Ankheg

ECOLOGY

Environment temperate or warm plains
Organization solitary, pair, or nest (3–6)

Ankhegs are an all-too-common plague found on many worlds. These horse-sized burrowing monsters generally avoid heavily settled areas like cities, but their predilection for livestock and humanoid flesh ensures that they do not keep to the deep wilderness either. Their preferred habitat is rural farmlands, as the loose soil of such regions makes it easy for the creatures to burrow. Ankhegs burrow with their legs and mandibles, moving with unsettling speed through loose soil, sand, gravel, and the like—they cannot burrow through solid stone. Burrowing ankhegs can construct tunnels by pausing frequently to shore up the walls with a thicker, less caustic secretion from their mouths.

If an ankheg chooses to make a permanent tunnel when burrowing, it moves at half speed. A typical ankheg tunnel is 10 feet tall and wide, roughly circular in cross-section, and from 60 to 150 feet long ([1d10 + 5] × 10). Clusters of ankhegs often share the same territory and create intricate winding networks of tunnels under farmlands, sometimes resulting in sinkholes where too many burrow at once.

In combat, an ankheg prefers to attack with its bite. Against multiple foes, an ankheg often grabs one of the available targets and then attempts to retreat to safety, burrowing into the ground.

A creature carried underground can still breathe with difficulty (the ankheg needs to breathe as well, so its tunnels are relatively porous), but is often eaten alive before its allies can rescue it.

If captured, ankhegs can be trained to serve as mounts or beasts of burden, though their tendency to squirt acid when frightened or startled makes them dangerous even when domesticated.