Wicked canine creatures who live for the thrill of the hunt, yeth hounds often serve evil masters as guardians and trackers. Yeth hounds resemble lean, sleek dogs with overlarge ears and narrow paws that can tread on air as easily as the ground. Despite their canine appearance, yeth hounds are remarkably intelligent, although they rarely display this intelligence except when devising intricate tactics to ensnare their quarry. Their eerie bays echo across the countryside when they are engaged in a hunt, and they particularly enjoy baying to frighten and disorient intelligent creatures. Yeth hound packs can number as many as a dozen members, each working in uncanny communion with its packmates to corner and kill their prey. Yeth hounds like to drag their victims back to their lairs to eat at their leisure, so these lairs often contain discarded treasures from the hounds’ previous meals.
Yeth hounds despise two things: sunlight and other canines. They hunt only at night if they can, often breaking off their hunt at dawn to retreat to a subterranean lair or den, no matter how close they had come to catching their prey. Yeth hounds usually attack wargs, wolves, and similar creatures on sight, working to drive larger or more powerful canines from their hunting areas when then can’t simply overpower and kill them.
Evil rangers, bestial demons, and wicked cults are frequently gifted yeth hound servants by fiendish patrons. Such hounds often serve as spies and are quick to turn against those who fail to advance the patrons’ wicked aims. The cult of Lamashtu, in particular, is fond of using yeth hounds as temple guardians.
Yeth Hound Allies
When an evil cult engages the services of a yeth hound, the process is more like forging an alliance than animal training. Yeth hound allies can provide much more complex services than a typical animal, but they also present the risk of possible treachery.