Khraggith - The Hook Horror

Role in Its Society:

Khraggith is the solitary tyrant of a vertical world—a jagged Underdark gorge where stone ledges, fungal growths, and dangling refuse form a three-dimensional maze.

He doesn’t lead a flock or answer to a master. Instead, he is an unpaid guardian whose mere presence shapes the habits of everyone who travels through his chasm:

• Kobolds and goblins time their crossings to avoid “the quiet hours” when his hunting is fiercest.
• Duergar patrols hug tunnels instead of open shafts, wary of the clacking echo above.
• Svirfneblin miners hang bone chimes; if the chimes stop, it means Khraggith’s own armor is the only sound left.

Some Underdark dwellers leave offerings—stripped bones, piles of shellfish, old armor—to divert his hunger. Others see him as a bad omen: if Khraggith abandons a cavern, they expect collapse, lava, or worse to follow.

He isn’t malicious or aligned with any faction. He simply owns the walls and ceilings of his chosen gorge, and anyone who forgets that becomes meat.

Appearance Description:

Khraggith resembles a nightmare fusion of vulture, insect, and stone.

His body is tall and hunched, easily the size of a large ogre, wrapped in dark, obsidian-black chitin that blends eerily with stalactites and cave walls. The armor plates are ridged and pitted, scarred by scrapes with rock and glancing blows from weapons. Clusters of lichen and faint cave mold cling to the joints of his exoskeleton, helping him disappear against the stone.

His arms are long and powerful, ending in enormous sickle-like hooks of dark, hardened chitin. Each hook curves like a butcher’s cleaver and is chipped from years of raking stone and bone. He moves with a distinctive metallic clack-clack as his hooks tap and scrape surfaces—part echolocation, part ritual.

His head is beaklike, an angular mass of chitin with a sharp, hooked jaw and sunken black eyes. The “face” looks almost like a skull carved from stone, with small ear-holes hidden behind layered plates. When he shrieks, the sound is a grinding screech that rattles stalactites.

Khraggith’s back is studded with small ridges and protrusions that help break up his outline. When he presses flat against a wall and folds his hooks, he can be mistaken for a jagged outcropping until he moves.

Backstory:

Khraggith hatched in a crèche of hook horrors clinging to the upper reaches of a vast chasm. His earliest memories are of darkness, echoes, and the feel of damp stone under his claws. His brood clattered constantly to one another, keeping a sonic map of the gorge.

That changed when a rockfall triggered by surface miners collapsed half the cavern. Many adults were crushed; others were driven off by drow hunters who saw an opportunity to clear the chasm for their own patrols. Khraggith survived by clinging to a narrow overhang as stone and bodies thundered past.

Orphaned and alone, he became hyper-territorial, adopting the shattered gorge as his personal hunting ground. He learned to:

• Tap and scrape his hooks in subtle rhythms that bounced off rock and fungus, building a perfect mental map.
• Time his ambushes for moments when wind, water, and footsteps masked his clatter.
• Retreat into narrow niches and ceiling pockets where larger predators and patrols couldn’t follow.

Over time, locals came to recognize his sonic signature. The name “Echo-Claw” started as a warning—“hear the echo, see the claw”—and became a whispered title. Now, Khraggith is famous enough that guides charge extra to lead caravans through “his” gorge… and smart ones leave an offering on the rocks.