Kirre

Glimpsed from afar, a kirre passes for a striped great cat. Up close the differences show: eight legs, each tipped with wicked claws, a pair of large horns on the skull, a barbed bony spike on the tail, and an eight-foot body with a wide jaw of tearing teeth. Its stripes are brown and gray rather than orange and black, except for the face, which is solid gray and makes its yellow eyes look all the more menacing.

Quick for its size, a kirre gets -1 on initiative, and under the optional initiative modifiers it counts as a small creature (+3 instead of the +6 a large creature would take). In one round it can strike up to seven times: front claws first, then bite and horns, then rear claws and tail. Each claw deals 1d4, bite and tail 1d6 apiece, and the horns 1d8.

Like many beasts of its world it is a natural psionicist. Instead of its physical attacks it may use one psionic power per round, choosing from levitation, soften and project force (psychokinesis) or contact, awe, the defense modes thought shield, intellect fortress and tower of iron will, plus id insinuation, life detection, psionic crush and psionic blast (telepathy). Its defense modes are always considered active, provided it has PSPs left to fuel them, which makes it a hard target for enemy psionicists.

Kirres hunt alone except at mating time, when a pair joins up and raises a litter of three to five. They are mammals, and the cubs drink milk for five months before moving on to small forest game. Before the birth the parents dig a den somewhere remote in the forest, and for those first five months both guard it savagely, trying to kill anything that threatens the cubs.

Forest-dwelling hunting tribes prize the kirre, whose meat ranks among the best on the desert world. The horns make spearheads or, carved carefully, fancy daggers, and the bony tail spike can be shaped into an arrowhead or dart.