Lexicon:Modern/Kamra

Kamra
Stage	Modern CLT
Pronunciation	/ˈkam.ɾa/
Part of speech	Noun
Etymology	from middle CRT kammrā, from Proto kamra
Related words	Draebaech, Clearhold, Skarv

Kamra — the scaled predator of the ranges around Clearhold.

Notes

A massive lizard-type reptile, fifteen to twenty-five feet in the body with a muscular tail of equal length again, eight hundred to twelve hundred pounds distributed along all of it. Four powerful limbs with curved gripping claws and a spine flexible enough to move along a vertical face. The head carries a bony crest and trailing whisker-like barbels along the jaw. Slate to blue-gray, matching mountain rock.

It hunts from cliff positions, dropping onto what passes below. The attack combines a jaw strike with constriction — it seizes and then wraps.

Cold-blooded and therefore seasonal: active in the warm months, dormant in winter. This is why the Mountain Way is somewhat safer in early spring and late autumn, and worst at midsummer when the animals are defending nests.

Lives high and comes down. Scaled rather than furred, matching the rock closely enough that a Kamra at rest is invisible until it is not, and it takes from above on the narrow paths where nothing can turn to face it. The reason a Draebaech string is never taken through the upper passes without an escort, and a substantial part of why Clearhold’s soldiers are what they are.