Tauslek

ECOLOGY

Environment temperate ruins/dungeons or underground
Organization solitary, pair, community (3–10)

Communities of tauslek prefer remote nesting sites, located within a short distance of well-traveled roadways or small settlements. Intellect absorbed by slain prey imparts the tauslek with enough insight to seek shelter back at their nest. By the time their boosted mental capacity wears off, the now animalistic urges drive it to seek further sustenance, thus repeating the cycle. Complications often arise during these hit-and-run tactics when it slays adventurers and community guardians attempting to route them.

More often than not, the tauslek use the newly acquired memories from such encounters to take advantage of what their would-be killers know to inflict further harm on the communities which sent them.

A tauslek matriarch is a nightmare to behold, a ravenous beast eager to carry off prey and devour its mind one memory at a time. Weighing nearly 500 pounds, it manages to permanently retain some of its stolen intellects, able to call on specific memories from its subconscious when necessary. A matriarch lives well beyond the hunting instincts of an animal, because it doesn’t merely hunt to survive, lusting instead for power, the savored intellects to improve itself, and the shared insights to terrorize others. As such, they prefer to grab lone opponents and retreat with them into cover where they can consume the memories of a held foe. Once it slays this initial target, the matriarch then uses the stolen memories to coax the creature’s remaining allies into an ambush, where it repeats the process.

Enhancing its own frightening reputation, tauslek matriarchs create a temporary bond with those infected by the poison of its kind, able to perform subtle sinuous motions to captivate those succumbing to the poison’s effects.

The tauslek were first discovered by jagdaline explorers on a forgotten world many centuries ago. Since then, they’ve been subjected to repeated research and experimentation with the tauslek’s unusual ability to acquire memories and intellects spawning a number of bio-engineered technologies pertaining to memory extraction and manipulation. Young tausleks are roughly the size of a small dog, while the more advanced matriarchs rival a large horse. They most closely resemble centipedes with two scintillating eyes and a fierce set of mandibles capable of piercing armor. The plates of their carapace are green and outlined in black towards the end of their length.

Although tausleks may appear as vermin, an adult matriarch proves far more cunning than any low-order animal, one of the many advantages it uses to hunt sentient prey. In rural areas, tausleks have enough presence of mind to attack less dangerous children, while avoiding guard animals and more mindful adults.