Cleon
Legend
Looks like we've got the mechanics worked out, but I think we can include a bit more of the following in the description:
Dragon Mountain said:
This large canine closely resembles a dog with a bristly tuft of hair between its shouldersand eyes that practically burn with hatred and evil. Its wolfish snout has an overabundance of razor-sharp teeth.
Created by a sorcerer ages ago, gnashers (and their cousins the winged gnashers) are hateful beasts that live to kill and maim. Gnashers live in packs led by their most brutal member, a position decided by vicious (but usually not fatal) combat. They only deliberately kill gnashers of rival packs.
These monsters are usually only met in wildernesses. They know that populated areas would hunt them down, but sometimes raid isolated settlements. A pack of gnashers will claim a territory until it has killed eaten every animal within it, then move on to a new territory. An area abandoned by gnashers is eerily quiet; it may take months before new animals dare enter a gnasher pack's old territory.
Gnashers have an instinctive hatred of elven dogs. The feeling has become mutual, and the two species always fight without quarter. Perhaps the sorcerer who created them intended them as a weapon against elven dogs.
A typical gnasher is 5 feet long, stands 3 feet tall at the shoulder, and weighs 300 pounds. Coloration tends toward dark blacks, greys, and browns.
Gnashers speak their own language, using a combination of barks, growls, and body language.
COMBAT
Gnashers are unpredictable, erratic opponents. The only consistency is their vicious malevolence. They are interested in their own survival as well as killing, but the ratio between these passions fluctuates wildly - the same gnasher may stalk and torment the weakest lamb in a flock one day, then charge into a group of hunters and fight to the death the next day. Gnashers can be crafty. They often avoid powerful foes to pick off the weak or isolated. Even a full belly may not satisfy a gnasher's lust to kill, they will needlessly slaughter victims and leave the bodies to rot.
When attacking, gnashers circle their opponents and then lunge in with snapping jaws, jabbing and feinting until they spot weakness. They then dart in from all directions and swarm over their prey until it is dragged to the ground. Anything pulled down by this pack overrun attack has little chance of survival.
The only hope many creatures have of escaping a gnasher pack is to climb somewhere the gnashers can't reach. However, gnashers have been known to wait until a "treed" victim dies from dehydration.
Gnashers do not flee pain, indeed they seem to revel in it. A wounded gnasher becomes even more aggressive.
