The Silent Watch: Scorpions of Elanthia

The Silent Watch: Scorpions of Elanthia is an Official GemStone IV Document, and it is protected from editing.

The Silent Watch: Scorpions of Elanthia

Beneath the shifting sands of the Sea of Fire and Southron Wastes, as well as the suffocating canopy of the southern jungles and elsewhere throughout Elanthia, a silent watcher lies in wait. The scrape of chitin against stone and the sharp whistle of a raised stinger descending are often the only warnings a traveler receives before encountering one of the more intimidating members of the arachnid world -- the scorpion. Scorpions have occupied the dark corners of Elanthia since the ancient ages, outlasting empires and surviving cataclysms that claimed far softer creatures.

While most frequently associated with sun-blasted deserts, the scorpion can be found across a wide variety of Elanthian environments, including mountains, caves, jungles, and the expected deserts. They are venomous, exceptionally hardy and adaptable, and prone to spark extreme responses in the people who encounter them (few are non-committal about these arachnids; they either are fond of the skittering creatures or wish Onar to turn to scorpion assassinations as a hobby).

Fortunately for the ecosystems of Elanthia, Onar has not yet indicated any specific scorpion-slaying calling, as these creatures are an important part of the food chain. Like their spiderly cousins, the typical scorpion size range is from less than an inch to approximately ten inches, but there are exceptions to this average, including some large enough to be ridden.

About This Guide
In the wilds, a heavy footfall or a stray vibration can be a death sentence. These are not merely skittering pests; they are apex predators capable of toppling a horse or paralyzing a seasoned warrior in a single strike. This work gathers the lore of the Tehir, the Dhe'nar, and the Faendryl, as well as the coastal observations of the Vornavis trappers, and the survivalist wisdom of the Southron Tribes, among others, to paint a complete picture of the scorpion's reign over the desolate places of the world.

Within these pages, the scout and the merchant alike will find essential knowledge for survival. We detail the earthen-hued giants of the west-central wastes, the bioluminescent horrors of the dark lands, and the colorful painted whiptails of the Vornavis coast. We delve into the unusual scorpions found in Atan Irith, and we trace some of Elanith's more unique, but smaller, contributions as well. Beyond mere biology, we explore the precarious relationship between these beasts and the races that dwell alongside them.

Whether you seek to harvest their venom for medicine, train a juvenile for the saddle, or simply wish to avoid a gruesome end in a rocky cave, this collection serves as your guide to the armored creatures of the desert, the islands, and the deep.

Black Jungle Scorpion

The black jungle or “nightstalker” scorpion of the southron jungles and rainforests is a nocturnal predator of the trees, climbing and dwelling in higher branches until springing upon unsuspecting vertebrates below. Gargantuan among arachnids, this giant forest scorpion is black with a reddish underbelly, with a bulbous tail and barbed stinger. It has immense lobed crushing claws for breaking the spines of its victims, whether kish'enda or sai'ri monsters or unlucky scouts of the Esleash Eldha’a, paralyzing them whether or not they have been stung. (Though its venom is rumored to act as an analgesic for the sha’rom, making that creature even more dangerous when wounded. Which has led to the demise of more than one hubristic Dhe’nar youth trying to be too clever in the Great Hunt.) Its carapace is made up of smooth dark discs that blend into the bark even in the Forest of Ash. But it wanders as far south as the river delta of Eh’lah, as long as it has trees for stalking the night.

Known as "shtar'rein sedrai" (loosely meaning "night-sky kinslayer") to the Duk'sa, the black scorpion stalks Dhe'nar hunters, as well as other local humanoids of the tropical forests. They give birth to live young which they carry on their backs. In the late summer and fall they seek such smaller prey to paralyze for their offspring. The venom of the kinslayer scorpion constricts the muscles, disallowing movements for days, other than involuntary motions such as breathing. Its scorplings burrow into the paralyzed body of the living victim, feeding upon its inner flesh and fluids, but avoiding the vital organs to delay the death of their host. This provides a blanket of safety from the "tactai'i" cannibalism of other kinslayer mothers.

This genus of scorpion is also known to exist on isolated islands in the Southron Seas, where they notably are worshipped by the Children of Kyr'orvrad on Bone Island. These indigenous cannibals bring captured outlanders into the jungle as "sky burial" gifts to the scorpions. When only the bones are left, those are brought to the great mountain, given as offerings to Kyr'orvrad. This unnatural mountain of limestone in the middle of a raised atoll is thought to be mounding over a dead volcano. Esoteric archaeologists theorize that a malevolent volcano god "drowned," then attuned to the skeletal debris burying it over untold eons, becoming instead a "demonic" bone-eater god for whom the islanders provide sacrifices which grows the mountain. It is speculated that there is a submerged extinct volcanic arc off southern Jontara, and that in the primordial past there was a land bridge with these islands. Whether this sunk from the cataclysms of the Ur-Daemon War is not known. Others speculate the ancestors of these scorpions were not terrestrial, making the migrations themselves, or were brought on rafts for unknown purposes in the Age of Darkness.

While the children of these scorpions feed on living hosts, their immature venom is unable to paralyze a full grown dwarf. The Khanshael have been known to enact harsh retribution over this predation, organizing raiding parties to burn ten nests to the ground for every dwarf killed. There is a complication that sometimes happens with scorpling venom where the victim instead experiences fevered convulsions. Rather than softening the flesh, for easier shredding and emulsifying, the venom is incorporated into the physiology. They begin sprouting insectoid features all over their bodies, scaling over themselves with an exoskeleton of malformed plating. The Children of Kyr’orvrad thus engage in ritual ancestor worship, believing these scorpions are their ancestors.

Though the shtar'rein sedrai is an overly ambitious target for the Great Hunt, young Dhe'nar must be wary of being tricked into scorpling nests. It was this kind of ill-fated foray that led to the discovery of a peculiar phenomenon. When afflicted by the scorpling venom transmogrification, the mother scorpion will sometimes get confused, mistaking the disfigured victim as one of its own offspring. It will then carry around this febrile "sha'ma" on its back. The Duk'sa learned to exploit this familiarity with “scorpion Dhe’nar” to allow them to ride the kinslayers as mounts. Eventually this led to the Dhe'nar worker caste having scorpion tamers who raise them in enclosures. Criminals and disobedient slaves are thrown to the young scorpions to be wantonly stung, intentionally inflicting the scorpionism metamorphosis, effectively domesticating the scorplings to grow to perceive the Dhe'nar as brood kindred for carrying on their backs.

This particular species of black scorpion in the southron jungles is unusual in that it has also been mutated by the magical energies of Sharath. Its glowing blue blood or "utuarez askari" is known in traditional medicine as a coagulant that inhibits the festering of wounds. The Dhe'nar worker caste harvests this blood by “milking” scorpions in captivity, which is a dangerous occupation, sometimes providing food for the scorpion younglings. This blood is collected for the pain-stealers in the temple caste. But it is also worn as war paint by the warrior caste, acting as a prophylactic salve for their battle wounds.

Giant Albino Cave Scorpion

Giant albino scorpions infest the tunnel systems that wind beneath and throughout the Dragonspine Mountains, often spilling into quarries and mines that breach their natural caverns. Living their whole lives in darkness, these creatures are bereft of pigment, their chitin ghostly pale with faint yellow or pink markings, and their many eyes a ruddy hue. When brought to bear, their potent venom saps the strength of their prey. Their venom and vicious pincers also serve as a defense, for even these creatures, growing seven feet in length or more in the wild, have their predators in the depths.

Intrepid dwarves of Zul Logoth and beyond have, in recent years, ventured into the tunnels to capture scorplings to raise and train to various purposes, such as hauling in quarries and mines unsuitable for rail and mine carts, and even to ride. Tamed and nurtured, the creatures grow even larger than their wild siblings, and if introduced to light in their early stages, they might avoid the typical blindness of their kind.

Domesticated scorpions are regularly milked of their venom, which can be used in a variety of applications from poison antidotes to metal etching. Some locals of Zul Logoth with a taste for adventurous cuisine have even used it as an ingredient in condiments, stews, and brewed into ale, and boast of their tolerance when used in greater potency.

Giant Wastes Scorpion

The Southron Wastes are a harsh desert with many regions, with vastly different hazards wherever one finds oneself. Giant wastes scorpions are mostly found in the west-central Wastes, as far east as the windward edge of the Yrthylain Plateau, between Kilanirij and the ash barrens north of Sharath. The wastes scorpion has an earthen hue with a still deeper back, camouflaging in the dark of night with the rocky terrain, where it sits and waits to feel vibrations from lizards and other creatures of the desert. Though it depends on this prey being large, given its own size, it is able to go months without food. It relies on its large pincers for crushing, as its venom is more useful for impairing than killing. This venom is harvested for traditional medicine, aphrodisiacs, and poisonous coating on weapons.

In spite of its size, it is both predator and prey, owing to its dangerous habitat. Giant wastes scorpions are nocturnal, sheltering in hard rock caves. It is mostly threatened by wasteworms, which also hunt by vibration, but from much further distances. This is complicated by conditions being worse in other directions. The Yrthylain Plateau is the unguarded border of Rhoska-Tor. Dark monsters sometimes wander through this western corridor, traveling into the ash barrens, or the mountains forming their eastern rim. This includes demons, undead, and corrupted spirits. (Among other possible horrors.)

But this more eastern wing of its habitable range is remarkable as it is a crossing for various races and tribes of the Wastes. There are sometimes Dhe'nar hunters, or Zhu'shom pilgrims, and slavers who clash with the Firewalkers. It is a staging ground for raids by the Grot'karesh Hammer Clan. There are southron human tribes, and western nomadic dark elves, who migrate with the seasons. It is where the northern trade route from Behizet ends. There are rarely dark elves from the east in this region. Those who do so are often with expeditions of relic hunters and plunderers, or various kinds of criminals, who are generally disdained by those who live in the Wastes. The Yrthylain Plateau is where the unsavory or foolish most often venture into Rhoska-Tor. Whether this is for hunting the dangerous or vanquishing evil, or for more sinister reasons, its permanent dwellers mostly stay in their dark realm. Giant wastes scorpions will resist and lash out when attempts are made to force them into Rhoska-Tor.

When the wastes scorpion is seen that far east, it is most likely domesticated, ridden by the itinerant nomads who are wandering south to trade in Behizet. These western dark elven tribes are a vestige of the Second Age. They will knowingly block the shelter of the wastes scorpion. When it is caught out in the open at night, they maneuver it with ritual flame dancing, whipping it into a frenzy. The scorpions are pushed back through stone funnels into pitted corrals made for holding them in captivity, where this frenzied state incites mating dances with other wastes scorpions.

Though this likely originated in desert kites and chasing the scorpions off precipices into chasms, being nearly impossible to crush them, this became a way of breeding wastes scorplings by the dark elves who feed them. Those raised in this fashion are docile enough to be mounted. (Though they often have their stinger “declawed” for safety while riding.) The tribes who do this use the panic and agitation of wastes scorpions as a perimeter alarm, warning them of impending doom from wasteworms or more malevolent things. They are most often seen by others as bizarre mounts or disturbing pack mules on the trade routes of Behizet. There the scorpions are sometimes bartered to other races, tribes or nationalities, who come from faraway places to trade for exotic wares in the Jewel of the Wastes.

Greater Painted Whiptail

Believed to be a larger cousin of the whiptails that populate the sandy coast of Vornavis, the greater painted whiptail makes its home in coastal caves and tunnels. These giant scorpions have been observed to swim short distances and are undeterred by tidal flooding of their homes. They prey most often upon the sea life of the shallows and the tide pools, from fish and eels to crabs and burrowing mollusks.

It is speculated that the diet of the painted whiptail contributes the muted colors that pattern their otherwise drab brown or grey exoskeletons, painting their chitin in gentle whorls of pink, blue, green, orange, or yellow, and sometimes even staining their eyes red. Their scorplings are a uniform pale grey or tan, a blank canvas until they nourish themselves on the bounty of the sea enough to begin taking on color.

True to their name, their tails are long and narrow relative to their bodies. Their venom is typically a fairly weak paralytic, though some variances in both potency and range of effects have been observed that are, like their coloration, attributed to diet.

Though scorpions are not typically the mount of choice in the seaside stretches of the Turamzzyrian Empire where the greater painted whiptail is found, it is not unknown for ambitious trappers with personal inclination or market contacts to seek out and capture particularly lovely juveniles to be trained to the saddle.

Qahzumar

Rumored to originate in Bir Mahallah, the qahzumar is an arachnid of somewhat unusual and uncertain origins. It most closely resembles scorpions, but in the place of pincers, the qahzumar has tentacles. This has led to numerous legends about its evolution, including hypotheses that dark magics from the ancient city of Bir Mahallah twisted an entire class of scorpions into the tentacled aberration we know today. Still, their relationship with modern scorpions is evident in every other part of their anatomy, and most scholars consider it a unique member of the scorpion family.

The suckered tentacles of the qahzumar do significant amounts of damage, including exuding a mildly hallucinogenic poison (similar, but less deadly, to poison dart frogs) that lulls its prey and gives the stinger's venom time to work. Qahzumar tentacles, appropriately cleaned and treated, are often used as adornments on clothing or other items by Tehir and travelers alike, and some attempts have been made to harvest its excretions for medicinal and recreational use.

Their coloration range encompasses the numerous shades of brown the desert holds, allowing for excellent camouflage and stealth hunting. They are mostly diurnal, but a few clusters of qahzumar, especially near the ancient site of their alleged origin, hunt at twilight and into the dark. While most qahzumar are average sized for scorpions (six to twelve inches), larger specimens have been encountered, making them a dangerous foe. This radical size variation lends credence to many that their origins are steeped in dark magical experimentations.

Sandfinger

Deep within the Sea of Fire, where iron-rich sands burn orange beneath an unyielding blue sky, lives a distinctive scorpion known among the Tehir as the sandfinger, or zomevurid. Its name reflects both form and nature. In the Tehir tongue, zome means sand, and vurid means finger, conjuring the image of a lethal finger rising from the dunes themselves.

Unlike the darker scorpions of the Southron Wastes far to the south, the sandfinger bears a pale, sun-bleached carapace that allows it to disappear almost completely within the wavering heat of the open desert. Among the Tehir, who are known to find beauty in unlikely places, the creature is regarded with wary respect. Wanderers sometimes follow the trail of a zomevurid, for the scorpions often burrow near the tangled root systems of hardy desert flora where precious moisture gathers far beneath the sand. To attempt the capture of a fully grown sandfinger is widely regarded as folly. Even seasoned hunters know the risk is rarely worth the cost. Instead, the Tehir watch the dunes in late winter when the females travel with their young clinging to their backs. After the first molt, the small scorplings begin to drop away and scatter into the sand. Hunters wait for that moment. Working quickly and well beyond the mother’s notice, they draw the juveniles toward a controlled food source and begin the slow work of bonding.

Each hunter is expected to form a spirit bond with the young scorpion, feeding and tending it until the creature comes to rely upon its keeper rather than its own emerging hunting instincts. Through patience and shared survival, the bond deepens until the zomevurid accepts the presence of the tribe. Even then, the Tehir do not consider the sandfinger tamed. It is instead regarded as a partner shaped by the same unforgiving desert that shaped them.

When grown, the great scorpions are fitted with high-backed saddles of reinforced yierka hide, secured between the base of the tail and the towering cephalothorax. They are most often ridden by the Nalhir during their night journeys between spiritual vortices, the massive creatures sheltering travelers from the worst of the desert winds and scouring storms.

To witness a Tehir caravan mounted upon these amber-hued titans, their many legs churning the iron sands into a drifting red haze, is to see a rare harmony with the Sea of Fire itself. In that partnership, the sandfinger no longer rises from the dunes to strike the traveler but instead carries them across the burning waste.

Scorpions of Atan Irith

Agate Scorpion: Agate scorpions are the bane of the Nathala Dai as they are a rare breed that enjoys the rocky beaches along some of the western shores of Atan Irith, mostly coinciding with where the Nathala have built docks. Seeing little difference between scuttling about within the rocks and clambering around dock pilings, agate scorpions have an unsettling ability to find their way into the holds of erithi ships.

Agate scorpions are some of the largest found on Atan Irith (excepting the truly oversized skrik), being roughly a foot in size. They are fast-moving and hard to catch, with a propensity for fighting with crabs and other seashore inhabitants. On board a ship, if they aren't caught, they will live off bugs and small rodents. Their sting will cause welts (as will their pincers, which they do use in ways very similar to the crabs they fight), but it is nothing to truly worry about.

Their name derives from the colorings of their exoskeletons; they come in all the various colorings and patterns of the Atan Irith agates. Scholars are uncertain why this is, but they attribute it to the saltwater lifestyle and diet, citing the Greater Painted Whiptail as an Elanith example of colorations impacted by diet and habitat.

Many consider the agate scorpion a beautiful creature, but even so, most people tend to find arachnids unsettling and would prefer not to wake up in their berth to find a foot-long scorpion staring them in the face. Therefore, unlike many agate-related items, the agate scorpions tend not to be given special placement in Atan Irith life, unless it is in ship galleys. Ship cooks have found myriad pleasant ways to cook these creatures, and they take great pleasure in assigning any sailor who crosses them the duty of scorpion-wrangling in the holds.

Cave Skrik: Dwelling in the deep tunnels and caverns in the southeastern side of the Vethajira mountains is an oversized and vicious scorpion known as the cave skrik. The name has no actual meaning in Erithi or Inyexi, instead coming from the sound they emit, like giant claws scraping across rock -- 'skriiiiik, skrikkkkk, skrrriiiik.' If one is in a cave and hears that sound, one should run, although it may be too late, as the cave skrik is incredibly fast.

Large as a rolton, the cave skrik has an unusually hard exoskeleton that resembles wet granite in coloration and texture (which is why this scorpion is also sometimes called the misty granite scorpion by those who feel 'skrik' hits them too harshly on the tongue). Its sturdy pincers make short work of small animals, crushing them even as the skrik's stinger injects paralytics into the helpless prey.

While it is mostly content to stay to its caverns, it will hunt those who disturb its peace, and in lean times, it will leave to find sustenance in nearby areas. While there are no confirmed cases of people killed by the cave skrik, the possibility is often assumed when a person goes missing in the mountain regions, and numerous legends and cautionary tales are told by those living near their habitat.

Lotus Scorpion: Found at high elevations, the lotus scorpion lives in and near the mountain lotus bushes. They are pitch black, roughly six inches in length, and highly territorial, but their venom has barely any negative impact on anything larger than a yuzu. This makes their rampant shows of aggression dangerous for a yatasa or chunky centipede but mildly amusing for an erithi or Inyexat.

Setalix: Also known as the tiny toadstool scorpion, setalix are found in the cave-riddled mountains of Atan Irith, lurking amongst toadstools and in crevices. Despite being less than two inches in length, the setalix packs a wallop of a venom in its small stinger. Fortunately, they are shy and have an aversion to people; plus, their sting is easily countered by a bite or two of several toadstools they tend to live nearby. Several mycomancers actually seek out the sting of a setalix, as the curative toadstools tend to be hallucinogenic. They believe that the combination of the two leads to greater insights for some divinations.

Setalix are a dark brown with beige striations and blend naturally into their environs and toadstool homes.

Smaller Scorpions of Elanith

While a focus is often placed on the scorpions of unusual size (and for good reason, the titans of the arachnid world bear extra scrutiny and awareness), one must not forget that it will be much more common to run into scorpions that can fit in the palm of one's hand, should they be so inclined. Given that, we would be remiss if we did not include a few of Elanith's more unusual smaller scorpions as well.

Bejeweled Scorpion: Thought at first to be juvenile painted whiptails, the bejeweled scorpion is its own creature, never growing past roughly three inches in length. It can be found in similar environs as their enormous cousins, and in its smaller size, the coloration effect is intensified, giving them iridescent, jewel-toned exoskeletons that have an eerie nighttime luminescence.

Blue Forest Scorpion: Also known as a cobalt scorpion, the blue forest scorpion makes its home in the jungle near River's Rest. It gets its name from its metallic cobalt blue exoskeleton and its propensity to live in moist forested areas, either skittering about the canopy or burrowing beneath fallen trees. Its venom is painful but not lethal to people.

Hissing Fire Scorpion: The hissing fire scorpion is one of many scorpion types found in the Sea of Fire and gets its name from the hissing sound it makes and its darkened jacinthe exoskeleton. It grows to approximately 10 inches, but its boldness knows no bounds; hissing fire scorpions will gleefully attack much larger prey, including other scorpions such as the qahzumar, with no regard for the size disparity or its chance of survival. Fortunately, it is fairly prolific, so the frequent deaths by misadventure have little impact on their overall population. These aggressive and venomous arachnids are quite pretty, so there is a robust demand by collectors for both live specimens (for zoos and private collections -- they make terrible pets) and dead (for artistic purposes, such as decorative inlays on tables).

Ice Scorpion: In colder weather, most scorpions enter a hibernation period (or take to finding themselves a warm home to weather out the winter in -- check your boots before putting them on!), but Icemule Trace has a rare type of scorpion that actually thrives in its frigid climate.

Known as the ice scorpion, both for its translucent blue-white coloration and its Icemulian habitat, this small scorpion is thought to be the result of magical tinkering years ago (some blame Thurfel, as he is a convenient mad mage for all such allegations, but ice scorpions predate him by quite a few hundred years. They just mostly stayed out of people's way until recently). This scorpion lives in the caves around Icemule Trace, feeding on small insects and, if it is fortunate enough to get a quick strike of its stinger, on small mammals such as chipmunks.

The ice scorpion is highly venomous for small creatures, and its sting can cause respiratory distress in susceptible people as well. Fortunately, affected individuals respond well to general venom antidotes.

Vecdrae Scythir

In the depths of the dark and ancient prehistory of Rhoska-Tor are unknown horrors, born of the deep taint of the Ur-Daemon and the fractures of the veil plaguing those lands. Vicious aberrations have mutated there over long millennia, or abominations made from the unnatural offspring of demons. Most of these dwell below ground in the darkness, adapted to survive off things not of this world. It is a blackened wasteland of barren plains and shattered rock. In the mountains of its eastern periphery there are precarious and dangerous passes, which are treacherous not only for their jagged terrain, but because of the foul things which prey on whatever has the misfortune of wandering too close to the Vale of Darkness.

Among these horrible creatures is a large scorpion species, which is manifestly primeval as a living fossil. The Faendryl call it “vecdrae scythir”, meaning "breathing scorpion." This is owing less to the four pairs of book lungs under its ventral plating, than its ability to breathe a wide range of toxic gases. It has four pairs of walking legs, and two large, pincer-like pedipalps that are more reminiscent of a grotesquely oversized spider. But its mouth splays open with serrated chelicerae, allowing it to spray its caustic black blood short distances.

The vecdrae scythir or “baleful rhoskan scorpion” is marked with strange patterns on its exoskeleton that glow in the moonlight and resemble metallic sorcerous glyphs. While it is not necessarily nocturnal or diurnal, it has what appear to be large dorsal eyes for a scorpion, as well as laterally with dozens of single-lens ocelli. But only a few of these are sensitive to light. Most of them are vestigial and mutated by the wasteland, instead sensing the many kinds of dark essence found in Rhoska-Tor. Sorcerers have found that other glyphic patterns emerge from its carapace when exposed to other extraplanar energies. This scorpion does not burrow, nor hide itself in caves. It is a predator that hunts in the open, whether crags or chasms, tracking down prey to devour. Though it will slaughter other malformed things of darkness if it must, it has a taste for the untainted fauna of the outside world. More often than not this means the bipedal races who were sapient enough to know better.

It is doubted by the extrachthonic taxonomists of the Faendryl that the rhoskan scorpion is purely an aberration of unnatural mutation. It is thought they were most likely bred by warlocks of the Second Age, probably demon worshipping cults of Dark Elves, among the sectarian factions or kingdoms destroyed or subjugated when Despana conquered the wasteland. They were likely at one point an underground species. The vecdrae scythir scrapes its curved stinger upon its shell, making high-pitched hissing sounds, which is both a way of signaling and a weapon for disorienting bats. This is piercing to the ears of Dark Elves. It is speculated that those ancient breeders herded them with the voice of Rhoska-Tor.

More interestingly, the venom of this huge scorpion is totally abnormal, being peculiar to its malevolent origins. When the victim is stung the glyphic patterns of the scorpion manifest instead on the afflicted body. These effectively act as runes powered by the tainted mana of Rhoska-Tor, which is absorbed through the carapace into the venom. The esoteric patterns make the veil bleed into particular infernal realms, causing the host to be demonically possessed by incorporeal entities. These victims are liable to kill themselves, transform into demonic hybrid abominations or drop dead from the warping of their physiology, or otherwise go wild with madness and kill those around them. The vecdrae scythir is particularly fond of hunting groups for this reason. It will effortlessly scavenge the dead. This would have been one of the traditional methods of achieving demonic summoning for those dark religions.

Though it is possible their ancestors truly originated in the eastern jungles beyond the Southron Wastes — which were swamps in the distant past, with the scorpions instead having migrated to Rhoska-Tor, in its even more poorly known antiquity — they now plague the mountains rather than the subterranean caverns. According to the Lyx'Emin of Evashir, the rhoskan scorpion was not indigenous to the Toskathyr Mountains, first appearing there only in the centuries immediately preceding the Undead War. While they may have been disrupted and displaced by the hordes of Despana, it is more obvious they were drawn by hunger to the mountain lairs, mostly those of the orcs and trolls who had migrated south when recruited by Dharthiir. Evashir refers to them as "valyn" or "moon" scorpions for their night glow, but also as the great guardians of the mountain passes. Which deterred not only random depredations by those dark forces in the time of the Undead War, but throughout time to the present day, devouring the foul creatures that might wander out of Rhoska-Tor.

In the aftermath of the Undead War, when House Faendryl was exiled, it encountered this same hazard in the passes of the Toskathyr Mountains. It was one of the reasons the early campaign to annex Evashir was aborted as impractical, as the hostile conditions in the Age of Chaos required those routes for supply lines. Instead, the Faendryl took advantage of the scorpion's taste for orc and troll flesh, using them to track down hidden lairs, so that they could be thrown into chaos and burned out. Often mistaken for solitary hunters, the vecdrae scythir hisses its signals, which are outside of the auditory range of most races. They will unexpectedly swarm in packs.

In the Modern Era these scorpions are a deadly nuisance for the archipelago of penal colonies in those mountains, which House Faendryl maintains for its dangerous mining labor in Rhoska-Tor. These hardened criminals are preyed upon, often caught off guard, as vecdrae scythir has a talent for finding tainted mana nodes in subterranean chambers. In the Dark Elven tongue, they refer to them as "nethyn" or "dragon" scorpions, ostensibly due to its tuberculated surface features, or possibly due to its caustic spray for those that came too near its mouth. Though this is etymologically disputed. Some Faendryl philologists believe it is a loan meaning substitution from "draekeri", the ancient Elven word for "dark elves", which was literalized in its transposition into Dark Elven. Blaming the scorpions on the "draken" elves of the wasteland. This was because in the early exile the struggles of Rhoska-Tor were blamed on Despana, as well as her followers, who was assumed by her contemporaries to have risen out of the exiles of the Elven Empire.

The venom of the rhoskan scorpion is unable to work for demonic summoning outside of Rhoska-Tor, except under very particular conditions in places where the veil is weak. But it is harvested by ranchers of the Agrestis. The scorpions are not immune to their own venom. When they are poisoned with it, it jumbles their glyphs, disorienting their valencial senses. This has the effect of making them docile, which has defensive value in itself. But with prolonged envenomation from their own kind, they become domesticated enough to be mounted.

There is a black market for this venom which is smuggled mostly out of those mining prisons. There are illicit bazaars and dark apothecaries in the various Dark Elven ports, places trading in soporifics and dubious elixirs, which highly value it in narcotic dilutions for its use in eldritch divination. This is an especially dangerous form of "dreamwalking" that exposes the mind to other valences. The “khortor” or “delirium knowledge” when wrongly made is prone to fatal interruptions of breathing, or even makes the heart stop, which is not enough to prevent the screaming from fever dreams. When the corpses will not stop, they are often beheaded. There have even been occultists who screamed themselves to death, becoming asphyxiating, or choked on their own tongue after biting it off. Though it will most likely not cause demonic possession, the risk of such intrusion is not negligible. Nor is the possibility of being lost to the demonic. Whether that means losing one’s mind figuratively, or more literally, to the cosmic horror of the abyss.

OOC Information/Notes

• Created in April 2026 by GMs Gyres (greater painted whiptail, albino cave scorpion), Thandiwe (introduction, sandfinger with language support by Gyres), Warlockes (giant wastes scorpion, black jungle scorpion, vecdrae scythir), and Xynwen (introduction, smaller scorpions section, Atan Irith, qahzumar-using Living in the Sea of Fire as source material, overall editing/flow)
• Note: Rumor Woods released scorpion mounts in 2026. Several have lore information here, but not all giant scorpions will be mounts; its inclusion in this document does not mean a mount-based version will someday be available