Fish (Athas)

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==Kreel==
Player's Option
MAC
10
Kreel are large domesticated eels that Athasian lizard men use both as a source of food and as beasts of burden. When mature, they range from four to six feet long, and can be up to one foot in diameter. Their coloration change in a chameleonlike way to help camouflage them against their back ground. When near the surface of the sea, their backs tum blue-green and their bellies white. This helps to protect them from predators both above and below. When nearer the bottom of the sea, they become entirely dark.
Kreel are peaceful creatures, and they will only fight to defend themelves.
They are incapable of using group tactics to fend off predators, tending to rely upon their camouflaging abilities to hide from such creatures. When cornered, kreel will retaliate, but even then they will flee at the first opportunity. They often use their relative slimness to slip into places in the sea floor where predator cannot fit. A kreel caught by a hark in open waters, however, is an easy meal.
While a few kreel can be found swimming wild, most belong to schools tended by pairs of lizard men kreelherders. These lizard men ensure that the school is well fed on the kelp growing wild throughout the sea and that it is safe from any wandering predators. Long-time kreelherder carry the scars of many battles with sharks, and some even tell of seeing the legendary squark, a deadly specimen of squid.
Down through the centuries, even rudimentary cunning has been bred out of the kreel. After all, sneaky creatures are difficult to care for. There is little doubt that, were the lizard men to abandon them, the kreel would be hunted to extinction by their natural enemies within a very short period of time. Kreel graze on wild kelp, easily available in any coastal waters. Their meat is tasty (at least to lizard men), and their hides are extremely useful in all sorts of ways. They are the basis of the lizard man culture in their area, for without them the reptilian humanoids would be forced to look elsew here for a large portion of their meals.
==Puddingfish==
Player's Option
MAC
10
The puddingfish is a gigantic sort of jellyfish. It resmbles a tradition jellyfish, only larger and slightly more substantial. Its dome is nearly eight feet across, and its tendrils drag down over 20 feet below it. The creature is composed of a blue-green substance somewhat similar to that of a gelatinous cube. Due to it coloring, the puddingfish can be difficult to spot floating in the water , and more than one fishing boat has run aground on a puddingfish's back. This is usually little more than an annoyance, however, as the creature is unable to lift it tendrils upward at all. As long as no one falls into the water, the occupants of the boat will be fine.
When a small boat or raft runs into a puddingfish, each pasenger near an edge must make a successful Dexterity check to avoid falling into the sea. Those unfortunate enough to go overboard next to the puddingfish had better swim away as fast as they can. The puddingfish is deadly when in contact with a victim, but is slow and easily outdistanced by a strong swimmer. A character struck by a puddingfish's stinging tendrils must save vs. paralyzation or be paralyzed (anesthetized) for 4-16 (4d4) rounds. In the water, this can easily prove fatal unless the victim quickly removed from the water. Once a victim has perished, the puddingfish's tendrils draw the corpse up into its dome, where it is slowly digested over a period of 3 to 6 (1d4+2) days. 
Puddingfish are solitary creatures. They are asexual and reproduce by dividing once they have reached a certain critical mass. They are hunted by the lizard men for their hides (which are not poisonous), out of which many useful things, such as clothing and sails, are made. The dome of a puddingfish is actually its stomach, a place filled with highly corrosive acids. This material can be harvested by foolhardy adventurers willing to risk their Lives to obtain such potentially useful material.
==Shark, Athasian==
Player's Option
MAC
9
Athasian sharks are similar to harks of other worlds in many ways. They are large, cartilaginous, seagoing invertebrates that are basically cold-hearted eating macltines. Long and gray, their mouth are filled with row after row of sharp, vicious teeth. The skin of an Athasian shark is fairly tough, and it is from this material that most lizard man shields are made. 
Athasian sharks end to hunt in packs, and a person floundering about in the water is usually easy prey. These predator are fast, striking like Lightning, often hitting and darting away before the victim is even aware of what has happened. Up to 10 sharks can attack a man-sized opponent in a single round.
Athasian sharks tend to travel in packs for purposes of both hunting and safety. Few creatures can withstand a school of hungry sharks in their element. The one thing that poises a certain danger for them, though, is a dolphin. A group of sharks outnumbered by dolphins must make a morale check. If the sharks fail, they immediately catter and flee, leaving any wounded behind in their single-minded desire to escape the dolphins' wrath.
Athasian sharks (of which only a single species remains) are brighter than other sharks, but this is more animal cunning than raw intelligence. They have been in constant conflict with the dolphins for millennia. Although they are bigger and stronger than their mammalian foes, they have no psionic abilities and are unable to formulate and stick to a decent battle plan. Occaionally they victimize a lone dolphin, but rarely can they sutain a serious attack against an entire dolphin pod.
Little matters to Athasian sharks except where their next meal is coming from. While their favorite meal is dolphin, they are the ultimate carnivores, willing to eat pretty much anything. They can smell blood in the sea from up to a mile away. Once they get its scent, they will pursue it until either they find the source or discover that it has somehow gotten away.
==Skyfish==
Player's Option
MAC
10
A skyfish is an amphibious winged fish that can survive both far below and high above the wave of the sea. They look like silvery sea bass with large batlike wings covered with scales. Their mouths end in a ferocious set of teeth suitable for rending the smaller fish they feed upon.
The arches of skyfish wings end in tiny claw with which the skyfish can grip objects while not flying. When in the water, it folds its wings close so it can swim with less resistance. To fly, a skyfish simply leaps out of the water and preads its wings wide.
Skyfish rarely hunt in packs, preferring to pursue prey on their own. They like to circle high above the waves until they spot a smaller fish swimming near the surface. Then they dart in
and carry the creature into the air, holding it in their mouth until it dies in the open air. Then they take the creature back into the water where they can finish their meal.
Skyfish will only bother people if provoked. This happens occasionally when a fisher catches a skyfish on a line baited for other game. The fisher who can reel in a skyfish is in for a tasty treat. They are considered one of the finest aquatic delicacies. This is not easy.
Skyfish mate for life. They lay large, birdlike eggs, which they keep protected in underwater nests until hatched. While there are eggs or young to be protected, one parent stays with the precious things while the other hunts for food. While, skyfish usually hunt alone, they have been known to band into flocks to take down large prey.
The skyfish seems to have the best of both worlds. Since the creatures can breathe both air and water equally well, they can escape predators operating solely in either element. For this reason, the skyfish population is always high. Were these creatures not hunted for their tasty flesh, they might easily overrun much of their natural range.
Category:Creatures
Category:Annual Volume Four Creatures