Mruggen were dwarflike, bloodthirsty savages that roamed the plains of Intralu during the times of the Mruggenrykz. According to legend, the drow matron Livrra of the Elvish Empire and her slave Burgdir had 12 children - the first mruggen. As the Elvish Empire fell, the lands of Intralu went wild, and the mruggen were first to the spot. When other peoples started settling, the bloodthirsty mruggen were already there, which caused the first dwarven settlers to name the region Mruggenrykz, meaning mruggen-kingdoms in Kerk'al.

Characteristics

Mruggen hunted in expansive plains, where game could easily be spotted and hunted down. They stayed within an hour's march or so from trees, preferably forests.

They didn't drink water, but tree sap, which they sucked using their long teeth. They also drank blood whenever possible. They could eat roots and leaves, having a distaste for anything sweet, but readily ate meat whenever available, and are willing to hunt to get it.

Mruggen blood was an odd shade of brown. It had corrosive capabilities on metal and was very sticky, so it was often used as glue by people in mruggen-rich regions.

They had bestial intelligence, although some shreds of sentience remained from their ancestry and they could speak Elvish and Dwarvish, as well as their grunt-language Mruggen. They could follow basic logic. They clothed themselves, though not very well, and rarely figured out how to use weapons.

An interesting thing about mruggen was that although they had bestial intelligence, they retained some of the intellect of their ancestors. They could understand Kerk'al and Elvish, and communicated through elaborate combinations of grunts. Fun fact, although mruggen didn't give each other names, saying mruggen attracted the attention of any mruggen, probably because the most common word in their language was that sound.

Hunting Methods

Mruggen had some rather unique physical capabilities. Though fierce and bloodthirsty, they were also very good at hiding, and preferred to ambush rather than approach openly. They could rush towards prey at a blinding speed. Their fierce claws carried a disease that induced a flash of dizziness in their targets, and caused them to be weaker for a couple hours. Often when facing foes that could fight back, they ganged up two or three to one, landed their devastating blows, and repeatedly moved in and out of melee range, profiting fully of their claw disease to weary down enemies.

The Life of a Mruggen

Almost as soon as they were born, child mruggen could walk and communicate in their grunt language. They were nurtured by their mother groups until early autumn, by which time they had learned to fend for themselves as the mothers separated and abandoned the children. The young formed groups of their own, helping each other out. Only after three years were they considered adults, and joined the yearly cycle after separating from their youth groups.

A male mruggen lived alone. If he encountered another mruggen, which wasn't all too rare in the Mruggenrykz, he might assault that creature - or, much more likely, either ignore it or become friends for a while before separating.

The male lived in a yearly cycle. During the winter months, he hibernated, cowering under some tree roots or in another hidden location on the ground. Its inner temperature went down and it would seem dead to outward inspection, but in spring, the body reanimated and the corpse becomes alive and deadly again. Throughout spring and summer, the mruggen hunted, going out of the way of any females it saw. In autumn, however, he went into a frenzy and searched far and wide in the woods for something to copulate with (sometimes, a male in rut didn't even keep to its own race; it might jump atop wolves, deer, or even humanoids of any gender). If presented with two possible targets for copulation, a male in rut grew confused and tried to take both. Walking in the woods in autumn was very dangerous for any creature. Once the season passed, the male's lust died down, and it went into hibernation.

Female mruggen, meanwhile, lived in herds. These were called "mother groups", or "mruggen herds". When one walked the wilds and was attacked by a group of mruggen, then those were the females, not the males, of the species (it was hard to tell them apart otherwise - both were bearded). From winter to summer (females didn't hibernate, and neither did the young), groups of three to a dozen mruggen and their children walked the plains and forests of the Mruggenrykz. Then, in late summer, the females first formed large hosts in the forests to find some last prey, and when autumn came, these groups shattered. Mothers abandoned their children (the male ones already gaining their hormonal drive to copulate, but without the ability to do so, and the females being infertile until next year), and various females often grunted at each other or even fought to underline this separation. They walked the woods alone, trying to escape rutting males which might seriously harm or even kill them in their frenzy and going out of the way of any other creatures, except potential prey. (note that wandering the plains was, therefore, safest in autumn.) At the end of the season, the surviving females found their way together again and searched the wintry lands for food, preparing to give birth by spring. Herds in winter were much more aggressive than at other times.