Basilisk

Basilisk are large eight-legged carnivorous reptiles known for their ability to petrify prey. Basilisks are hostile and extremly dangerous, but rarely wander far from their lair.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Basilisks look like large reptiles with eight legs and commonly have a dull brown colored body with a yellowish underbelly, though their coloring may vary from dark gray to dark orange. Basilisks possess a single row of bony spines that line their backs; some have a curved horn atop their nose. Their most notable feature is their eyes, which glow with a pale green light.

Behaviour

Basilisks have a very slow metabolism, making their movements sluggish and clumsy; they are often described as lazy and cowardly creatures, but viciously cunning. Basilisks use their gaze attack from hiding when they hunt but are unprepared for a hard pursuit, and prey that flees will usually get away unharmed. When not hunting, basilisks sleep off their meals in their lairs, sometimes in small groups of up to six individuals.
They make their lairs in dark underground caves with a ready and easily accessible food and water supply; basilisks prefer to lair in hidden dens, where they can wait for any prey unfortunate enough to wander in. They are easy to anger, though they never fight to the death if it can be helped.
Basilisks spend much of their time basking asleep in the heat of the sun, or, if that is too harsh, in the heat of some other source, such as a volcanic vent or even a campfire. If the basilisk is unable to warm itself for more than a day, it would become sluggish, ultimately dying of hypothermia after a three days or so.
Once thought to be incapable of eating a petrified victim, at least after infancy, it is now known that basilisks are in fact capable of eating petrified prey, using not only their strong jaws, but a process within their gullet that transforms the stone back into flesh. They only need to eat one large meal a month, owing to their slow metabolisms, and have been documented to gorge themselves to death if provided with enough meat.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

A basilisk's eyes are capable of viewing the astral and ethereal planes, though not at the same time, and only if they concentrate to do so. Their gaze also works against creatures on these planes, killing creatures on the astral, and turning those on the ethereal into a different kind of "ethereal" stone. On the material plane, they can see over a broad spectrum of light, granting them darkvision and heatvision.

Genetic Descendants

• Dracolisk

Scientific Name

Basilisk Basilisk

Average Weight

300 lbs (~140 kg)

Average Length

11‒13 ft (~3.5-4 m)

Gaze

Basilisks are known for their ability to petrify their prey, causing an alchemical change in the body that turns victims into porous stone statues. Sages theorize that the creature's eyes emit some kind of radiation that is absorbed by the eyes of their victim, though the precise mechanism of their petrification is very poorly understood.
It is woth noting that the better the eyesight of the victim, the longer the effective range of the basilisk's gaze, and multiple reports claim that the casters of arcane eye spells, the users of crystal balls, and the wearers of eyes of the eagle have all fallen victim to petrification upon viewing basilisks over great distances.
Items carried or worn by their prey are not turned to stone, only the body itself. Protective magic items still worn by the statue will continue to affect it as they would have if the victim were still flesh and blood.