A mekillot, which looks like a hill-sized lizard/pillbug hybrid.

This post is part of a series! Click here to see the rest.

The Lore

These hill-sized cutie pies are a kind of drake, but they differ enough from their elementally aligned relatives that they deserve their own entry. In the wild, these giant armored beasts roam the wastes in small herds, eating plants and the occasional small animal and laying their eggs near oases.

Mekillots are not voracious predators other drakes, but they’re still aggressive and stubborn in the same way a real-life large herbivore like a rhino or hippo can be. While their size and armor makes them prime beasts of burden and war, they need to either be trained for these roles from birth or be kept under tight psychic control at all times.

Some sorcerer-kings and other defilers think the mekillot’s natural size and aggressiveness isn’t lethal enough, and perform bioengineering rituals on their unhatched eggs to make the resulting creature even bigger and stronger.

The Numbers

Mekillots are Natural Beasts with the Reptile and Mount tags. They have no special senses or vulnerabilities. Everything else varies per stat block, and we get two here.

Mekillot

The typical member of the species is Huge, and has a ground speed of 7. It’s a Level 10 Soldier with 108 HP. Its basic attack is a Reach 1 bite that deals extra damage to grabbed targets. It can grab them with a Reach 3 Tongue Lash, which attacks Fortitude. On a hit it pulls the target 2 squares, damages and grabs them. The mekillot can only have one target grabbed like this, but it can keep biting them for increased damage as described above while the grab lasts.

Mekillots used as mounts are trained to perform a Checking Charge. This lets them perform a charge that can go through enemy spaces, and each time they do so they automatically push the enemy 1 square and knock them prone. At the end of the charge, in addition to the usual attack from the mekillot, its rider can also make a melee basic attack as a free action. This is an excellent fight opener, since the push-and-knock-prone effect doesn’t require an attack. It lets the mekillot and its rider go straight to the PC squishies in the back line.

Mekillot Dirk

This is probably a mekillot mutated by defiling magic to be even bigger. It’s Gargantuan in size, a little slower at Speed 6, and a Level 22 Elite Soldier with 418 HP.

The dirk is big enough to have Threatening Reach 2, as well as a Wide Body that lets other creatures enter and end their move in its space. This means they’re standing on its back – and that the slope is gentle enough to not require climbing checks.

The dirk’s bite works just like that of the standard mekillot, though its numbers are of course bigger. It can also attack with Reach 2 Claws, which target 1 or 2 creatures. On a hit they deal damage, pull the target 1 square, and knock it prone. Its Tongue Lash has been upgraded to a Reach 4 Tongue Chomp, which works identically but also allows the creature to make a free bite attack against the target after pulling it to an adjacent square. This effectively makes this maneuver a double attack. The text says the tongue only pulls the victim 1 square, but I think that’s an error: it should be 3.

Checking Charge upgrades to Trample, which doesn’t require a rider. This lets the mekillot shift twice its speed, enter enemy spaces during the move, and make free claw attacks against any enemy whose space it enters in this way. So it’s not guaranteed to knock the whole PC party prone any more, but those it does knock prone will be worse off.

Encounters and Final Impressions

You’re either going to meet a small herd of wild mekillot, 2-3 of them being used as war mounts by humanoid soliers or brutes, or a mekillot dirk being used as an armored personal carrier by epic-level artillery and controller villains.

Their mechanics are workable enough, but what really endears mekillots to me is this illustration. They look like marketable plushies even though they’re likely to trample you to death.