Juhrion

Juhrions are huge, bearlike beasts with no fur at all. Their tough, reddish, leathery hide is actually the harmful side effect of an armor-type curse-born gift. Big teeth and stubby claws barbed like harpoons arm them; they usually go on all fours but can rear up on their hind legs, and their rasping, dry growls and roars are unmistakable.

A juhrion fights to defend its hunting grounds, to catch food, and always when it meets a member of the curse-gifted orders. It moves surprisingly quietly for its size, but once prey is in sight and closer than 10 yards it drops all stealth and charges, its movement rising to 18 (from a normal 12) during the short burst of fighting so that it may still catch the victim by surprise.

Its two claws and bite all deal heavy damage, and any claw hit carries a 50% chance to pass redrot to the target. If both claws strike in the same round, it mauls: it pins the victim beneath its bulk and keeps raking and biting. A pinned victim loses any Dexterity bonus to AC, can wield nothing bigger than a dagger, and cannot cast spells, though curse-born gifts that need no movement still work. Escaping requires a successful bend bars roll.

A juhrion usually stays within a few miles of its den but may roam up to 10 square miles when game is scarce. It prefers rodents, crimson vixens and bilge vermin, eating roots and berries only when desperate. It dens in caves when possible, or in a hollow scraped out of a thicket. From its second year it mates, the male generally moving onto the female's range. One or two cubs are born each spring and stay with their parents for a year before being driven off to find territory of their own.

Juhrions loathe the curse-gifted orders and can smell one up to a mile away. They seem to sense that these people command their gifts in a way the beasts never can, and that resentment drives them into a frenzy. The curse-warding red metal might soothe that hatred, but few of the curse-gifted would spend any of the precious stuff on a juhrion.

Some humanoids hunt juhrions for their hide, which makes fine leather, and juhrion blood can be brewed into a potion that cures redrot. The beasts themselves are immune to redrot, though their claws often pass the deadly infection on. Crimson ticks infest them as they do many other animals, and a small songbird, perhaps the one animal able to come near them without danger, often lives alongside them in a symbiotic partnership.