Mastyrial, Black

''A darkly mottled scorpion as long as a halfling is tall and with a carapace easily mistaken for jagged rock, this creature moves with rapid scuttling motions, swarming with its fellows to strike from all sides. Despite an apparent lack of any visual organs, its attacks strike with uncanny accuracy.''

Combat
Black mastyrials attack in swarms, striking at their prey from all angles. Completely blind, they use their hivemind and psionic powers to stay one step ahead of the enemy, keeping in constant communication with each other. The degree of co-ordination that this leads to is unusual for creatures of their intelligence. Through knowledge gained on frequent encounters with the races of the Tablelands, black mastyrials will make use of racial and other weaknesses whenever they can exploit them. The black mastyrial possesses a virulent, numbing poison that leeches feeling from the body part struck, resulting in loss of Strength and coordination.

Description
These smaller, sightless cousins to the desert mastyrial spend most of their time in hibernation, either in burrows beneath the surface or lying in sheltered gullies, blending in with the scenery. More intelligent than their larger brethren, the black mastyrials possess a rudimentary hivemind and live in familial colonies, preying upon most living creatures (including black mastyrials from other colonies) through their keen psionic senses.

They are a degenerate species, almost unnaturally hardy (leading some to suspect magical tampering in their past) and their nascent hivemind conflicts with the solitary nature of their parent mastyrial species. As a result, black mastyrials are fierce and competitive, and will generally attack any creature of less than giant-size wandering into their territory.

Black mastyrials have dark, rock-like exoskeletons and claws with interlocking pincers, and have no visual organs. The average black mastyrial is 3 feet long and weighs as much as 10 pounds.

Black Mastyrial Society
The continual connection that exists between the various members of a black mastyrial colony has had some remarkable effects upon the species. A colony that lasts for enough generations develops its own internal racial memory, storing the shared experiences of those who have gone before. This feature of the black mastyrial has caused many to attribute greater intelligence to them than is actually the case. The black mastyrial is timid when compared to its desert-dwelling relative, and black mastyrials that suffer heavy losses (from combat or environmental hazards) will retreat into hibernation in the safety of their rock burrows – they have learned the wisdom of discretion and exercise it frequently.