Rakkatak

Pulsating organs and tumors squirm loosely within a sac of skin, all forming the misshapen lump that is the body of a rakkatak. The predator's eyes scan the area, shimmering in the smoke like glowing dots. Wriggling insectoid legs—varying in number from one rakkatak to another—hang from its bulbous body. These limbs flail chaotically as a rakkatak fights, only calming when it's time to eat or rest.

Most rakkataks fly alone, picking off meals in sudden swooping strikes, but they will occasionally form a flock. Despite having little faculty for communication with other creatures, rakkataks have a certain ravenous genius for hunting with kin. Typically, once one grabs prey, the others swoop in to latch on as well, ingesting their meal with leech-like mouths.

Rakkataks possess insatiable appetites to help them withstand the long periods of famine between their infrequent meals as they travel the expanses of the Plane of Fire. As a result, they easily overconsume if brought somewhere with more abundant fauna, like the Universe. A single rakkatak can hold a surprising quantity of offal, even growing in size as its body expands. It becomes more unwieldy the larger it gets, which planar biologists believe to be a survival tactic to keep a rakkatak from indulging its hunger until it quite literally bursts.

Ashen Hunting Grounds

Avoiding the blazing chaos and ifrit rule that typify much of the Plane of Fire, rakkataks prefer ashen wastelands as their hunting grounds. They dig simple burrows just barely below the surface, called rakkatak hills. Within, they can doze and digest in peace or lay and tend their horrifying eggs.