Komatu (5e Creature)

Large beast, unaligned

Armor Class 12
Hit Points 59 (7d10 + 21)
Speed 40 ft.

Skills Perception +3, Stealth +4
Senses passive Perception 15
Languages —
Challenge 4 (1,100 XP)

Forest Camouflage. The komatu has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide in forests, woodlands, or other terrain of abundant foliage.

Fossorial. The komatu has advantage on Strength (Athletics) checks made to dig.

Grassland Camouflage. The komatu has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made in grasslands, savannas, or other non-desert terrain that is mostly open spaces.

Keen Hearing. The komatu has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing.

Pack Tactics. The komatu has advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of the komatu's allies is within 5 feet of the creature and the ally isn't incapacitated.

Pounce If the komatu uses at least 20 feet of its speed to move straight toward a creature and then hits it with a bite attack on the same turn, that target must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If the target is prone, the komatu can make one spur attack against it as a bonus action.

Teamwork. If multiple komatu have the same target grappled from their bite attack, the DC is increased by two for each individual (max 18).

Multituberculates were one of the most successful groups of mammals during the Cretaceous but were hit hard by the very same asteroid that annihilated the dinosaurs and the survivors became increasingly unable to cope with the vast array of climate change events as time went on. On Kaimere however, no such singular point of devastation occurred and while multis have struggled to compete with placental mammals coming in from earth already large and competitive, multiuberculates beyond the Known World are among the dominant mammal clades. One instance has recently been encountered by the Assembly, despite many descriptions and encounters before, having since been classified by them under the name Carnolepus fauciaprrtor ("Meat eating rabbit that opens throats"). The species name is in fact inspired by the frightening name given to it by the local peoples of Kairul where it is found: Komatu ("With his smile, he opens your throat").
Inheritance of the Meek. The komatu and all its close relatives, in the family Carnolepidae, are cursorial, social, intelligent, and highly efficient predators. These animals are, further back, descended from a clade called Thylacolepiformes ("pouch rabbit forms"), which are mostly burrowing herbivores similar to rabbits, somewhat odd given the ferocious reputation of the komatu. As it turns out however, their plagiaulacoid,^[1] a blade-like premolar found in various mammal groups but especially common in multituberculates, which allowed them to process tough seeds and vegetation was fairly easy to adapt to processing a kill efficiently. Being burrowers like the common hyena of Kaimere allowed them to cache their kills away from the cockatrices that are such a menace to other predators. Naturally, it didn't take long after the Dynastic Extinction for them to grow large and quickly become a dominant presence in the open territories of Kairul.
With His Smile He Opens Your Throat. While komatu hunts are not as coordinated as those of the common hyena, with the most experienced individuals leading the charge and the rest simply following the leader, the end result is still many animals holding down prey while the alpha dispatches with a shearing bite to the throat. Though their jaws are incapable of moving side to side, they are extremely powerful in a front and back slicing motion, further powered by their reddish teeth: their fangs and plagiaulacoid get this hue from enamel incredibly rich with iron, which strengthens them as well to aid in their capacity for devastation. This attack not only allows them to take down the cursorial camels and rhinos with which they share their habitat, but also dinosaurs up to half a ton in size, like the pachycephalosaurs that are so common on the Eastern Continent. However, it is not unheard of for komatu to dine on plant matter, as much as half of their diet can consist of high nutrient nuts and berries and during the dry season when game is scarce they can slice into bones, although they are not as proficient in this task as hyenas.
Their vision and especially their hearing are extremely potent and make up most of their sensory experience. While they do have an enlarged nasal cavity, this is mostly for efficient breathing in the chase and Carnolepus does not have an extremely gifted sense of smell. Like most multituberculates, komatu possess a venomous spur on their hind foot, although theirs are somewhat unusual: most multis have them enlarged in males and even absent in females, yet both sexes possess spurs of equal size. This means they are clearly not used in intraspecific combat and in fact males and females are quite similar in most outward appearances. Instead, they use this venom often to dispatch struggling prey: while it isn't lethal, even to people, it causes lasting fatigue, swelling, nausea, and difficulty breathing shortly after injection, making it easier for the leader to land the killing bite.
Although multituberculates were long assumed to be unintelligent, many Kaimeran multis are on par with a lot of modern clades and recent studies show the braincases of prehistoric species to be quite complex,^[2] and the komatu is among the species leading the charge for multituberculate intelligence. This is reflective in their sociality, which usually comprises a group of related females and their mates, who are sometimes themselves brothers, and offspring. These packs can range anywhere from a single mated pair to a bachelor group, to as many as 30 adults, though in larger packs like this it is rare the entire pack will hunt together. It was long assumed, as with many multituberculates, that komatu were egg-laying mammals, recent studies of extinct taxa on Earth and study of extant multituberculates in Kaimere shows that they reproduce similar to placental mammals: they bare live young with long gestation. While many multituberculates do have pouches, as the komatu's relatives do hence the name "pouch rabbits," this trait appears to be (at least in Kaimeran multituberculates) convergent with marsupials and not involved in the development of the young at all, being simply to carry them from place to place. Thylacolepiforms like the komatu only have vestigial pouches anyway, instead keeping young in the warren until old enough to travel with their parents.
With this suite of adaptations, it can raise questions as to how komatu have not spread to and conquered the Known World as many Kairulen clades have in recent times. The answer comes down to this: it's expensive. Crossing the straight between Ni'Khar and Kairul requires passing through the northern reaches of the latter, which is mostly desert. Though komatu often dominate hyenas and borophagines,^[3] their much higher caloric demands mean they cannot make the crossing to the Known World like the latter two have. Likewise, their sociality, intelligence, and dietary flexibility makes them appealing domesticates on the surface, yet they are so dangerous that widespread domestication has not occurred. They are, however, often trained by beast tamers for tasks from guarding, to hunting, to tracking, although beasts with stronger smells are preferred for the latter. In addition, being about the same size as people makes them a common form of skinchangers of the Maku. Along with skinchangers, komatu were also popular among the First Children as a component for homunculi,^[4] both for the iron-rich enamel strengthening their teeth and the visual appeal of the teeth seemingly stained with blood. However, above all else, the komatu is a reminder that inevitabilty has no place in evolution: organisms dominate by context and when the context changes, often unlikely species prove dominant.