Varkha

Varkhas are small, savage cousins of lizard men that hunt the lakes and rivers of the deep underworld. Standing just four or five feet tall, with scales from slate gray to dark green and tails of two to three feet, they have big, light-sensitive frog eyes on the sides of the head and webbing from arm to torso that spreads for swimming. They carry their few goods in leather harnesses and speak a gurgling relative of the lizard man tongue.

In daylight-bright conditions they fight at -1. Weak alone, they herd prey into flooded caverns and overwhelm it with numbers and swimming skill. Claws deal 1d6, and some carry crude bone or stone spears and missiles.

Every 15 include a 2 HD sllith (hunt leader), with a 35% chance of a 2 HD shaman casting as a 2nd-level priest. Forty bring two slliths, a 2 HD shaman and a 3 HD gsssrat (master of the hunt). A party of 50 always has a 4 HD gaakth (sub-chief) and a shaman of 3rd level in command.

Tribes of 75-150 live in damp deep caverns under a clever 5 HD tssri (chief). A quarter are females, who live in breeding caverns beside the hunters' quarters and share the hunt; those without eggs often join hunting parties. Defending the breeding caves, they gain +1 to attack and damage until the threat is gone.

Lairs of 70 or more keep 1-3 giant subterranean lizards, commanded by the chief and gaakths and posted at the breeding caves in war. Each lizard has 6 Hit Dice, Armor Class 5, THAC0 15 and movement 12, and bites for 2d6; a natural 20 seizes prey for double damage plus 2d6 per round; Int non-, AL N, size L, ML 8-10, XP 650. A tribe's lizards usually match: albinos attack at -1 in sunlight-bright conditions, while others have 20-foot tongues that pull man-sized or smaller prey into the mouth for a bite next round unless it makes a bend bars roll.

Varkhas are prey as much as predators. Troglodytes attack them whenever not outnumbered, varkhas and gibberlings share a hatred so fierce that varkhas abandon everything to fight them, and drow despise them but sometimes keep them as slaves.