Aureks

Aureks are good “attack-the-sheet” creatures. They don’t want to hurt players. They just want to eat their clothing, especially leather.

Aureks are shy, rotund, eyeless, golden moles who swim through the earth with paddle-like paws as if the dirt was made of thick water. They move at a speed faster than an average human walks but slower than a run. The largest is the size of a large man’s hand. Their triangular teeth cut like sawtooth scissors.

Their thin coat of hair glisters, catching the eyes of those who lust after gold and helping them to blend into treasure hoards, which they sometimes use as homes, building structures made of clay or a combination of mud and a lattice of sticks (called wattle and daub.)

Aureks are blind. When an Aurek puts its head to the ground, it can hear the words you speak and detect the rate at which you’re breathing if other noises aren’t too distracting. It can detect your general direction if it has its feet touching the same ground that you cause to vibrate when you move. It can sense the shape of you if it has its head to the ground and you move within 100 feet of it, if other vibrations and sounds aren’t creating too much noise.

Aureks consider leather a delicacy but will eat nearly any fabric. They stalk any who possess such “food” except when they await their prey in hiding.

They have no particular interest in hurting any living creature except the worms and small insects they have to eat whenever fabric and leather aren’t available. They prefer to mind their own business but are always ready to trade services, goods, and information once a conversation is started. They only ever speak in a nearly silent whisper and will gesture a request for those they wish to speak with to move close enough to hear them.

Its fur coat may be used as an ingredient in items that employ vibratory amplification.

Summary, Stats and Miscellany

Attacks: 1 × grapple (save or leather armor is broken. Clothing instead if no leather armor is present), 1 × bite (1d4 DMG) Automatic hit if inside player’s clothing/grappling.

(Ascending) AC: 12 (15 in dirt, 16 in player’s own clothing) HD: 0 (2hp)

Move:140’ Morale: 5

● Gilded: shiny golden fur creates appearance of gold.

● Vibration sense: “see” via ground touch. Blind eyes.

● Swim on/just beneath surface of dirt: Move at full speed if ground isn’t too hard.

● A la Mode Diet: eats clothing, especially leather.

● Whisperer: nearly inaudible.

“Wants: to eat “good food,”” to avoid detection, to store “food.”

Doesn’t want: violence, to miss out on deliciousness

Flavor: stringy, tough, hint of leather. Effect of consuming: roll 1d6. 1-2: you can sense the location of things by vibration as if you were an aurek. 3-6: when in the presence of extraneous, unused leather, you must save or eat it. One full set of leather armor counts as a ration, but you move at half speed the rest of the day and fail all saves that depend on quick movement due to a very full gut. (Or apply fatigue/exhaustion if appropriate in your system.) Any article of soft clothing also counts as 1/4th it’s mass in food.