Kuchrima
The least powerful of the lamia-kin (or lamyros), kuchrimas are lower even than the more-common lamia. Other lamyros use them as scouts, and also as garbage disposals, as the kuchrimas are renowned for devouring almost anything, including the bodies of their own kin.1
Appearance
Kuchrimas look like a cross between a humanoid and a giant condor and as such resemble harpies. Their legs look avian ending in a huge pair of flesh rending talons. Its upper body is the most human part of this creature but, instead of arms, it has vulture-like wings. Its head looks like that of a condor: mostly bald, but with small patches of feathers and hair; it also has a sharp beak designed for ripping at carrion. Kuchrimas often carry over-sized bows into battle gripped in their clawed talons. This gives them the ability to strike at foes while remaining airborne.1
Habitat and ecology
Kuchrimas reside in many of the mountain ranges of Golarion although originally, in Thassilonian times, they would have been concentrated around the Kodar Mountains and the realm of greed, Shalast, where lamia were favoured servants. Since the fall of Thassilon they have scattered to the highest mountains across Golarion. They choose to make their nest in high mountains to avoid contact with humanoids as they have a racial memory of their enslavement under the runelords.1
The kuchrimas share much of their ecology with the condors they resemble: they are primarily scavengers feasting on the dead. However, at the heights at which they dwell, carrion is often scarce so the kuchrimas are forced to hunt. Their prey is normally the sort of hardy creature that survives at such altitudes like giant rams, mountain goats and mountain aurochs. They sometimes follow in the paths of giant mountain avian predators like rocs. As food is so scarce at these heights, kuchrimas usually glut themselves whenever they can, completely stripping the flesh from their prey in minutes.1
Society
Kuchrimas, while dumber than the average human, do have their own societal structure. They generally live in groups of between thirteen and thirty-four: these groups are called a "gluttony". A gluttony usually has about half as many young as it has members. Kuchrimas are terrible parents: not only do they not take care of their young, but in lean times they often cannibalise them before turning on members of the gluttony that can defend themselves. A gluttony is always led by the strongest member: they have no elders as any kuchrima that is incapable of hunting for itself is turned on and devoured by the other members of the tribe.1
Kuchrimas also play an important part in lamia society: they not only serve as scouts but as devourers of the dead. Whenever a lamia dies traditionally it is dressed in fine clothes and jewellery and then offered up to the kuchrimas, however this tradition is often perverted by the lamia. Many resent giving kuchrimas such fine gifts and instead steal the jewels and finery of the dead for themselves and replace them with shiny baubles. Though kuchrimas have excellent eye sight they are not renowned for their ability to assess the value of the shiny baubles they collect.1
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 . “Bestiary” in Spires of Xin-Shalast, 80–81. Paizo Inc., 2008