Womp Rat

Womp rats are long-bodied desert scavengers native to Tatooine, rarely much bigger than two metres nose to tail, with coarse matted hair, oversized yellow eyes and a mouthful of fangs built for seizing and holding. Moisture farmers class them as vermin and hunt them for sport. The rats, for their part, have never shown the slightest sign of being intimidated by this.

What makes them dangerous is not size but numbers and nerve. Womp rats hunt in packs, and they are not timid — a group will circle a target, test it from several directions at once, and commit together when one of them finds an opening. A lone womp rat is a nuisance. Five working the same quarry is a real fight for an unprepared traveller.

Their densest population is in the Jawa Heights, where they den in Beggar's Canyon — a warren they share, uneasily, with krayt dragons. The canyon's run is also a traditional proving ground for young Tatooine pilots, who thread it at speed in T-16 skyhoppers and shoot at the rats on the way through. Luke Skywalker was reckoned the best shot of his group on that run, a detail that later got repeated rather more often than he probably liked.

Never use one. Womp rats are a pack encounter and their Pack Hunter trait is the entire point — three to five of them turn a trivial stat block into a fight that can genuinely hurt a first-level party.

They open by circling, looking for the character who has drifted from the group, and concentrate on whoever is most isolated and least armoured. They are quick enough at speed 40 to control the engagement, closing on a straggler and breaking off when the rest of the party turns to help. A pack that loses half its number loses its nerve and scatters; a pack defending a den does not.