Cullitox

Cullitoxes dwell within deep caverns of the Plane of Earth, laden with crystals that glow under their own internal energy. A cullitox's hunger for gems will lead it to travel almost anywhere, even through planar tears. Occasionally, they even establish colonies on planes other than their own, should their newfound territory prove filled with crystals.

A cullitox's scorpion-like body glitters with crystal. As light refracts between the facets, they concentrate and absorb it, energizing the cullitox and, some say, fueling the creature's magic.

Cullitoxes form small communities in locations where crystals are plentiful, working alongside one another to track down anything from a common quartz to precious rubies and sapphires. Scouting parties use their innate magic to communicate with each other via light and wordless sound, as well as to seek out more crystals. However, when precious stone resources grow scarce, cullitoxes become independent and territorial about their supply, taking crystals from wherever they can, even seizing them from other creatures.

A cullitox's drive to gather crystals is akin to the drive to reproduce. As a cullitox gathers stones, it stores them within its body. Once the cullitox has enough stored material, the parent fuses its stores into a tiny replica of itself and extrudes the infant cullitox, sometimes referred to as a shardling, into the world. The process leaves the parent weakened for a short time, until it can gather enough crystal to repair its body and begin the process anew. Infant cullitoxes consume crystals in a similar way. They process the raw material over a few months to grow to adult size. Thereafter, a cullitox "eats" stone only to heal injuries.

Internal Gems

When a cullitox dies, its body breaks into fragments of crystal. Some of these pieces are valuable, but potentially more lucrative are the gems the cullitox has stored inside its body to produce offspring. It takes semiprecious and precious stones worth 500 gp to produce an infant cullitox, though most slain cullitoxes have only a fraction of this amount stored. Once the stones become a new cullitox, they transform into the crystal of the infant's body, no longer the treasured material they once were.