Hornbeak Trask
GM's Eyes Only
Spoilers. This page is written for the GM, and players who read on will learn things their characters don't know.
A small, beaked, ravenous dinosaur. Source: Iron Kingdoms Monsternomicon, p. 50.
What it is. About the size of a large dog, leathery and lizard-like, with a beaked jaw that unhinges for huge bites. Warm-blooded, but it hatches from leathery eggs.
Hunger and sleep. A trask lives in a cycle of torpid dozing, ravenous hunting, and gluttonous feasting. Hungry, it hunts anything that moves, with real speed and agility, and attacks over and over with no regard for itself. Fed, it drags its kill somewhere safe, swallows it in a few gulps, and goes nearly harmless. After a few days without food it slips into a hibernation that can last months, waking sluggish and docile.
Bonding. A trask attaches itself to whoever feeds it, but the bond frays if the feeding stops. People who adopt one usually met it in a calm moment and are surprised when its hunger comes back.
In Tir Hathar. A small dinosaur, so its home is Theria.
Stats¶
First draft, built from WWN's baseline stat lines.
| HD | AC | Atk | Dmg | Shock | Move | ML | Inst | Skill | Save | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hornbeak Trask | 1 | 13 | +2 | 1d6 | 1/13 | 40' | 8 | 7 | +1 | 15+ |
- Frenzy. Once per day, as an On Turn action: for 1d3 rounds it gains +2 to hit and damage and +10 feet of movement.
- Slippery. When a melee attack misses it, it can immediately move 10 feet without drawing a free attack.
- Gorge. When it kills something, it stops fighting and starts eating. A fed trask is torpid and nearly harmless for hours.
- Hibernation. After three days without food it falls into a sleep that can last months. It wakes sluggish: -2 to hit and AC 11 until it eats.
Still open: playtesting the numbers. Suggested, not settled: trasks turning up in Confederacy ports as stowaways and ill-chosen sailors' pets, as they come to IK's ports from the southern continent.