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Crate Fiend

Crate fiends, properly called taekahbs, are bizarre arthropods that originated on Taekah III, a habitable world in The Vast. On this planet, these soft-shelled scavengers seek homes in the cast-off shells of larger native gastropods or nodules of volcanic pumice the taekahbs hollow out with their acid. Crate fiends breed quickly, laying hidden caches of eggs that are scented so other crate fiends find and fertilize them. When they migrated offworld, no doubt due to careless smugglers or foolish zoologists, crate fiends found homes in the maintenance tunnels and ventilation systems of starships and space stations, as well as in the nooks and crannies of industrialized settlements. Discarded shipping containers proved to be fine homes for them, earning the taekahbs their common name, since they can use such abodes to hide in plain sight. These beasts prefer to eat refuse and carrion, and they avoid discovery and confrontation. However, larger crate fiends have been known to kill and consume dockworkers and unlucky passersby.