Shift lizards are nasty reptiles thought to be warped by the Sundering. An adult weighs about as much as a destrachor. They only grow to the height of a dwarf, but are longer than a full grown ogre is tall. Both the front and back legs of a shift lizard bend backwards from underneath more like a bird’s legs than like most other reptile legs, which bent out to the sides.
A shift lizard has the ability to project an image of itself several feet from its body, which then becomes invisible while the image is active. Even without the illusion, the skin of the shift lizard is mottled grey and brown and blends well in various environments. The illusion - a solid illusion with sound, and slight substance making it nearly as tough to kill as the creature itself - must be ‘slain’ before it dissipates. Slaying the illusion makes the real creature visible for quite some time before it can project another image and also disorients the beast for a few minutes.
In combat, the shift lizard works independently of its image, raking with sharp claws and biting with needlepoint teeth. The ten-foot long tail of the creature is prehensile and often used as a whip to trip creatures, especialy those who were fleeing. Carnivorous, the creature is drawn to blood and prefers warm-blooded prey, especially humanoid. Its only weakness is to creatures that do not sense by sight. As the illusion does no actual damage, creatures that use smell or sound as primary sense organs can easily ignore the otherwise fearsome looking image and hunt the real beast directly. Destrachor are among the few natural enemies of the shift lizard because of this.