Rohch

Bred by foul magic from wolves and beetles, no two rohches match. Each has four to eight legs plus two claws sprouting from its shoulders, a patchwork of shell over its body, and fur tufts on its legs. The wolfish head wears a carapace cap, with beetle mandibles jutting from the lower jaw.

Always hungry, rohches attack almost anything their size or smaller, and humans or demihumans in small groups. Keen wolf senses let them find prey by scent and ground tremors, and their eager clicking pincers make a chitter that heralds an attack. A pack piles onto exposed skin first; once the victim is dead they tunnel beneath armor and clothes and stay until only bone is left. After such a meal they will not eat for 2d3 hours.

Packs hunt together under a firm social order. They den in burrows taken from foxes or rabbits they have eaten, or in caves when numerous, amid scattered white bones.

Rohches curb rats and other vermin but plague livestock farms. Shell and fur let a few survive the cold north, though most prefer temperate to tropical woods. Carnivorous apes and baboons eat them eagerly, and gnomes hunt them for meat and carapace armor.

Wood rohch: the commonest type, roaming temperate forests in big packs and fighting with a bite and two forelimb claws.

Killer rohch: larger and nastier, with bigger, harder-hitting claws and a taste for human and demihuman flesh.

Swamp rohch: a marsh dweller that can stay submerged up to five minutes before surfacing to strike.

Dark rohch: also called death rohch, the biggest and most feared, with thick shell, keen pincers, and six back-mounted claws. Its pincer bite forces a save vs. poison; failure means a debilitating disease sets in within 1d4 rounds.