| Class: | Mineral Beast, symbiotic |
| Hab: | Within forehead of Sand Swimmers, which SEE |
| Fre: | Common |
| Num: | By host population |
| Lair: | Fixed within host |
| Size: | 1" to 10'; 1/10th as long as host's brain |
| Move: | Fixed within host |
| Def: | Stone hard, buried within host's skull |
| Att: | None; by host |
| Int: | None |
| Spec: | Produces sand-swimming adaptations in host |
| Posns: | Host + alchemical value |
In mana-rich worlds, the sep is a "normal" living stone, endued with a more concentrated and active form of that animating spirit which permeates all matter, from fleshy creatures to the stony bones of the Earth herself. In more "realistic" or earth-like settings, the sep is a psionicly powerful form of coral, or an alien creature of brain coral-like appearance.
Due to the wide range of sep hosts in my worlds, SEE individual entries for diverse creatures that move readily through earth; many of them rely on sep symbionts. Cartilaginous fish, such as various sharks and rays, are the most well-known hosts, but any kind of fish - including some with surprisingly Humanoid form - and a wide range of other creatures serve as sep hosts; any terrestrial fish, or other earth-swimming creature, may, in fact, be a sep host - just check for the carbuncle. SEE Air-Breathing Fish entry for general information and Land Sharks of sand and snow, Sand Rays and Earth Eels for some specific examples.
Because the sep is most commonly found in the foreheads of sand-swimming sharks, many Folk think of the sand shark itself as being the sep, and do not realize that the sep swim-stone is a separate, abet symbiotic, creature.
When Folk think "sep," they often think "land shark." The Sep land shark was described by James M. Ward in Gamma World, TSR 1978, as simply a land shark with a "powerful organ in its head (somewhat resembling a brain) [that] enables the sep to force even packed sand out of its way telekinetically," making the sep a terror of desert sands and open plains. J. M. Ward also noted that the sep, after biting, burrowed through the ground for a round, launching successive attacks from different directions. Vanquished prey is hauled beneath the sands for consuming.
In the Fourth Edition of 1992, the brief description was enlarged to fill a full column of type. Physical changes gave the revised sep a hide rough and rubbery and mutated its front fins into stubby clawed paws, but did not change the sep's impact. No mental changes were made, although the strategy of attack-burrow-attack was made more explicit, and its social dynamics - constant ravenous hunting as a pack but without any cooperative strategy - were outlined. The sep's ability to hear movement on the ground's surface for a distance of 60 meters and to do its burrowing silently were also described.
The 4th Edition added a mention of "snow sharks," practically identical to the sep land sharks, found in winter, "when large areas of contiguous snow pack make it possible for these hunters to follow game easily." No mention is made of where the snow sharks are the rest of the time, but SEE snow sharks, in Land Sharks entry, for my ideas on the subject.
I had previously designed a panoply of creatures of marine origin adapted to swimming through the ground; SEE Sand Swimmers, General, entry. I adapted J. M. Ward's original version of the sep by re-envision the sep as a separate symbiont creature, one that enables - and even forces - a terrestrial habit upon a wide variety of host creatures of marine origin. As my version of the sep is not intelligent and has no ego, this sep is suitable for use as a tool for terrestrial adaptation by Folk, including player characters.
The 4th edition enlargement of the sep is useful in that it makes explicit the formerly implicit hunting strategy. Still, I think of sand sharks as having the same behavior as their real marine counterparts; they are sleek and silent killing machines when on the hunt, but their great numbers are not suspected because most of the time they are peacefully resting, cruising and exploring.
Vibrations carry very well through the ground; sep stone sand swimmers, such as sand sharks and sand rays, can hear surface walkers up to a mile away. They zero in on irregular, wounded-sounding patterns. Each round there is a 10% chance (modified by terrain and population density) of an additional 1-6 sand swimmers arriving at an active killing field.
I prefer to refer to sep-hosting sharks as sand sharks, as they swim through the ground, rather than as land sharks, as my land sharks are legged and run across the surface.
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