Geonid

A geonid is a small, clever biped hidden under a mottled gray shell. Its soft body sits inside, and its arms and legs poke out through openings in the shell's underside. Each arm ends in a three-pronged claw nimble enough to handle tools and weapons. Pull the limbs in and the creature is all but impossible to tell apart from a rock.

Among themselves geonids talk with clicks and gestures of the shell that no outsider can follow. Roughly one in ten has picked up some basic Common.

Geonids fight to defend the lair or bring down a meal, and horseflesh is a special favorite. Ambush is their style. Hidden among stones, they impose a -4 penalty on opponents' surprise rolls.

They strike with a heavy forelimb or a stone club or axe, and they gang up on large foes so that three or more strike the same target. They are stubborn in a fight, but one close to death usually ducks into its shell and scuttles off rather than die. They hunt in groups, and a lone geonid will hide or run from any opponent.

Clans number (1d6x10)+20, though travelers usually meet only hunting parties of 2d6 and are startled by how many live in a lair. Each clan follows a priest with no spells but great size and power: it has 4 HD and deals 2d6 with its claws, or gains +2 damage with a weapon. Every lair holds a shrine of chipped boulders and odd stones raised to their gods, strewn with coins, gems, and precious metal gathered by the clan. Elsewhere in the lair, small stone heaps cover the hollows that serve as nests.

Pairs mate for life and raise small families. Hatchlings have no shells, so for a few months they ride inside the mother's, and for months afterward they stay close and shelter under a parent's shell at any threat.

Geonids distrust all outsiders, humanoids most of all. Their usual defense is simply staying hidden, but dogs and other animals can smell them. When discovery seems likely, a hunting party draws intruders away, ideally into a spot where a rockslide or other diversion can be set off, or into a cave full of piercers. Once the piercers drop, the geonids mop up the survivors. They hunt the same way, killing both the piercers and whatever the piercers caught.

They may be kin to the galeb duhr, though the two rarely live near each other.

Geonids can digest nearly any plant or animal and will scavenge, but they prefer fresh meat, anything from rats to horses, alongside mosses they farm themselves. Hunters go outside only at night.

Young geonid shells stay flexible yet protect as well as an adult's. Dwarven and orcish smiths can craft them into tough helms that give double the protection of a normal helm. Mountain dwarf clans have sometimes hired geonids to find ore, paying in horse meat and strangely shaped boulders, which the creatures treasure.