“ One of the camels in the caravan trips over a dark rock protruding from the sandy dunes. The poor animal has broken its leg and cannot continue. A cacaphony ensues as the animal suffers and the caravan train overseers complain passionately as they redistribute the animal's load across the caravan. (Let's just hope none of the PC's was riding this camel, shall we?)
As the camel is put out of its misery and the camel is skewered over a campfire - waste nothing! - someone takes a minute to inspect the root cause of all the trouble. To their surprise, the upturned rock is worked stone. Some frantic digging may excavate the bottom half of a gorgeously worked1 obelisk, and maybe even the small square forum below; but a more rigorous exploration of the surrounding dunes reveals a buried tomb doorway on each side of the forum.”
“ A huge moon, with a three-coned volcano which can be seen from the planet when it erupts and is taken for an omen. The planet, smaller than the moon, orbits it, and the planet in turn is orbited by a very small but very hot and bright ball of flame.”
“ This nocturnal creature resembles an over-sized bat, with the mouth of a star-nosed mole.
The Manabat can be as small as a normal bat, but can grow to a size larger than a human.
This creature is feared by wizards and other magic users, as it feeds of it victim's mana.
It will hide at day and hunt at night, swooping down on its prey, engulfing the magic user's face with its slimy tentacles, thereby sucking the mana from the victim. Depending on the size of the Manabat it can drain only a portion of the wizard's mana, which he will regain in a few hours, whereas the largest creatures will drain the wizard's mana permanently, rendering them ineffective as magic users.It will not harm them in any other way.
Manabats behave like normal bats and breeds in same way and numbers.
They can be tamed by a master trainer to attack on command.”