Heart Tick

Few creatures are more revolting than the heart tick, a mercifully rare parasite that feeds on human and demihuman blood. Its body is a rough disk about 6 inches across, recalling a horseshoe crab or beetle, with a hard dark gray to black shell. It has no eyes at all and hunts entirely by its superb hearing. Of its six legs, four are built for gripping prey and two for jumping. It is mindless and has no language, though it chirps and clicks, falling silent when prey comes near.

Its hearing is so acute that it picks up the heartbeat of a humanoid, human or demihuman as far off as 50 feet, and it can tell when metal armor muffles that beat; it never attacks anyone wearing metal armor.

When a suitable target gets in range, it springs. The victim takes -3 on surprise, and the tick gains +2 to hit that round, or +4 if the victim is surprised. It attacks four times, stabbing with its barbed legs for 1-2 points each, and every hit anchors it to the victim. If all four miss, it must spend two rounds setting up another leap. A leg that hits is not used to attack again, while legs that missed keep striking each round until the tick is fully attached.

Once all four legs are in, it drives its feeding tube into the flesh without any roll, and the victim at once loses 1 hit point to blood loss, with another point lost every turn after. Once the points it has drained match the hit points it started with, it is full; it then wrenches its legs out, dealing 1d2 per leg, and drops away.

Tearing it off early needs a successful bend bars/lift gates attempt, at a 1% penalty for each leg embedded, and each leg pulled free deals 1d2. Killing it does not free the victim: the buried legs must still be pulled out, each requiring a Strength check and dealing 1d2. Attacking a tick while it clings to someone is risky. Area effects hit tick and host for full damage, other attacks deal half damage to both, and a called shot might hurt only the tick, depending on the situation.

No one knows where heart ticks come from, though they are thought to have reached these lands from far away in the cargo holds of ships.

Like any parasite, a heart tick cannot survive without a host, and its chosen host is humankind. Anyone killed by one is injected with its eggs, and a week later 2d4 new heart ticks crawl out of the body to hunt.