CLASS: ARTHROPOID

The Scolomorph is the result of hybridization between a human and various species of centipede.

BIOLOGY:

Light and fast on its fourteen legs, the Scolomorph is a disorienting blur of motion as it darts erratically from place to place, seldom possessing eyes and tracking prey primarily through vibration. Employing its legs as spears, it will attempt to pin its victim's appendages before striking with its lethally venomous forefingers.

Though incredibly difficult for an attacker to sever, the Scolomorph can easily shed its own legs as an escape mechanism, which continue to flail violently in response to movement and inject mild, numbing doses of venom.

Scolomorph are born live, but spend their first six months immobile, curled tightly into small balls as they complete development.

BEHAVIOR:

A Scolomorph is a cunning hunter, moving unpredictably in and out of hiding to confuse and unnerve its prey. Its strategies are further honed by almost constant play behavior, delighting in puzzles, frivolous physical exercises and unusual new objects to toy with, though its attention span tends to be critically short. A Scolomorph's den will often amass a heap of trinkets and baubles it found only briefly exciting but has difficulty parting with, and may utilize as a bed for itself and its young.

A mother Scolomorph will lie curled about her offspring for their entire six-month developmental stage, allowing them to cling to her body for an additional eight to fourteen months and actively hunting alongside them for their first three to five years. Scolomorph prefer to live along by pubescence, but rarely move too far from at least one of their siblings, a wide social network spreading outward from their mother's territory. To cross one Scolomorph is to cross its entire family, and the mother is regarded with an especially protective reverence.

APPLIANCE:

A Scolomorph is a fierce and loyal companion to any who earn its trust, though its social behavior is difficult to distinguish from its hunting techniques as it prefers to remain unseen and unheard even to its allies, circling at a distance and regularly scouting ahead for danger. For obvious reasons, they enjoy being given their own errands and make especially speedy couriers.