Scathebeast

Scathebeasts were large herd animals endemic to the world of Abeir. In Toril, they were found in Returned Abeir, more commonly in Skelkor, and in displaced Abeiran lands in Faerûn, usually in Tymanther.

Description
These huge animals resembled giant slugs, the smallest of them being of the size of a pony.

Behaviour
Scathebeasts usually lived in herds of five to eight members, and they had strong family bonds based on scent. Because of this, they aggressively attacked any creature that threatened or hurt a member of their herds. However, rare few scathebeasts could be found living alone in the wilderness.

Because of generations of being the prey of choice of dragons, scathebeasts had developed an instinctive fear of large flying creatures and of sources of fire.

Scathebeasts instinctively avoided to destroy grassland through excessive grazing. Some rare scathebeasts occasionally developed a taste for meat.

Scathebeasts were intelligent enough to be domesticated.

Ecology
Scathebeasts were usually herbivorous, thought they were able to ate meat as well. They ate by dissolving food with their acidic slime, and then absorbing the food directly through their skin.

The type of slime a scathebeast developed depended on the kind of food it ate. Those who ate grass had an acid slime that wasn't strong enough to kill the roots of grass the scatebeasts feed on. The slime of the few carnivorous scathebeasts was a caustic secretion that could dissolve flesh in seconds.

The body of a scathebeast was adaptable, and damaging a scathebeast with a particular kind of attacks in repeated occasions usually made it more resistant to that kind of damage over time.

For cohabitation, zairtails lived on the back of scathebeasts, eating flies and other insects.

History
An old Abeiran legend stated that scathebeasts were created by dragons who magically experimented with dragonborn slaves. Learned scholars who studied both dragonborn and scathebeasts biology believed that this legend was false, but many dragonborn hesitated to damage scathebeasts because of that.

Scathebeasts were sought out prey of Abeiran dragons, who had developed a taste for their flesh. Dragons went as far as to attack creatures who harassed scathebeasts. Skelkorn dragonborn usually herded domesticated scathebeasts to serve as food for the dragons of that country.