Tasloi

Tasloi are lanky humanoids with flat heads and long legs who move in a crouch, now and then brushing the ground with their knuckles. Their glossy green skin is sparsely covered with coarse black hair, and their golden eyes are slit like a cat's. At night their thin, whispering voices carry through the trees. Besides their own language they speak the tongues of monkeys and apes, and about 5% know a broken form of common for trade.

Tasloi are agile in the branches but awkward on the ground, so they lurk in the canopy and drop onto weak or careless targets. In jungle their stealth imposes -4 on opponents' surprise rolls, and they hide in shadows like thieves with 75% success. Their infravision reaches 90 feet, but they hate sunlight and fight at -1 to hit in broad daylight.

Arms vary: club and javelin 40%; javelin with a small shield (AC 5) 20%; net with javelin 15%; short sword with a small shield 10%; net with short sword 10%; lasso with javelin 5%. Without a shield they are AC 6. When traveling through the trees they sling javelins and shields across their backs.

They will eat anything but love meat, especially human and elf. They strike from above and try to capture victims alive. With surprise, they throw 10-foot nets that completely entangle anyone under Strength 15; stronger targets must win an open doors roll to rip loose. Against a wary or well-prepared party, they use hit-and-run raids to wear it down, and they try to drag off the enemy's dead afterward.

Tasloi live in loose bands of several families. Any band of 70 or more has a 5 HD chief, and a band has a 30% chance of a shaman, who can reach 5th level. In the lair, females equal 70% of the males and fight just as well, while young equal 50% and do not fight. A village spans 1d6 large trees linked by ropes and vines, holding 4d6 platforms 50-100 feet up. There is a 60% chance of 1d6 trained giant spiders, which help build, guard and maintain the village, and a 20% chance of 2d4 trained giant wasps, which tasloi ride over long distances.

Nobody knows where tasloi came from. They have likely lived and interbred in remote jungles for millennia, their primitive ways barely changing. Alone they are among the jungle's lesser threats, but they are dangerous in numbers or to anyone fleeing something worse. Tasloi know where the fiercer beasts lair, mark out obvious escape routes from them, and lay traps along those paths for exhausted, panicked survivors to blunder into. The tactic clearly works, judging by how many more trophies they display than their size and skill would suggest.