Laerti

Also known as asabis, laerti look like lizard men only at first. Their limbs stick out at right angles like a sand lizard's, and they move in quick, awkward jerks. Narrow, sloping skulls bob on thin necks, and bright yellow eyes with horizontal pupils shine in the dark. Their pebbly skin is brown or gray with a dun or pale green belly, ears and nose are mere slits, and a flicking tongue aids touch and smell. They move upright or on four legs, their tails are not prehensile, and their sexes look alike to humans. Leather armor is their only garb, and they speak a sharp, chattering language.

Laerti hunt nomads and lesser creatures or hire out as mercenaries to surface beings. They use any one-handed sword they can make or steal, plus crude crossbows (as light crossbows) carried on their backs. Cunning ambushers, they hide buried in sand and rise silently to attack. Sprinting on all fours raises their effective AC to 4 against missiles, and they can rear up to fight or jump 20 feet across or 15 feet up at will. They never fight among themselves. They are as vulnerable to poison as humans, but stingtail venom does not affect them.

Laerti surface only at night, sheltering by day under the sand, in caves or in rock clefts; forced to march or carry loads in daylight for over 2 to 5 turns, one collapses. Tribes are ruled by elders and a war chief, include 2d8 or more stingtails, and may take in dark nagas or other evil allies. Their tunnels lace the desert, and they raid surface sites by night.

They eat only the soft organs of humans, camels and other prey, leaving the carcasses to vultures, plus lichens, mushrooms, myconids and taproots that reach their tunnels from above.

Stingtails are larger, rarer, duller laerti, brown or dark reddish-brown, who live with and obey their kin; 10% of laerti young are stingtails. They fight with the same weapons, but their prehensile tails can hold a weapon or slap for 2d4. When a slap hits, a stingtail may exude caustic, vinegar-scented poison through its pores, at will to a limit of six uses daily: the victim is confused that round and the next and must save vs. poison or suffer type M poison (onset 1-4 minutes, 20/5). Stingtails resist their own venom and all enchantment/charm magic.