown, covered with thousands of tiny spiked scales. The huge forelegs are built to tunnel through stone, and the equally strong hind legs can dig too but usually brace the body. A short, enormously thick tail gives the creature a rolling swagger. Its head is shaped like a wedge, with overlapping scales shielding the ear openings, and each sunken eye has two lids: an airtight soft inner lid and a tough, scaly outer one that resists puncture.

Earth drakes like to trap their victims inside the lair and dine at leisure. Before closing in, one will use psionic detonate and animate object to cut off escape. It then charges, tearing first with its great front claws (1d12+12) and then biting (3d12). After that first bite it shakes its head with all its might, doubling the damage. An earth drake can make its physical attacks and one psionic attack at the same time. It believes nothing alive is stronger than it, save only the world's dragon-tyrant, and it is the only drake that will fight to the death.

Every 15 days the drake can gate in 50 cubic feet of earth, rock and boulders drawn from its ancestral elemental plane. The mass must appear on a solid surface; it cannot be summoned overhead and dropped. Anyone in the area must save vs. petrification to be flung clear. Those who fail are pinned beneath it, suffering 1d2 damage each turn, and may suffocate if they cannot get out under the normal breath-holding rules. Victims can escape by mining through or digging free with bare hands. The rubble stays where it lands permanently.

Psionic sciences: detonate, sensitivity to psychic impressions, shadow form, telekinesis and tower of iron will. Devotions: id insinuation and psionic crush on the attack; intellect fortress and mind blank for defense; and animate object, awe, cause decay, combat mind, contact, expansion, false sensory input, immovability, molecular agitation, molecular manipulation, reduction and soften.

An earth drake digs its den into bedrock under the desert sand or into the flank of a hill, then heaps loose earth across the entrance so it can bring the doorway down on attackers. It despises the spread of humankind and hates permanent buildings above all, and it will gladly travel many miles just to flatten a town.

For an earth drake, a fight is the appetizer, and the harder a creature resists, the more satisfying the meal. Some burrow in beside trade routes, waiting for the chance to battle and devour dune hulks.