Trin

Trin are a bit smaller than mantis warriors and built the other way round: two arms and four legs. Their heavy mandibles give them a brutish look, and like one mantis-folk subrace they have a solid abdominal shell, a long neck and long antennae. Each arm ends in a big hinged claw. Sandy yellow shells mottled with gray give them some camouflage, and a smaller forest strain is mottled green.

Like their mantis kin, trin never sleep, ignore charm person and hold person, and have AC 5 chitin. They dodge missiles on a 1d20 roll of 11 or better and possess the telepathic devotion mind blank, but no other psionics.

They hunt by ambush or by running prey down. A motionless trin, aided by its coloring, gives victims a -2 surprise penalty. Few desert creatures, mantis warriors included, can outrun one. Either way it finishes with a leap of up to 50 feet forward or 20 feet up (never backward), gaining charge modifiers: -2 initiative, +2 to hit, 1 point worse AC. Packs drive quarry toward hidden members, take turns attacking, or gang up when prey is scarce.

Hitting with both claws means a hold. Each round the victim gets one bend bars roll to break free; failure lets the claws clamp for an automatic 3d6, and the trin bites at +4. The hold ends if the trin dies. Harassed while feeding, it may haul off anything up to 535 pounds to eat in peace.

Trin are nomadic hunters with no real society, attacking any animal nearby, including mantis warriors, their elder mantis relatives and other trin. Claws keep them from using tools or weapons, and they speak only crude mantis-folk, but a clutch shares pheromone signals amounting to a group mind that coordinates attacks wordlessly. They mate freely; eggs come about 30 days later and hatch some 60 days after that. Half are eaten, often by other trin. Young mature in about a year.

In their home ranges trin fear only clever or very powerful foes, and they eat any animal life. They stand to mantis warriors as cavemen stand to humans.