Slinker

Slinkers stand about eight inches tall on two hind legs, keeping their short forelegs tucked in while moving and using them to hold food and handle small objects. The head simply merges into the front of the body with no neck to speak of, and two close-set eyes flank the tiny beak. Sparse, wiry hair ranging from light red and brown to gray and jet black covers the body, and a bare three-inch tail trails behind. Some have spotted white coats; naturalists suspect these descend from slinkers that were once domesticated and went feral, though nobody knows what they were kept for.

One slinker is no match for anything human-sized, so they bolt at the sight of humans or demihumans and fight large creatures only when trapped. Then the entire pack charges together, every slinker biting the same target until it or they are dead. A single bite only stings, but a swarm can badly hurt a careless adventurer.

Cornered slinkers rush the nearest character, climbing over the victim and wriggling under clothes and armor. The target must pass a Dexterity check or be bowled over, adding to the roll any amount by which the number of slinkers exceeds his Dexterity score (18 slinkers against Dexterity 12 means +6). This check is made once per pack, whatever the outcome. A character knocked down suffers the usual prone modifiers, giving the slinkers +4 to hit.

Packs can number up to 800, presumably ruled by the strongest or nastiest member, though how much authority it holds is debated. A pack is rarely gathered in one spot, and usually no more than 20 are encountered together. As scavengers they favor places with plenty of food, trash and hiding holes, and they swarm through city slums and the warehouse quarters near docks on asteroid citadels.

Slinkers fill the same niche as rats, but they generally carry no disease and have very fast metabolisms, rapid breathing and short breeding cycles. Aboard a starship that combination is a disaster: the slinker population grows by 10 percent every week, and five of them consume a crew member's daily ration of both food and air. An uncontrolled infestation steadily drains supplies and spoils the air. A DM can make the most of this by tracking air quality carefully, letting players record their own supplies while keeping a secret tally that includes the stowaways.