LAMIGATOR

Let it never be said that fate has no sense of humour, for the only region of Vaarn blessed with vast bodies of standing water is the polluted swamp-sink of Ikor Quag. The foolhardy travellers who drink from the toxic canals of the Quag die in convulsive agony, and even touching the water of the caustic lakes can cause great blisters to rise on the skin and the hairs of one’s head to bleach a sickly alabaster hue. This is not to say, however, that these bodies of water are uninhabited. Life is, as ever, equal to the task.

The lamigator is an ambush predator, lying motionless in the toxic waters before rising up to seize the unwary. The creature is a strange sight, a great pallid crocodilian coated in a symbiotic layer of living plastic. The outer coating protects the beast from the toxic waters, and in turn the lamigator’s flesh nourishes the plastic, two predators striking as one. Both attack their target, the reptile drawing its prey underwater while the plastic flows into their eyes and airways, blinding and choking them.

Lamigators are notoriously hard to kill, their thick rind of scales deflecting the few blows that their sheath of plastic does not wholly absorb. They are flammable, but since they are usually encountered in aquatic environs, this does not offer the aspiring hunter much solace. They are at least extremely lazy creatures, and unlikely to pursue prey very far from their chosen ambush spot. Their laminated hides are sought-after trade goods throughout Vaarn, due to their extreme durability and resistance to caustic substances.