Santirah

Santirah is a bloodthirsty Flying Wyvern closely related to Seregios.

Physiology
Being like Seregios, it stands in a quadruped posture using its wings as forelegs. It's covered in sharp spikes from the head to the tail tip, the wing flanks have spikes as well. Its underside is covered in a thick fur while the front of the head and the limbs are armored with plates. Santirah has a small horn on the head, similar to Seregios, and two long patches of fur above the eyes looking like eyebrows, its claws are curved and quite big and its tail ends in a huge blade-like spike that can divide in two.

Biology
Though violent and intimidating, its primarily an insectivore, only sometimes supplementing its diet with meat and preferring to feed mostly on Neopterons. It's body is covered head to toe in spines, armor, and fur, leaving no exposed patches of soft skin for its prey to sting. Like its blade-scaled cousin, Santirah can raise and launch the quills on its body, though they do not rattle. It uses these to deadly effect, able to snipe insects mid-flight from a considerable distance. In a single day it can decimate an entire hive, eating only a fraction of what it kills and storing most of its food for later. With this strategy it can go for weeks without hunting.

The lair of a Santirah is not hard to spot. It uses its projectile spines like a nailgun, pinning victims' corpses to anything solid it can find and creating a grotesque landscape in the process. The lair doubles as a trap, luring in scavengers and other insects which then become prey themselves. For the sake of keeping its food fresh the Santirah sometimes skewers its prey live, dooming them to a slow and painful end.

It avoids regions known to inhabit Raizex, probably because the territorial wyvern is too aggressive to compete with.

Fight
Hunters struck by these giant quills are inflicted with Defense Down and sent reeling, however there is a potential extra effect: if the hunter collides with a solid surface as they fly back (like a wall or climbable object) then they will be stuck to it, their armor pinned by the quill. If attacked from above, the same affliction is suffered by being stuck to the ground. This Pinned status can be struggled out of, but offers the Santirah an opportunity to attack the helpless, weakened hunter. Hunters who are Pinned are also more likely to be targeted by its grab attack.

Lastly, the marauding wyvern can attack using the long, blade-like spike at the end of its tail. This fiendish weapon is usually reserved for the killing blow on large prey and can inflict the dreaded Bleeding status. Though it may appear to be a single structure it is actually two separate blades that can open and close. The Santirah uses it like a giant pair of scissors, cutting between the armor plates of large Neopterans like the Seltas Queen so that it can disassemble their bodies and carry the smaller, more manageable pieces back to its lair. When enraged Santirah will separate its blade and fight this way, snapping at hunters and inducing both Bleeding and Defense Down simultaneously.