In my new desert world of Sihateen, one of the many threats found in the wilderness is a sapient species known as pit reapers. Pit reapers have an upper body similar to a human woman, save for a pair of large mandible-like horns, a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs, and solid black eyes. Their lower body, on the other hand, takes the form of a massive abdomen and four insectoid legs, each ending in a “hand” that has two fingers and an opposable thumb. Their mandible-horns and abdomen both resemble the larva of an insect known as an ant lion, and like ant lion larvae, pit reapers are naturally able to dig conical pit traps in sand to catch prey. This pit reaper seen here has gorged herself on a meal of three humans that ventured too far from the merchant caravan they were traveling with and stumbled upon her pit.

Like actual ant lion larvae, pit reapers lack an anus, but unlike them, they make use of all the usable parts of their food before regurgitating their prey's bones and other indigestible bits, rather than having waste build up in their abdomen the way it does in a larval ant lion. Moisture from the prey is similarly put to maximal use; provided she has access to sufficient fresh meat, a pit reaper can go months without any other source of water.

The mandible-horns of a pit reaper are capable of opening and closing like insect mandibles, and each point is able to inject a paralytic venom.

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