Guardian Life-Shaped Creation

Life-shaped creations are organic machines bred by the halfling windriders who dwell along a towering cliff region of the desert world. A few show a spark of independent thought, but every one obeys its owner unquestioningly. They need no food or animal care, living instead on a special nutrient broth their makers devised.

Doglike guardians with wide, gripping paws and astonishingly limber legs, climbdogs scale even sheer rock faces alongside halfling climbers. Their sight, hearing and smell are at least twice as keen as a halfling's. They attack with a bite and a pair of claws and suffer no penalties while clinging to a cliff, though they can then use only one claw. In danger they throw their lives away for their masters without a moment's pause.

A darkstrike is a serpent ending in a big bulbous knob that oozes glue, letting it be stuck to a wall, door or other surface. Its dark skin makes it 50% invisible in dim light, and it is usually tucked into a niche, alcove or corner to wait. Victims of its first strike roll surprise at -2. It strikes with a nasty bite whenever a condition set by its owner is met, and it is often paired with poison knobs that make the bite venomous. Since it senses movement by bat-like sonar even in darkness, triggers are usually based on motion, but they can also depend on light level, how many figures pass together, or their size, race or species.

These cat-like guardians move with a big cat's strength and grace. Taught to recognize intruders, they never mistake their charges for real threats, and they shred foes with two great claws and a toothy bite. Unlike real cats they never eat what they kill or hunt from hunger.

Shieldbugs are 6-inch wasp-like flyers that reach 30 miles per hour. One is useless, but a swarm of 50 to 100 rides along on its master's mount and rises to surround him when trouble starts. Whenever a missile or magical ranged attack would hit the master or his mount, the chance it hits a bug instead equals the number of bugs in the swarm; that bug dies, shrinking the swarm by one. Area attacks get through, killing every bug caught in them. Against melee attacks the cloud improves a windrider's Armor Class by 2. Sent on the attack, a swarm deals 1 point of damage each round to an enemy inside it, who must save vs. paralyzation each round to do anything other than fend off the bugs.

A watcher is part reptile, part plant, with huge bulging eyes that see nearly all the way around. It never moves or attacks; when it sees a sight its master told it to watch for, it lets loose a piercing wail.