Haun

A haun was a large worm-like creature commanding psionic powers and dwelling on the arctic ice. Notoriously, they were parasites of the enormous slugs known as haundar, using them to travel across the ice outside their lairs.

Description
A haun resembled a giant maggot, fat and in length. It had a gray hide covered in fur with black or purple warts scattered across it. The face was small and hairless, instead being covered in a slimy substance, with two tiny black eyes and a mouth filled with serrated teeth. They considered to be filthy and foul.

To move, the haun's internal organs caused constant waves and swells, which were visible beneath the skin. These undulations and jelly-like jiggling propelled it forward at a slow slither. However, once every several minutes, it could compress its body and release it like a spring, leaping up to forward or  upward.

Abilities
Hauns could burrow through ice, which they used to make their tunnel lairs.

Hauns possessed psionic powers, duplicating the effects of animate objects, inertial barrier, and telekinesis of the psychokinesis discipline and aversion (only to worms), contact, inflict pain, invisibility, mindlink, and repugnance of the telepathy discipline.

Combat
Due to their small size, a haun was unable to bite anything more than higher than it, but once in a battle they could use their springing leap to bite higher up. A favored tactic involved teamwork: one haun would creep behind a foe, and another would force them to fall backwards over it, whereupon both would bite them when they were down.

In any case, they preferred to stay out of melee combat altogether if they could help it. They used their psionics to become invisible, shielded themselves with an inertial barrier, used aversion to worms to discourage foes from attacking them, and used inflict pain to harm them and repugnance to get them to fight allies while they tried to escape.

Most of all, they'd rather be riding inside their haundars for safety. They commanded these enormous slugs to crawl over and crush their foes.

Diet
Hauns were scavengers who fed on lichens and the decayed flesh of carcasses left by predators. They usually crawled through shallow ice tunnels in search of such carrion.

Personality
Hauns were highly intelligent, but chaotic in their habits with a tendency toward malicious evil. They planned ahead and employed cunning tactics. Each was aggressively independent, even among its own kind.

Society
Hauns lived in groups known as broods. The typical number of hauns in a brood is unknown, but two to five hauns were usually encountered at a time. and a brood as large as forty was once encountered. Their independent natures meant they had no leaders; instead, short and sudden arguments among them produced consensus decisions about half the time.

Hauns had two means of communication. The main one was verbal, and they emitted chattering noises, clicks, faint hums, growls, pops, and snaps according to their mood. However, they could also communicate quietly via their mindlink power. They chatted among themselves constantly.

By burrowing through ice, hauns excavated networks of tunnels for their lairs. A large network could be home to several haun broods. These could sometimes link up with the lairs of haundar. Large broods even constructed great fortified mounds of snow called "iceholds", over wide and guarded by  embankments. They could also establish satellite lairs and constructed traps like pitfalls and avalanches and made use of natural ice faults to guard approaches to their lairs.

They could spin silk. However, lacking arms, hauns were unable to craft tools, goods, weapons, or armor of any form. However, they could use their psionic abilities to manipulate items and objects and even animate objects to do things for them. They would animate heaps of snow as defenders or use their telekinesis to wield weapons.

In particular, however, hauns parasitized the haundar. Upon locating one of these massive slugs, the haun brood got as close as possible and jumped onto its tail. Then they burrowed into its flesh and beneath its armor shell, hollowing out a chamber under the thickest part. As this area was largely fat, the haundar was little harmed. Inside, the hauns spun silk to seal openings, make cocoons for their warmth and comfort, and store food. They even cut small defensive slits into the shell and turned the haundar into a mobile fortress. Possessing such a haundar was a status symbol for a haun brood. Large broods could have as many as ten haundars under their control.

To control the haundar, hauns used their psionic powers to communicate with it, forcing it to understand that it must obey or suffer pain. To aid them in this, hauns sought the eggs of sha'az, as they contained a substance that deteriorated resistance to the haun's contact and mindlink powers. Once within a haundar, hauns injected the egg substance into the haundar's bloodstream, letting them easily make and maintain the necessary mindlink. One egg was effective for one week. After some years of this, the haundar became docile and fully submissive. Hauns were common parasites of haundar, and they restricted its natural migration patterns.

Naturally, the sha'az and hauns were traditional enemies. The sha'az also preyed on haundar.

When a haundar was unavailable, hauns were not above attacking humanoid settlements. They occasionally even kidnapped people, their purpose unknown.

Lands
Hauns lived in the coldest and northernmost parts of the world, on the arctic glaciers and ice packs.

History
Circa 1367 DR, on the ice of the Great Glacier, a brood of hauns were contacted by Zhentarim agents. Leading a slaving ring, the Zhentarim hired the hauns to provide "test subjects" for magical research at Zhentil Keep, in exchange for promises to help the hauns become the absolute masters of the north. The hauns on their haundars began launching cunning and covert raids on travelers and surrounding sha'az villages and human nomad tribes, kidnapping anyone they could. For a few months they terrorized the area; the hauns took so many captives they needed to construct a colony for them over one of their satellite lairs; with houses made of ice, it was riddled with connections allowing access to the haun access, who would spy invisibly on their victims and use inflict pain on all who tried to escape, which soon broke their wills.

The nomad tribes were forced to retreat far from their usual hunting grounds and went into hiding, while trade in the area evaporated. To the humans, the unseen culprits were unknown and they left no clue but the wide trails of the haundar. Only the sha'az recognized their traditional enemies, but suffered badly with their villages destroyed and queen slain. They were too few in number to effectively fight back, and too fearful to approach the equally fearful nomads for an alliance. Both set traps such as pitfalls and iceslides to defend against the hauns. Eventually, adventurers arrived to investigate, and after being caught in a trap, were met by nomads led by Huktal or surviving sha'az. Working together, they would track the haundar trails back to the slave colony and try to fight the hauns to free the slaves.

Afterward, the hauns abandoned tactics and attacked surrounding villages directly; the inhabitants held out and were besieged, and sought adventurers to aid them. Meanwhile, the sha'az retaliated, hunting lone hauns where they found them and even skirmishing with larger forces when able, and they had one brood on the run. Finally, they discovered a populous haun icehold and made an alliance with the adventurers to help them destroy the brood for good.

By 1374 DR, barbarian tribes of the north and arctic dwarves both warned disgustedly of hauns, telling horror stories of the worms jumping from piles of wastes to bite the faces off their fellows.

Appearances

 * Book of Lairs