Hatori

A hatori is an oversized lizard whose legs have become broad flippers. Working them together with its massive tail, it swims through sand with startling speed and agility, but on hard ground such as a rocky plain it can only flop and drag itself along. Its knobby hide, gray-white to red-brown, looks just like stone, and the creature lets the wind half-bury it until it passes for a rock formation. The eyes sit in shadowed pits resembling small hollows; on greater hatori (6 HD and up) they can look like cave mouths. Greater and lesser hatori differ only in size and in how large a meal they can swallow whole.

Only hunger drives a hatori to fight, but desert food is scarce and its appetite huge, so it never passes up a lone traveler or even a whole caravan. Its favorite tactic is to lie beside a busy migration trail or caravan road and burst into action when prey wanders past, thinking it just rock.

It bites with toothy jaws. On a natural 20, a greater hatori swallows a man-sized victim whole, and a lesser one can do the same to wanderkin-sized or smaller prey. A swallowed victim takes 1d12 damage per round from crushing muscle and digestive acid and cannot climb back out, since the gullet keeps squeezing him down; only the hatori's death frees him. The bony tail lashes anyone attacking from behind, or swats at fleeing prey while the jaws are busy. XP for a hatori depends on its Hit Dice.

Sandy stretches of large deserts are home to hatori, and they and drift toward migration paths and caravan routes in search of food, staying until an area is hunted out. They grow slowly but never stop, adding about a foot a year and 1 HD per decade: a 1 HD hatori is 10 years old or less and no more than 10 feet long, a 2 HD one is 10 to 20 years old and 10 to 20 feet long, and so on. A mother looks after her brood until they are 50 feet long (5 HD), the only time hatori are commonly found together. Mothers with young rarely exceed 10 HD, since females usually stop breeding after age 100.

Once a decade, males and childless young females travel to the desert's center, where the males fight savagely for mating rights. No civilized observer has seen this, but desert tribes speak of a 'time of thunder when mountains die' that may describe it.

Hatori eat anything but cannot digest gems or magical arms and armor, which build up in their bellies over their long lives. Apart from each other in mating season, they have no natural enemies, though some dragons are said to attack small hatori when hungry. Legend tells of a hidden graveyard where the oldest hatori crawl off to die; if it is real, it must be strewn with gems and magic armor.