Monstrous Compendium Annual, Volume Four • Mind Lords of the Last Sea
| Climate/Terrain: | The Last Sea |
|---|---|
| Frequency: | Uncommon |
| Organization: | School |
| Activity Cycle: | Day |
| Diet: | Herbivore |
| Intelligence: | Animal (1) |
| Treasure: | Nil |
| Alignment: | Neutral |
| No. Appearing: | 2-20 (1-4 in the wild) |
| Armor Class: | 7 |
| Movement: | Sw 12 |
| Hit Dice: | 3 |
| THAC0: | 18 |
| No. of Attacks: | 1 |
| Damage/Attack: | 1-6 |
| Special Attacks: | Nil |
| Special Defenses: | Nil |
| Magic Resistance: | Nil |
| Size: | M (4-6’ long) |
| Morale: | Unsteady (7) |
| XP Value: | 65 |
Kreel are large domesticated eels that lizard men use both as a source of food and as beasts of burden. When mature, they range from four to six feet long, and can be up to one foot in diameter.
Their coloration changes in a chameleonlike way to help camouflage them against their background. When near the surface of the sea, their backs turn blue-green and their bellies white. This helps to protect them from predators both above and below. When nearer the bottom of the sea, they become entirely dark.
Combat: Kreel are peaceful creatures, and they will only fight to defend themselves. They are incapable of using group tactics to fend off predators, tending to rely upon their camouflaging abilities to hide from such creatures.
When cornered, kreel will retaliate, but even then they will flee at the first opportunity. They often use their relative slimness to slip into places in the sea floor where predators cannot fit. A kreel caught by a shark in open waters, however, is an easy meal.
Habitat/Society: While a few kreel can be found swimming wild in Marnita, most belong to flocks tended by pairs of lizard men kreelherders. These lizard men ensure that the flock is well fed on the kelp growing wild throughout the sea and that it is safe from any wandering predators. Long-time kreelherders carry the scars of many battles with sharks, and some even tell of seeing the legendary squark.
Ecology: Down through the centuries, even rudimentary cunning has been bred out of the kreel. After all, sneaky creatures are difficult to care for. There is little doubt that, were the lizard men to abandon them, the kreel would be hunted to extinction by their natural enemies within a very short period of time.
Kreel graze on wild kelp, easily available just about anywhere in Marnita. Their meat is tasty (at least to lizard men), and their hides are extremely useful in all sorts of ways. They are the basis of the lizard man culture in the Last Sea, for without them the reptilian humanoids would be forced to look elsewhere for a large portion of their meals.
