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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greybar" data-source="post: 852480" data-attributes="member: 4938">"Into the wilderness", part twoThe beast resembles a wolf in general body shape but it is covered with large plates over the spine and shoulders, turning to finer scales along its legs and bellies.  It snarls at Karrinkas, eyes gleaming, and snaps its own jaws on his shoulder and latches on.  Karrinkas is far more used to being the grappler than the grapplee and does not like it one bit.Daphna rolls to her feet and quickly positions herself between the wolves and the still-prone Arlissa.  Her longsword flashes in the firelight as she takes a stance.Samus is on his feet and charging, seemingly from the instant that Balius shouted.  His greataxe fluidly drawn, he leaps with a great overhead blow into the next wolf-thing.  There is a huge cracking sound as the heavy metal blade crashes through the bony plate on the back of the thing's neck.  Its whole body heaves with the blow, then rises desperately trying to rip at Samus' thigh.Berke turns over in his sleep, dreaming of the beautiful ring of hammer on anvil.Balius hestitates, but sees that soon the battle will be too tight for him to use his bow.  He has just enough time to drop his bow to the ground and grab his battleaxe and handaxe before the next wolf is upon him.  He strikes a defensive stance and batters at the thing's armored head with both axes, though neither blade manages to penetrate.Karrinkas twists himself free of the thing's jaws and nearly manages to get himself on top of the thing.  Instead he settles for leaving two thin bloody claw marks along its side between the large shoulder-plates.  It spins and bites for him again, but he's ready for it now, anticipating the bite and dodging back.Arlissa sits quickly and surveys the scene, looking for the most injured of the beasts.  She calls upon the bright powers of Llassa and  a searing beam of light leaps from her hand and burns along the flank of Samus' opponent.  It yelps and tries to hop away, its side ripped open by divine power.  Samus swing in an mighty arc, catching it on the wounded side and lifting it bodily off the ground.  It crashes back to earth dead.The one facing Balius seems to think better of the whole situation and with one last nip decides to beat paws for the bushes.  Karrinkas' opponent has no such chance, caught between Karrinkas and a charging Daphna.  They flank it and Daphna quickly finds a weakly protected joint between flank and leg.  Her longsword slashes with precise force, opening it up at the joint and running up its belly.  When it tries to spin to face her, Karrinkas rips it down."Okay, so now we know what we're hunting" Samus says.  He raises his axe and beheads his fallen foe.  "Nasty lizard-hounds."*After some brief tending of wounds, they settle back down again.  Then the victorius group pauses for a moment in wonder.  Not at the creatures, but at the realization that Berke hasn't woken up for the entire fight."Okay, that definitely means our watch is over." Balius says, rubbing at his leg where a bloody slice has been turned into tender, healthy pink skin by Arlissa's healing.  "That's you and Berke.""Fine, nudge him awake will you?"  Samus seems intent upon flaying the skull of the lizard-hound with a dagger.Berke rises somewhat grumplily at Balius' nudge.  He glances over the bodies of the strange creatures, then shrugs.Karrinkas licks over his wounds with a long red tongue, then lies down alongside Balius.  Best to watch out for the cub. he thinks. Wolves with scales are not good things.* Plug!  These creatures became the Trakza, my entry to a contest held by <a href="http://www.icirclegames.com/" target="_blank">Inner Circle Games</a>.  Happily, the Trakza was a winner.  You'll be able to find them and other nasty critters in the Denizens of Avadnu product.With the gracious permission of Inner Circle, here's the draft artwork for the Trakza from Denizens of Avadnu:<img src="http://home.attbi.com/~johndunk/haraiva/Images/trakza.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></blockquote>

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