Ni'iath

A ni'iath is a long worm with a savage mouth, four slit eyes spaced evenly around its head, and two small arms on its flanks ending in four clawed fingers. Its tapering tail ends in a whiplike barb. Gravity simply does not touch it; it paddles through the air with two fanlike fins beside its head, and since up and down mean nothing to it, it can face either way without rolling over.

One planar explorer's journal recalls crossing a seam where gravity flipped and two downs replaced up and down. While the party struggled to reorient, a pack of these floating hunters struck untroubled. They tore apart his ram-folk companion with claw, fang, and tail, and hurled his halfling servant sixty feet into a tree, never to rise. Only later did he accept that the beasts were bending gravity itself.

A ni'iath swoops in and hangs where its foe cannot easily reach while it still can. Its tail hits for 1d6, and if the roll beats the needed number by 4 or more, the barb snags the victim and flings them. The flung creature falls in whatever direction it was thrown, as a kind of reverse gravity, until it hits something or has traveled 100 feet; striking a hard surface first deals 1d6. Then normal gravity resumes from wherever the victim is, so further falls deal regular damage: thrown 100 feet sideways and ending 10 feet up, a victim takes only 1d6, but thrown 100 feet straight up is another story.

Near the gravity seam between the layers, track positions carefully: a victim hurled across the boundary keeps falling 'up' relative to the fight even after the effect ends. The DM may roll 1d12 for the fling direction. Ni'iaths always prefer to hurl prey into nearby objects and never throw it where they might lose it, such as off a cliff or into fog.

Afterward the ni'iath flies to its victim to finish it with claw/claw/bite (1d3/1d3/1d4+1) or carry it home to eat later. Reverse gravity spells do not affect it, but wind does, so conjured gusts can hold it off.

Ni'iaths live throughout both layers of the twin paradise but thrive in the crossover zones where gravity shifts, the place they evolved, exploiting others' confusion. Wolflike in temperament, they hunt in packs, deliberately running prey to exhaustion. Members compete for dominance, and a male usually leads. The pack guards its young (1-3 Hit Dice) fiercely and never leaves them alone in the lair, which lies in lofty caves, deep clefts, or inaccessible ledges.

They kill anything but favor big game such as moose, deer, and cattle, also taking rabbits, birds, and small local grazers. The plane's humans and gnomes hunt and trap them in turn. Many suspect a magical flight organ inside, but none has been found; ni'iaths do not truly fly, they just ignore gravity in ways no one understands.