Name: N/a (Known locally as the Cuspelid)
Species: ???
Gender: Asexual
History: The cuspelid is a creature born of nightmares. A monster that hunted one ailing Archmage, A'dan, each night in the immaterial world of dreams. He fell to madness, and his mind tormented him day and night. This creature became an obsession, this figment of his imagination came to dominate his waking life and keep him from sleep at night.
Raving, A'dan sought to summon forth the creature that he blamed for so much of his pain, his misery and his fear that he may destroy it. Broken as he was, he failed to realized there was never anything to summon. It was but one of his manic hallucinations that had grown and thrived along with his fear of it. But he gave it shape, he gave it form - he tore it free from his mind and made it a reality. The beast set upon him - driven to feed, even as he had envisioned it in the darkest of his dreams...
Description: The cuspelid is... unlike anything spawned by natural selection. It most closely resembles an abherrant mongoose... if its father had been a mantis and its uncle had been a snake.
The beast stands five feet tall on four legs - and is more than capable of movement on two, employing a somewhat raptorial posture that raises the height to roughly eight feet. Its emerald-green body is framed by a tough exoskeleton, with the exposed skin plated in scales. Anywhere chitinous exoskeleton and scale meet, yellow fur grows from beneath the chitin.
Its large, triangular head bears no eyes and no external ears. Whilst the ears are sensetive, they appear as little more than holes in its head. There are two heat-sensing pits on the otherwise featureless snout, between the nose and where the eyes ought to be. Those jaws resemble a shark's more than anything else, leaving it more than capable of swallowing a man whole should it be so inclined. Two of its teeth are long and conical, meant to crush and puncture bone and chitin. The rest are sharp, serrated - meant for shredding.
On all fours, it tends to lope or bound. On two legs, it moves like a raptor - with its forelegs folded up, rememiscent of a praying mantis.
Personality: In a word... it's a beast. Its only throughts are for food and the thrill of the hunt. It doesn't necessarily set out to kill for the sake of killing. It won't attack if it's not hungry. But... it's usually hungry. A terribly quick metabolism has it churning through prey at an alarming rate. It can be cunning, but its overall intellect is lesser than the average child. It's entirely incapable of language comprehension, and it cannot make significant use of tools. However, more so than an animal, its actions are influenced by emotion - anger, fear, compassion. Although, it does happen to have a rather angry disposition.
Strengths: The Cuspelid is agile and strong, with chitinous armor protecting much of its body. Where it isn't armored, the scales are heavily keritinized - granting it moderate protection. It has excellent smell and hearing, plus thermal sensing capabilities. It can jump, climb, and run with exceptional speed. Additionally, it may navigate its environment via echolocation.
Weaknesses: For one, it's blind. Even if heat sensing and echolocation largely replace this sense, it's still easily exploitable. It can't swim, and it's frankly unintelligent. It has its vulnerable spots, too, as while it may have naturally thick scales... it can't actually wear body armor. Not without custom fitting, anyway, and somebody to put it on... but is -anyone- really that crazy? It can't use weaponry, so aside from the acid spit its reach is effectively zero.
Abilities:
Acid spit: The creature may spit a highly gastric acid, capable of eating through metal in minutes. Despite the caustic environment, contagions thrive. Injuries are at severe risk for infection.
Otherworldly Being: The cuspelid's body does not really follow too closely to the rules of this world. It is immune to most biological attacks - including diseases or poisons. However, this comes with the notable drawback that it's also immune to most forms of medication. Technically it's possible to administer medicinal care to this creature, but the knowledge required to do so is esoteric and it's not too often you find a specialist in the field of caring for creatures that should not exist.
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. Or at least what I want to release to ya'll.
Originally Posted by Deathrayne
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