Mountain Raiders
The howling that echoes through the Rollin Hills at night is not wolves. It is something that used to be human before the radiation finished its work.
Mountain Raiders are nocturnal pack hunters warped beyond recognition by the contamination saturating the foothills. Skin peels from disfigured faces. Teeth are sharpened and yellowed where they remain at all. Pustules cover arms and legs. Extra fingers, bulging foreheads, hunched spines, and additional malformed limbs are common among individuals who have spent their entire lives in irradiated caves and burrows. They sleep underground during daylight and emerge after dark to hunt anything that has wandered into their claimed territory.
The hunting method is persistence. A Mountain Raider pack will harry prey for days, driving it through unfamiliar terrain, cutting off retreat paths, and wearing it down through exhaustion before closing in. Victims are skinned alive before consumption, a practice that produces screams the hills carry for miles. The most disturbing detail, noted by the few who have observed them from a distance, is that the raiders retain a remnant of self-consciousness about their appearance. They cannot process complex thoughts, but they know they are hideous, and some believe that awareness is what keeps them in the dark.
They are strictly territorial. A Mountain Raider pack claims a section of the foothills and does not leave it. Anyone who learns the boundaries can avoid them entirely, and travel during daylight is nearly risk-free. The danger is absolute within their territory after sunset and nonexistent outside it.
Mountain Raiders are nocturnal pack hunters warped beyond recognition by the contamination saturating the foothills. Skin peels from disfigured faces. Teeth are sharpened and yellowed where they remain at all. Pustules cover arms and legs. Extra fingers, bulging foreheads, hunched spines, and additional malformed limbs are common among individuals who have spent their entire lives in irradiated caves and burrows. They sleep underground during daylight and emerge after dark to hunt anything that has wandered into their claimed territory.
The hunting method is persistence. A Mountain Raider pack will harry prey for days, driving it through unfamiliar terrain, cutting off retreat paths, and wearing it down through exhaustion before closing in. Victims are skinned alive before consumption, a practice that produces screams the hills carry for miles. The most disturbing detail, noted by the few who have observed them from a distance, is that the raiders retain a remnant of self-consciousness about their appearance. They cannot process complex thoughts, but they know they are hideous, and some believe that awareness is what keeps them in the dark.
They are strictly territorial. A Mountain Raider pack claims a section of the foothills and does not leave it. Anyone who learns the boundaries can avoid them entirely, and travel during daylight is nearly risk-free. The danger is absolute within their territory after sunset and nonexistent outside it.
