Scavver

Scavvers were one-eyed, shark-like creatures of wildspace.

Description
Scavvers had long, fish-like bodies, including gills and fins, but with a single large, glowing eye toward the front of their heads. They had a gaping maw filled with sharp teeth.

Varieties
There were many subspecies of scavver, with physical features, such as number of fins, varying among them. Nevertheless, they could be roughly divided into four major groupings:


 * Gray scavvers : The smallest of the scavvers, these creatures traveled in packs.
 * Brown scavvers : Larger than grays, browns were also venomous and could eject a small cloud of poison from their gullets.
 * Night scavvers : Omnivorous, black-colored scavvers that were braver than the two smaller varieties.
 * Void scavvers : The smartest, and most aggressive of the scavvers, these large, carnivorous, black scavvers were feared man-eaters.

Behavior
Most scavvers were&mdash;as their name suggests&mdash;scavengers. As natural spelljammers, scavvers could magically propel themselves through wildspace. They followed behind large space objects, including asteroids, spelljamming vessels, or even larger spaceborne creatures, lazily resting in the gravity plane, breathing from the air envelope, and consuming any waste or refuse falling behind. They usually stayed behind whatever object they came upon unless driven off.

Smaller scavvers were mostly just a nuisance, though their consumption of precious air could be a concern. Larger scavvers, however, were more likely to not wait for food to come to them and could be aggressive and deadly, with the ability to swallow human-sized creatures whole.

Combat
Different species of scavvers had different instinctive attack tendencies, but their primary weapon was their open mouth.

Ecology
The majority of scavver varieties were pack creatures. They would drift through populous regions of wildspace, such as in the navigational path between two celestial bodies, until their paths collided with a passing object, at which point they would trail behind it and scavenge. They tended to avoid large planets, as it was too difficult for them to "swim" against the planet's gravity.

Scavvers needed to breathe air to survive, but they had the ability to completely shut down their basic bodily functions for exceptionally long periods of time. While in such a state of hibernation, a scavver's eye ceased its glowing, and it required no air or food.

Scavvers had been detected in all known crystal spheres, including Realmspace, and even within the phlogiston. They were also known to lair among colonies of mortiss, taking advantage of those creatures' ability to renew the air envelope around them.

Reputation
Scavvers were a hated nuisance but also a source of food for spacefarers. Gray scavver meat was bland but nutritious, while night scavver meat was a delicious treat. There were even rumors that the Shou of Kara-Tur had determined a way to safely prepare poisonous brown scavver.

Many large asteroid settlements had permanent "scavver crews", whose job it was to kill any scavvers found trailing the city. The Rock of Bral in the Tears of Selûne was an example of this. The scavver crews of the Rock were usually assigned as a punishment and were composed of those ship crews who had been found guilty of bringing the scavvers in behind their own vessels.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Dungeon #36, "The Sea of Sorrow"
 * Novels
 * Into the Void