Muckdweller

A muckdweller looks like a gila monster standing upright, only a foot tall, with big half-webbed hind feet and tiny, feeble forepaws. Its back is mottled gray and brown over a yellow belly, and a stubby tail helps it swim and balance. It hisses in its own tongue and has a 50% chance to know the lizard man language too.

Packs set ambushes. When prey arrives, several spit water into its eyes from as far as ten yards. A save vs. wands avoids the blinding, but surprised targets get no save. A blinded creature loses its action that round and all Dexterity bonuses, and attackers gain +2 to hit it.

The pack then tries to draw the victim into muddy water. Knee-deep, it loses Dexterity bonuses and fights at -1; waist-deep, -2; chest-deep, -3. Free action magic cancels these penalties, which never hamper the amphibious muckdwellers. They fight only when cornered or sure of an easy kill.

A lair of 5d4 lies underwater beside a muddy bank used for sunning, resting and eating, where they hoard anything that glitters because it shines like the sea. A lair of 16 or more holds double type Q treasure. Too weak-handed for tools, they dig with their hind paws and cut with their teeth, sometimes building reed-and-mud rafts that they kick along at movement 18, or crude huts that guard against predators, not weather.

Their culture is thin: a primitive nature faith exalting water over land and a harsh creed that only the fittest deserve to live. Killing a much larger creature earns elite status, while dying to one is shameful proof of poor hunting. Impressed by their size, muckdwellers see lizard men as a superior race and sometimes serve them, and brinekin as well.

Though omnivorous, taking bugs, water plants and small aquatic creatures, they most want fresh, warm meat. Larvae grow in water and adults live on land, maturing in three years and living 9 to 12. Temperate communities hibernate through winter and hunt over a radius of about two miles. Snakes and big predatory fish are their natural enemies.