Build-a-Beast

Name: Exven (plural: Exvens)
Type: Presumed to be a primitive dragonkin
Habitat: Seem to prefer areas with cover and open spaces available
Size: Highly variable, range in height from 20cm to about 80cm at the shoulder

Appearance:
In terms of build, exvens are four-legged creatures whose forelegs are noticeably longer than their hind legs. They’re muscular animals with deep chests and rounded shoulders, though when viewed front-on they’re oddly slim; their shoulders and hips being surprisingly narrow compared to their height. They have long, thick and stiff wher-like tails complete with forked tip that are presumed to assist in balance; necessary as these creatures, particularly the larger ones, are extremely fast despite the awkward-looking gait their mismatched legs give them. Their feet are built along the lines of those of a firelizard but the toes are much reduced in length while the palms are larger, meaning their feet more closely resemble the paws of a carnivorous mammal such as a cat or dog. Even this resemblance is incomplete, however, as they lack pads on the bottom and rather than claws, have protective caps of bony material that look uncannily like human fingernails. Small bumps emerging from the shoulders give the suggestion of wings or some other third pair of limbs, though these have long since become vestigial and now seem to serve no purpose whatsoever. Their necks are reasonably long, adding an extra third or so to each animal’s height, and are thick at the base but taper to the base of the oddly small head. These heads again are built along the same line as that of a firelizard but are flatter and wider while still being bony, with fairly short, blunt muzzles. It’s within these muzzles that their vicious fangs, up to three inches long in the largest specimens, are housed. These fangs are hinged, allowing them to fold up into the top jaw, and are capable of injecting a potent toxin that seems to work by over-exciting the heart. Their eyes, like those of other dragonkin, are multi-faceted and change colour, assumedly also based on the animal’s mental state.

In terms of colour, exvens come in a wide range of distinct colours. It’s assumed that they have some sort of colour-based ranking system similar to that of dragons, but it’s clearly far more elaborate as although reds, greens, blues and other draconic colours have been seen, other colours such as purple, pink, copper, teal have also been noted. Furthermore, a golden coloured exven was once recorded as being reasonably small while the largest ever discovered was blue, so it can be assumed that if there is a ranking system, it’s nothing at all like the one the Pernese are used to.

Habits:
Exvens are social beasts that live in groups of, on average, ten to twenty individuals, the majority of which will be related. They are carnivores that actively hunt by ambushing large prey, chasing it down as a pack, envenoming it and waiting for it to die from the toxin. How the social structure works within these packs, if indeed there is a social structure, is not clear, though it would appear that larger individuals are generally more dominant. It would seem that packs are quite territorial and ‘battles’ between rival packs have been witnessed, though at the same time new, unrelated, individual exvens seem to be incorporated into established packs with relative ease.

Life-Cycle:
There doesn't seem to be a specific season for breeding with exvens; instead it occurs Turn round. Females mate whenever they come into heat. How often this happens seems highly variable and how they communicate it to males is a complete mystery, but in any case they will be in heat for around two days during which they will apparently mate with as many males as possible. Two months later they lay a clutch of eggs, the size of which is highly variable but seems to roughly correlate with the female’s size. The eggs are tended by the mother as well as by other members of the pack throughout their two month incubation, after which the babies hatch. Food is brought to them by adult pack members for the first sevenday or so, but after that they are expected to at least begin hunting with the rest of the pack. They reach sexual maturity at around 2 Turns, though this seems to be variable as well.

Intelligence:
How intelligent exvens are is still something of a mystery. They are very quiet creatures that don’t seem to be able to make any noise except a warning hiss, so one assumes they cannot communicate vocally, but if they are indeed dragonkin it wouldn't be ridiculous to suggest they have some telepathic ability. Certainly the coordinated manner in which they hunt would suggest they are able to communicate with each other somehow, which would in turn suggest a level of intelligence at least as high as that of a lion or canine, and they could well be smarter. In any case, any telepathic ability they have has never been noticed by a human, and dragons, whers and flitters treat them much as they would any other animal.

Interaction With Humans:
The vast majority if people do their best to avoid exvens as they’re highly aggressive and perfectly happy to pump a hapless human full of venom. Fortunately they seem to avoid human habitations and the majority of attacks involve people who decided to go exploring, though hungry packs may venture into the outskirts of civilisations where they often attempt to hunt canines, felines and flitters. Even dragons have to be cautious, as a single bite from an exven injects enough venom to kill a small grey or green and can even render a big brown seriously ill.

All of that aside, if very, very dilute doses, as in two drops in a pint of water, are injected deliberately, exven venom causes the heart rate to increase to a level where it causes a feeling of excitement and high energy, and induces an adrenaline rush. It’s also believed, quite incorrectly, that ingesting exven venom produces an aphrodisiac effect (in fact this does nothing). For both of these reasons collecting the venom is a very lucrative business for someone willing to take the risk, and so naturally there are people who attempt to farm them. If hatched in captivity exvens can become somewhat tamer than they’re wild cousins, but they remain dangerous and unpredictable and will bite and hence kill their handler if given the opportunity. They can be ‘milked’ by inciting them to bite cup of some sort with a diaphragm, usually an uncured animal skill, which will cause them to inject their venom. This does not make them any safer, however, as they will never inject all they have in one go, and one drop is more than enough to kill a man.