Clairsentience: Devotions - danger sense, detect life, radial navigation

Sand wyrms are massive reptiles that slink about the sandy wastes far north of the Tablelands. They can grow to longer than 150 feet in length and have huge snakelike heads with long ivory horns. Their jaws can stretch wide enough to swallow a half-giant, and they are one of a few creatures powerful enough to regularly prey on antloids and dune reapers.

Sand wyrms move in the same way as caterpillars or snakes, by contracting and extending their bodies, slithering across the dunes. To watch one move is breath-taking, as each shelled segment of the creature ripples from tail to head and then back again.

Some of the more civilised merchant ssurans of the North have domesticated sand wyrms for use as mounts and beasts of burden. A few of them have even mentioned that they learned the secrets to handling the wyrms from powerful psionic beast-masters.

Combat: Sand wyrms hunt with their psionic detect life and radial navigation ability, coupled with a keen sense of smell and an ability to detect minute vibrations in the sand. They can pick up the scent of blood in a one mile radius, and home in from there.

After either sneaking up on its prey or chasing it down, the sand wyrm uses its bite attack. The enormous jaws do 5d10 points of damage, and will swallow man-sized creatures on a roll of four more than is required to hit. Thri-kreen, half-giants, and other large creatures are swallowed on a natural 20.

Creatures who get within melee distance of a sand wyrm’s tail while it is engaged in combat have a 75% chance each round of being tail swiped. The sand wyrm must make an attack roll for this. The tail swipe causes 2d10 damage, and creatures struck must make a save vs paralysis or lose their next action as they are knocked down and stunned. The sand wyrm can attack as many creatures as are within melee range of its tail (ie. not attacking its head) with this tail swipe, but only has a 75% chance to do so for each attacker each round.

Sand wyrms take half damage from fire. If a fire-based attack gives a saving throw for half damage, the wyrm takes no damage on a successful save and half damage on a failed save.

Sand wyrms are only agressive when they are hungry. Unfortunately, this is most of the time. Still, there have been occasional sightings where a wyrm has completely ignored travellers even upon catching their scent.

Habitat/Society: Sand wyrms are solitary hunters that socialise with others of their kind only when mating, which is rare. Sometimes they bury themselves, either partially or completely. It is unknown whether they do this to regulate their body temperatures or to hide from predators, but there are few creatures brave enough to hunt sand wyrms.

Ecology: The ssurans of the North know the secrets to taming these creatures, claiming to have been taught by renegade psionicists (probably fleeing the Order). Adult sand wyrms are impossible to domesticate without the aid of powerful psionics, so an egg or hatchling must be raised and trained into maturity.

The mating cycles of sand wyrms are unknown, mainly because the creatures are considered legend in the Tyr Region. Young sand wyrms have never been sighted, and neither have eggs or nests. This makes the procurement of a hatchling sand wyrm a near impossible task. Of course, the ssurans of the North know that the sand wyrms have a breeding ground near the great Lava Gorge, and this is where they go for their own eggs. It would, however, require a sorcerer-king’s ransom in treasures to bribe one of the reptile-men into revealing the location of the sand wyrms nesting ground.