by Ruo Yu Chen
The Biowak or Grave Monitor is a highly voracious amphibious predator found exclusively in Khuresh and the southeastern islands of the world. It is a large cold-blooded lizard-like quadruped with two pairs of eyes, four powerful limbs and a robust tail that allows it to propel itself quickly underwater. Created from the same stock as Salamanders and Razordons in ages past, it is believed that the Biowak was made by the Naga to be a more aggressive successor. If this is the case, their vile experiments have borne great fruit.
Its corrosive venom-covered serrated teeth and hook claws allow the Biowak to rend thick hide and even steel armour with ease. Jet-black armoured scales covered in quills and spines let the Biowak stalk prey through the night and jungle gloom. Hideous rib-like bony protrusions jut from its underside, these 'rib-teeth' can be manipulated by the Monitor and assist it in grappling attacks. The creature’s tail is composed of thick corded muscle that can whip around to knock an unwary opponent off balance, allowing the Biowak to close in for a killing blow as it bears down with its bulk and crunches down with its underside rib-teeth.
Biowaks are known to be cannibalistic and highly opportunistic, frequently preying on smaller, weaker or injured members of their species when the opportunity presents itself. They are also known to pry open tombs and dig up the graves of local Khureshi humans. Many running battles have been fought between these reptiles and the local tribes over such intrusions.
Like the Salamander, the Biowak possesses the ability to spit gouts of glowing corrosive liquid. While not as volatile and flammable the liquid is longer lasting, far more concentrated and can cause paralysis in larger prey. The corrosive liquid is created by specialized glands on the creature’s neck which give the Biowak its gruesomely bloated throat sac. The Biowak can spit jets of this caustic liquid to blind, immobilize and pre-digest its target at a distance, melting flesh, bone and metal with sickening effectiveness. The sickly green-tinged venomous liquid also courses under the entirety of the Biowak's skin, leaking out of large pores or pustules pockmarking the length of its body when sufficiently agitated. These features - combined with the macabre jutting rib-teeth and tendency to rob tombs - give the Grave Monitor its moniker, as witnesses have mistakenly believed it to be an undead monstrosity halfway through decomposition.
Local myths claim that this creature has such an obsession with the hunt, that it perpetually drools blood. This is a slight misconception because although it does drool blood, it is not caused by insatiability but due to the acid glands leaking and burning through parts of the gumline, which rapidly regenerate just enough to maintain function but not enough to prevent pain. While the Blood Naga could have fixed such a problem, the suffering that this defect caused heightened the Biowak’s aggression beyond that exhibited by its component predecessors. In combat the Biowak fully unleashes its pent-up rage, momentarily forgetting its unending pain as it scalds, brawls and tears at the foe. It will eagerly hunt Trolls, Giant Squigs, Basilisks, and Gigantic Spiders, and will even gather to attack larger war beasts such as Hydra or Makor, as well as trespassing Beastmen Warherds.
Biowak hunting packs are often gathered together for war by Pannaga handlers and deployed as fast moving screening forces, intercepting heavy cavalry and weakening large opposing monsters and constructs. Some are kept by the Blood Naga as guardian pets for their keen senses. The Biowak’s stomach acid is incredibly corrosive, allowing them to safely digest putrid carcasses infected with a variety of toxins, parasites and bacteria that would otherwise be lethal to other scavengers. Biowaks are thus used to clean up battlefields in Khuresh to prevent plague from uncontrollably spreading across the Hinterlands, though the Snake Men offer no such ministrations in the lands of their enemies.
Due to the hostile nature of the Hinterlands, the profusion of deadly monsters and their own truculent temperament, most Biowaks tend to not live to full maturity. Those exceptional few that do however are called the Varan Hayra, the end stage of the Naga’s experiments on this species. Toughened from centuries of survival, the ancient Hayra develops faster regenerative capabilities and grows larger than all others of its kind. Its most distinguishable features are the patagial membranes and air sacs growing across the sides of its torso, between the front limbs and hind limbs. Through prolonged exposure to the Warpstone-saturated environment of Khuresh, the Biowak's rib-teeth mutated to accommodate the wide membranes and air sacs, allowing the Hayra to glide in the air over great distances. By climbing up and leaping off elevated terrain such as the branches of the Hinterlands’ great trees, the Hayra can swoop onto unsuspecting targets from above, crushing and ripping chunks out of the unfortunates as the reptile-abomination lands on them.
As the Biowak matures into the Varan Hayra its acid becomes slower acting, rendering it less efficient at corroding metal or bone with its spit. However, mutations in its innards have bestowed the Hayra with the ability to violently expel large concussive pellets of half-digested hair, horn, minerals, teeth and bones that become volatile as they mix with the caustic spit at its throat. These disgusting projectiles explode on contact with hard surfaces and spray shards of bone and teeth in all directions, maiming those unlucky enough to be caught in the blast with shrapnel and drenching their wounds in searing venomous mucous. This vomit attack only naturally occurs when the Hayra is confronted by a strong enemy and can only be artificially induced by Naga or Pannaga handlers in battle, provided the Hayra has been fed with the corpses of other fallen foes beforehand.
In 2417 IC, a raiding party of Skaven from Clan Moulder travelled to Khuresh looking for exotic specimens to create new monsters. It was the Biowaks that first caught their scent as they flicked their forked tongues to scent their quarry. The Skaven hunting parties found themselves harassed and picked off by the lurking creatures. Rat Ogres were reduced to agonized lumps of meat and metal by acid. Eventually, the Packmasters came upon what they thought would be their prize: a Varan Hayra. Instead, the creature and its pack had found their own prize, a meal that ran to them. Not a single Skaven of that expedition escaped Khuresh, the Biowaks hunting them all down before they could reach the safety of their tunnels.
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