Beasts of Dubious Sapience

Among the many wild creatures and beasts of the land, there are some that spark debate among scholars and researchers. Do they meet the requirements of the Law of Speech if they seem unable to converse with those outside of their species? Do simple tools count as culture? How can we measure the sapience of a creature that appears unwilling to co-exist with anything but its own kind?

The following is a list and brief description of beasts that fall into this dubious category.

• Aboleth: Aboleths are said to enslave the minds of those who wander too near their lairs through some powerful form of telepathy. While this remains unproven, mostly due to the extremely remote and deep nature of their underwater homes, a creature of such powerful psychic energy may be capable of more intelligent thought and reasoning. Study is difficult, and so answers may not come easily.
• Chuul: Commonly known as "shrimp-folk" or "crab-folk", it's assumed these large creatures traverse the seafloors on their four legs, using grasping claws to hunt and manipulate their environment. Sightings are rare due to the depths at which they live, but occasionally sailing parties or sea-side towns report groups of them. They're said to make an odd clacking sound with their tentacled mouths, but whether or not this is true speech remains to be determined.
• Ettercap: These bipedal spider-like creatures are known to be extremely dangerous to those traveling underground. Crawling around on their extensive web networks, these predators seem to feel even the slightest touch to a web anywhere else. The chittering noises they make when hunting or in groups can't be easily clarified as speech, but it also can't be ruled out. More research remains to be done, but their propensity to devour anything that approaches their nests makes this challenging.
• Kua-Toa: Bizarre fish-like creatures that occasionally walk out of the water on their hind fins. While they don't remain on the surface long, they're capable of navigation on their "feet", and collecting surface objects or food with their clawed forelimbs. They don't seem to have any language capabilities, but they've been known to wear rudimentary clothing or coverings of water plants, and some communities have been spotted staring at or swimming in circles around makeshift idols, normally the skeleton of a larger aquatic creature adorned with collected trinkets and other bones.
• Myconids: These shambling mushrooms vary wildly in height and weight, but all have two legs and two arms branching off their stumpy fungal bodies. Myconids are only found deep underground in places with distinct absence of light. While they're mostly peaceful and avoid travelers and miners, they've been known to release spores from their caps that can induce illness or hallucination. Some scholars think these spores are how myconids communicate among their own kind, as they lack a mouth, ears, or other notable features aside from small eyes.
• Octo-folk: Another underwater beast that teeters the line of sapience are the bizarre and alien "octo-folk". Really a catch-all term for a range of tentacled and beaked creatures that live under the waves, the arguably intelligent octo-folk include beasts that resemble octopuses and squid. They seem to have keen senses, especially touch, and have been spotted using tools in the past. The difficulty in measuring their level of sapience comes from how different their thought patterns are. From the few recorded peaceful encounters, their modes of thinking are so foreign to the species of the land that they make Yuan-Ti and Simani seem like siblings.
• Saurials: Dinosaurs are rare enough creatures, living only in the most remote parts of the World and surviving from a primordial age, so studying these behemoth creatures proves difficult as is. What's even harder is verifying or disproving rumors of speaking, sapient dinosaurs living in hidden villages and jungle grottoes. Most scholars can't get close enough to a dinosaur to ask it a question before it sees them as food or foe to be vanquished. Research into this topic continues, but seems unlikely to conclusively prove or disprove these claims.
• Shark-folk: An all-too-common threat to fishmongers and sailors, the bipedal "shark-folk" have been known to leap from the seas onto the decks of ships, docks, or onto the beach. While larger specimens are often seen by themselves, smaller members of this species have been observed working in packs. Though they don't seem to communicate using a form of speech, they can coordinate their attacks through some means. Aside from their fierce jaws and claws, they've been seen with rudimentary weaponry made of coral and bone. Shark-folk tend to make themselves scarce after hunting by leaping back to the sea.
• Thri-Keen: Bipedal bug-folk of the deserts and savannahs, the thri-keen resemble giant mantises or grasshoppers. Their insectoid faces and mannerisms are almost impossible to read or discern anything about. Is a thri-keen agitated or calm? Ready to strike or standing down? Do they make the tools they carry on hunts, or do they find them? They tend to be spotted in groups of no more than a dozen, and wander the land nomadically, never settling into one place. The subtle movements of their mandibles and antennae must convey more to their own kind than they do to any other species.