Yitsan

Called 'treasure bane' and 'intruder within,' the yitsan is a 10-foot humanoid with an 8-foot tail and skin of fine gray-green scales. Its four-fingered hands and its feet bear long claws, and its mouth holds three rows of sharp teeth. Strangest of all, it has no eyes. A salty smell hangs around it, and its only known sounds are hisses, shrieks, growls and roars.

Combat is the yitsan's true talent. It opens with a sweep of its tail, whose razor spines deal 2d12 to as many as three foes standing close in a line, using one attack roll against the best Armor Class among them. Anyone hit needs a successful Dexterity check to stay standing, and the yitsan then tramples a fallen victim with all four clawed limbs for 4d6. Each claw deals 1d6, foot claws as well as hand claws, but it can bring all four to bear only atop or trampling a victim.

The tail can instead coil around a human-sized target. The first hit does no damage, but from the next round it squeezes for 2d4 points per round plus 1d6 slashing from its edges (the slashing does not affect victims in metal armor). Escape takes a successful Strength check, tried once per round, and the yitsan can claw others while constricting.

Its bite deals 3d6, and once its jaws lock they keep grinding for an automatic 2d6 per round until the victim escapes with a Strength check as above.

Eyeless, it ignores illusions and all spells that depend on sight. It finds prey within 50 feet by breath or scent (80% chance), tasting the air with its tongue like a snake. Under a silence spell its chance drops to 25% and it suffers -2 to hit.

Yitsan have no society; each fights for itself. Most encounters are with young ones, because grown yitsan steer clear of big human crowds and hunt less clever prey.

A yitsan lays 1d4 eggs, each a 1-inch golden disk that looks like a blank gold piece, which is how unwary crews carry them aboard in newly found hoards. The hatchling is a tiny green lizard that hides in a crack in the bulkhead, eating bugs, mice, cloth and wood and relying on chameleon skin to stay hidden as it grows over about two weeks. Each sailor has a 1% chance per day of noticing nibble marks on clothing or wooden gear.

At a foot long it undergoes a violent, painful change, becoming an adult in two hours. It always seeks a private spot for this, since it is helpless meanwhile, and emerges ravenous. After its first meal it lays eggs, again seeking a cache of coins, perhaps the hoard it hatched from.

No one knows where the yitsan came from. Some elven scholars suspect it began as an orcish living weapon from a great war against the orc hordes that escaped into civilized space.