Salt Glider

Family: Salt

Large monstrosity, unaligned

Armor Class 14
Hit Points 127 (15d10 + 45)
Speed 25 ft., fly 60 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
16 (+3)	18 (+4)	16 (+3)	5 (-3)	17 (+3)	7 (-2)

Saving Throws Dex +7
Senses passive Perception 13
Languages –
Challenge 8 (3,900 XP)
Proficiency Bonus +3

SPECIAL TRAITS

• Desiccation Venom. A creature subjected to desiccation venom takes 5 (2d4) poison damage and is poisoned for 1 minute. While poisoned, the target is vulnerable to fire damage.
• Fluidsense. The glider can detect the presence of liquids, from large bodies of water to potions to even the blood in a creature’s body, up to 1 mile away.
• Pack Tactics. The glider has advantage on attack rolls against a creature if at least one of the glider’s allies is within 5 feet of the creature and the ally isn’t incapacitated.
• Rainsense. The glider can sense minute changes in atmospheric pressure in order to accurately predict the weather for the next 24 hours.
• Sand Stilts. The glider ignores difficult terrain in sandy deserts.
• Water Vulnerability. If the glider is splashed with at least 1 gallon of water or starts its turn immersed in water, it can’t use Multiattack or attack with its spines until the end of its next turn.

ACTIONS

• Multiattack. The glider makes two attacks: one with its bite and one with its claws. While flying, it can make two spines attacks instead.
• Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d10 + 4) piercing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or be subjected to desiccation venom.
• Claws. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 22 (4d8 + 4) slashing damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 14). Until this grapple ends, the glider can’t use its claws against a different target.
• Spines. Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, range 120/240 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d10 + 4) piercing damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or be subjected to desiccation venom.
• Gliding Drop. The glider moves or flies up to its speed, attacks a creature with its claws (or grabs a willing Medium or smaller creature), and then flies up to its speed. At the end of this movement, the glider can drop a creature it is grappling or holding. If the carried creature is a salt stalker, it reduces the amount of falling damage it takes by 10 (3d6), doesn’t fall prone, and can use its reaction to make a melee attack against a creature within 5 feet of it.

ABOUT

Whereas salt stalkers already have eerily thin, membranous hides, salt gliders take this attribute to its extreme. With their insectile wings, spindly legs, and bulging red eyes, one could be forgiven for mistaking a distant salt glider for an oversized mosquito or flying termite. Up close, however, a salt glider leaves little doubt as to its relation, however warped or monstrous, to its similarly alien salt stalker kin.

On land, salt gliders can roll up their wings into tight tubes and balance on them to walk about like grotesque stilts. Nevertheless, their long, clumsy torsos makes land-based movement difficult, so salt gliders almost always choose to fly. This same torso is light and flexible enough that salt gliders can whip their spines up to twice as far as other salt stalkers-a tactic they make frequent use of as they harry their prey from above.

Salt gliders’ usefulness toward their pack extends beyond just combat. Tiny filaments on their wings allow gliders to detect changes in weather patterns with incredible accuracy, and they relay this information to their kin with sharp, rasping barks. Canny desert wanderers who spot salt gliders on the retreat can reliably bet that foul weather is just over the horizon.

In mixed hunting packs, salt gliders famously enjoy lifting and carrying their pack mates across the battlefield, though they can only do so for short distances. This ability dramatically enhances the maneuverability of all salt stalkers involved and enables the pack to conduct harrowing surprise attacks.

Common salt stalkers cower helplessly beneath the dominating power of a particularly strong variety of salt stalker such as a salt scorcher or salt mother.

Rarely, a common salt stalker hero might rise from the rest of its kin in order to defeat and displace a pack’s resident bully or tyrant. Such packs tend to be much happier and more democratic as a result of their champion’s usurpation-at least until this hero gets a bit too cocky during hunts or lax with caretaking duties, in which case the violent cycle is apt to repeat itself.