Description
A skratt is a small six legged animal no bigger than a man’s forearm. Its tail is as long as it’s body, but is made out of gray mist. The creature’s fur and its misty tail take on the brightness of the surrounding terrain, thus a skratt will be close to white on snow and black in a tar-pit. Skratts are silent predators who can see in the dark with their empty concave eye sockets. Skratts recoil from bright light.
Skratt are known to form temporary alliances with drebil.
Details
- Level:
- 2 (6)
- Motive:
- Consuming blood and organs
- Environment:
- Anywhere dark. Skratt prefer background radiation found in old ruins and can line their nests with numenera. They sometimes collect “shinies.”
- Health:
- 6
- Damage:
- 3
- Armor:
- 1
- Movement:
- Short
- Modifications:
Skratt sneak as level 4 (12) creatures.
- Combat:
Skratt typically retreat if they do not outnumber their prey by at least two to one, three to one or more if the prey is larger than they are. If cornered or if defending their nest, Skratt will fight to the last. Skratt in numbers use the .
A skratt harmed by a flaming weapon, including a torch, or a bright ray emitter will retreat to short distance for one round. A skratt whose health is reduced to 3 or less attempts to scurry off and escape into darkness.
When fighting a group of human sized foes, they will retreat if possible when their numbers no longer allow them to outnumber the humans by three to one or more.
Death Screech: When a Skratt dies in combat it emits a psychic screech that causes all other skratt to fight as two levels higher, inflicting double the normal damage for one round. Swarms will fight as four levels higher doing quadruple damage. If more than one die in the same round the effect lasts an extra round for every skratt killed but the other advantages do not stack.
- Interaction:
A skratt has the intelligence of an average five year old human and can speak in broken sentences using local languages. For this reason a skratt can be a source of information, having viewed the area from the darkness. In some cases, skratt have been known to befriend other thinking creatures.
- Use:
A noblewoman’s pendent has gone missing, as have other items in the area. It seems a skratt pack has moved into the local midden.
- Loot:
Because skratts collect shinies, a skratt lair includes a collection of junk but might also have 1d6-1 cyphers, 3d6 shins, and possibly an oddity.