Token #127 - Basilisk (Patreon)

The  basilisk is an eight-legged reptile with a nasty disposition and the  ability to turn creatures to stone with its gaze. Folklore holds that,  much like for the cockatrice, the first basilisks hatched from leathery  eggs laid by snakes and incubated by roosters, but little in the  basilisk’s physiology lends any credence to this claim.

A  basilisk prefers to eat petrified flesh. Once a victim has been turned  to stone, the basilisk crunches the fossilized corpse with its powerful  jaws and lets its potent stomach acids do the rest. This digestive  process is extremely slow and inefficient, causing the basilisk to move  so lethargically that it appears as if in mid-petrification itself. This  has even led to the saying “as slow as a well-fed basilisk.” Certainly  basilisks are well-known for their slow gait and slothful nature, but a  predator that can turn its prey to stone with a glance hardly has much  need for speed.

An adult basilisk is 13 feet long from head to  tail and weighs roughly 300 pounds. These reptiles make hissing sounds  when moving about that turns to a guttural gurgle when they’re agitated.  Though they are normally solitary creatures that come together only to  mate and lay eggs, there are periodic reports of regions being infested  with unusual numbers of basilisks. What causes these unusual  congregations of basilisk activity is unknown.