Six Psammitic Beasts

I've put together six monsters for my desert-naval setting. Imagine wooden ships sailing across a sea of quicksand amidst blazing dry heat, and you've got the right idea. These are beasties that inhabit these deserts, living in and around the sandy seas. 

Each of these monsters has its basic stats, its faux-taxonomic name, how it breathes, how long it can go without water, how much food and water you can extract from it, and what it wants. Oh, and whatever happens when you eat it, since that's a thing my players like to do, and more complicated results are more fun. 

These are written for an OSR context; they should slot into most systems without too much of an issue.

OK, without further ado: monsters!

1. APOTROPAIC CAMEL

Camelidae camelus benediximus

ARMOR CLASS: 16 (as chain, blessed)

HIT DICE: 3

HIT POINTS: 14

MOVEMENT: standard, but can walk on all sandy seas as if they were solid ground.

DAMAGE: bite: 1d6

NUMBER ENCOUNTERED: 1, but nearly always with other ordinary camels

BREATHING: air

DEHYDRATION: 18 months

MEAT: 600-900 lbs. Tastes like dark beef, except for the hump, which is very fatty.

WATER: 10 gallons; half milk, half blood.

WANTS: to bring about the will of G-d, to bring harmony and enlightenment, and to protect and lead other camels.

Physically, an entirely ordinary camel, but one that has been blessed by G-d or a benevolent djinni. They are very lucky, live for many years, and are possessed of great wisdom.

With an apotropaic camel at your side, the chance that it rains increases threefold (roll thrice per day, instead of once).

Apotropaic camel milk takes a month to go sour, and provides a blessing when drunk or eaten as yogurt—usually on holy days or during festivals. 

Those who do so must roll on the following table:

1d8 - Blessing takes effect 1 minute after drinking

1. Under the effects of bless.
2. Your hunger is fed for the day.
3. Your thirst is slaked for the day.
4. For 4d12 hours, demons, djinn, and undead fear you.
5. For 1d6 days, you can speak to and understand camels.
6. Immediately recover 1d6 HP.
7. You can walk on all seas for 2d12 hours, as if they were solid land.
8. You are cured of all diseases, curses, and other afflictions.

Those who kill an apotropaic camel must immediately roll on the following table. Anyone who its meat or drinks its blood must do the same.

1d8 - Curse takes immediate effect

1. All camels instinctively despise you, now and forever.
2. Save vs. curse or lose your eyes.
3. Save vs. curse or lose your hands.
4. Save vs. curse or lose your tongue.
5. You are afflicted with a highly contagious disease.
6. You are instantly brought to the brink of dehydration.
7. An angel or demon (50% chance) emerges to exact vengenace.
8. All water within 10 miles of the camel instantly evaporates.

2. CATTLETRAP

Mendaxidae ossuaricus calvibovanus

ARMOR CLASS: 14 (as scale)

HIT DICE: 6

HIT POINTS: 27

MOVEMENT: half swim, half standard

DAMAGE: "ribs": grapples, then 1d8 / beak: 1d8 to anything in its "ribs"

NUMBER ENCOUNTERED: 1d8

BREATHING: psammitic; can hold its breath for 15 minutes above sand

DEHYDRATION: 1 month

MEAT: 200 lbs. Tastes like heavy, fatty crab.

WATER: 1 gallon of marrow, if you crack open all sixteen "ribs."

WANTS: free lunch.

It's a beast that buries itself in the upper layers of the sandy seas, leaving its sixteen sharp "ribs" protruding above, giving the appearance of dried animal bones. As soon as anything steps inside or nearby the pones, the cattletrap springs, closes its "ribs," and drags its prey down into the sand to smother and eat.

Beneath the surface, a cattletrap has a wide, round body encased in a soft shell, like a crab, with a dozen flippers around the rim to propel itself through the sand.

You know how in seemingly all depictions of deserts, there's an inexplicable cow skeleton lying out in the sun? This is why.

Those who eat the meat or drink the marrow of a cattletrap must roll on the following table:

1d8 - Effect takes effect 1 hour after consuming

1. You hunger for raw meat. Eat at least a pound of it, fresh, in the next day or suffer -2 to all stats for 1d6 days afterwards.
2. Save vs. indigestion or be sick for 1d12 hours with bad shellfish.
3. You find a bit of half-digested something in your meat.
4. You feel deeply fat and tired.
5. You feel well-fed and strong.
6. You have advantage on stealth when hiding in sand for 2d12 hours.
7. You have full swim speed through sand for the next 1d6 days.
8. Once, you can burst your ribs out of your chest to immediately deal 1d8 damage and grapple a target.

3. ECHO GHOUL

Necrophagidae eruerenteryx thanatoconcelus

ARMOR CLASS: 12 (as leather), but will wear proper armor if it can get ahold of some

HIT DICE: 3

HIT POINTS: 14

MOVEMENT: standard

DAMAGE: claws: 1d6, then save vs. paralysis or be paralyzed for 1d6 days

NUMBER ENCOUNTERED: 2d12

BREATHING: air

DEHYDRATION: 2 weeks

MEAT: 25 lbs. Rancid, spoiled fatty pork.

WATER: 1/2 gallon of congealed black blood

WANTS: the flesh of the quick and the dead; a more useful corpse to echo.

A spiny, bony ghoul, one possessed of keen observational skills, low cunning, and an above-average level of eloquence.

When an echo ghoul eats someone, they take on the physical appearance of that person just as they where before they died. The ghoul learns a few surface memories and common personality elements of the body they're echoing.

Over the course of a week, the body will age rapidly until it is very old, and then begin to rot. By the end of that week, the ghoul will be an ordinary ghoul again. 

Those who eat the meat or drink the blood of an echo ghoul must roll on the following table:

1d8 - Effect takes effect 1 hour after consuming

1. Save vs. paralysis or be paralyzed permanently.
2. For 1d4 weeks, your hunger can be sated on naught but the flesh of humans (and their kith).
3. Your flesh starts to rot with you still in it. It stops after 1d6 days; wahtever state you've decayed to, that's where you end up.
4. This meat had a tapeworm in it; you need twice as much food until you remove it.
5. Your features slowly start to shift to look like the ghoul's last echo; they stop halfway.
6. Save vs. food poisoning or you vomit up anything you eat (including the ghoul) for the next 4d12 hours.
7. You have foul, disgusting grave breath for 1d4 days.
8. Your nails grow into spiky black claws; they deal 1d4 damage.

4. FULGUROTERMITES

Termitidae gnathamitermes fulgurofabrus

ARMOR CLASS: workers and queens 10 (as unarmored), soldiers 12 (as leather)

HIT DICE: workers 1, soldiers 1, queen 6

HIT POINTS: workers 1; soldiers 2; queens 27

MOVEMENT: half standard, half burrow; soldiers fly

DAMAGE: workers' bite: 1, soldiers' shock-bite: 1d2, queen's lightning spurt: 6d6

NUMBER ENCOUNTERED: 10d100 thousand workers, 1d10 thousand soldiers, 1 queen

BREATHING: air, but can hold their breath for 1 hour

DEHYDRATION: 1 week

MEAT: workers are 1 gram, soldiers are 3 grams (900 workers = 300 soldiers = 1 lb.) Queens are 2 lbs. All are firm on the outside, soft on the inside. I highly recommend you look up some videos of people eating termites to get a sense of how gross this is.

WATER: none

WANTS: to expand the mound, to hoard food, to crush their foes, and—above all—to protect the queen.

Fulgurotermites are mound-building termites that build and carve out their mounds from fulgurite, the mineral formed when lightning strikes sand. Fulgurotermite soldiers are lightly electrified; their queens crackle with thunder. In addition to providing eggs, queens also can spurt lightning, meaning mounds can generate more fulgurite as needed.

Inside the mound, the qeen rules over all. Workers transport fulgurite, build the mound, collect food, dig tunnels, and perform other physical labor. Soldiers protect the mound, fight intruders, smooth out tunnels, and mate with the queen, when the time comes.

Those who eat the meat of a fulgurotermite queen must roll on the following table:

1d8 - Effect takes effect 1 hour after consuming

1. A clutch of the queen's eggs hatch in your stomach. Unless you get rid of them (or nurture them?), they'll eat their way out of you in a month. You can feel it after a week.
2. Electricity courses through your gastrointestinal tract; save vs. lightning or suffer 6d6 damage as you fry from the inside out.
3. Any remaining fulgurotermites revere you as their queen; they'll bring you (termite) food, build a mound around you, and make ready for your eggs.
4. For 1d4 days, you take double damage from lightning, and any lightning in the area automatically arcs towards you.
5. Save vs. lightning or have your entire face go completely numb for 1d8 hours.
6. Your hair stands on end, and anything you touch for the next day gets a small static shock.
7. For 1d4 days, you can spit 1d8 lightning at someone you can see in place of an attack.
8. You can feel a thunderstorm coming on a week in advance, and you take half damage from lightning. 

5. IMPERATOR COBRA

Elapidae naja augustus

ARMOR CLASS: 14 (as scale)

HIT DICE: 5

HIT POINTS: 23

MOVEMENT: standard

DAMAGE: bite: 1d4 (optionally) + 1d8 venom, then save vs. mind control

NUMBER ENCOUNTERED: 1, but 5-in-6 chance that it heads a Legion

BREATHING: air, but can hold its breath for 1 hour

DEHYDRATION: 2 weeks

MEAT: 15 lbs. Tastes like tough chicken.

WATER: 1/4 gallon of blood.

WANTS: venire, videre, vincere.

A large cobra, 6-8 feet long; deep blood-red scales, with alternating black-and-gold chevron bands down the length of its body. Its hood is flanged and flared along the outside, like a laurel wreath. 

A creature bitten by an Imperator cobra must save vs. mind control or immediately fall subservient to the cobra. Any creatures that are subservient in this way can receive orders from the Imperator's hisses and moans, and obeys without question.

Imperators are hyper-intelligent, and have ingenious tactics and strategies. Each heads its own individual Legion, which serves as the backbone of its conquering force. Once large enough, a Legion gets divvied into Legionaries, Decanii, Centurions, and Tribunes. While unfailingly loyal to the Imperator, these subordinates might well have their own internal politics, disputes, and intrigue.

Those who eat the meat of an Imperator cobra must roll on the following table:

1d8 - Effect takes effect 1 hour after eating

1. You fall under the control of the ghost of the Imperator. You serve it in undeath as you would in life.
2. Venom pulses through you; save vs. poison or suffer 4d6 damage.
3. 1d6 patches of scales, about as big as a hand, grow on your skin.
4. Your hair becomes cut in a fringe, regardless of how it was before.
5. The tattoo of a laurel wreath appears, encircling your head.
6. For 1d6 days, you can speak, read, and write the ancient Latin tongue perfectly.
7. For 1d4 weeks, when you raise morale, issue dire orders, or rally your troops, roll with advantage.
8. You gain +1 CHA, permanently.

6. PYRAMIND

Adspicidae aedifico omnituensus

ARMOR CLASS: 18 (as plate)

HIT DICE: 16

HIT POINTS: 72

MOVEMENT: standard fly

DAMAGE: psychic blasts: 1d12 / 1d12 / 1d12

NUMBER ENCOUNTERED: 1

BREATHING: doesn't breathe

DEHYDRATION: doesn't drink

MEAT: 50 lbs. Bitter, soft, and rubbery, like the whites of a hard-boiled egg.

WATER: 100 gallons, from the eyeball fluid. Salty, thin, and gets everywhere.

WANTS: Varies, but always something quite unhinged.

A pyramind is a floating equilateral pyramid made of sandstone, with a single great eyeball in the middle. Possessed of huge intellect and psychic ability. Deeply mad.

A pyramind can replace any of its psychic blasts with a single telekinetic movement, as per telekinesis; a pyramind casts as a 16th-level magic-user.

Those who eat the meat of a pyramind's eyeball or drink the fluid within it must roll on the following table:

1d8 - Effect takes effect 1 hour after eating

1. Save vs. madness or become permanently mad.
2. Save vs. mutation or both of your eyes drop out of your face.
3. Suffer -1d6 INT for the next day.
4. Save vs. food poisoning or go blind for 4d12 hours.
5. Your eyes become deeply, intensely bloodshot for 1d4 weeks.
6. Grow a third eye, right in the center of your forehead.
7. Hover for 2d12 hours.
8. Permanently under the effects of detect magic.

Anyway, yeah. Desert-y monsters. Enjoy!