The Burrow Bachiks are wild living animals of the mammals family. The Plain Dwarves of the continent of Nybelmar have domesticated them and use the secret they are producing as a stabilising agent for their homes.

The Burrow Bachik, short Bachik, is a mammal with many features like a lizard. It is living underground in the central and western deserts of Nybelmar. Being small, about the size of a badger, it looks also like one and is in some ways one. Its beige coloured body looks like a badger and its grey head and tail like a lizard. Bachiks build extensive tunnel systems under the sand with the help from a sticky secret that comes out from holes or “nipples” on its back. The slime hardens and works as cement for the tunnels.

Appearance. The Burrow Bachik is about two fores long and weighs two to three hebs. Some Bachiks that have been found have been up to three fores long and six hebs heavy, but that is an exception.

The body looks like it is a combination between badger and lizard, the sides and legs belonging to a badger, back, head and tail to a lizard. Its colours are beige, on the sides and on the legs, and grey for the rest of its body. The different colours are softly melting together without a distinct line. The eyes of the Burrow Bachik are red and not more than a thin line when the beast is above ground. Even though the Bachik has no ears, just two holes, it is suppoosed to have a very good hearing. On the nosethe Bachik has two big nostrils and from the mouth a small tongue comes in and out. The tongue is slit into two at the end.

Special Abilities. The creature's main ability is that they can find water in the desert, much like the dwarves’ AnulOrn (Thergerim AnulOrn, Water-Sense).

Bachiks can handle the heat of the desert well, but they mainly come above ground at night when the temperature is lower. Only there they have naturals enemies so they try to hide in the sand for as much as they can.

Its believed among the dwarves that the Bachik has night vision. Even in pitch dark they can find their ways through their tunnels.

Additionally the ability to make semi permanent tunnels with the secret from their backs makes them to one of the greatest tunnel builders in the desert. A full-grown Bachik can tunnel up to thirty peds in one day if it digs through sand.

Territory. The Burrow Bachik can be found in the central and western deserts of Nybelmar. This is also the only place in the world that they have been found yet. They usually live around springs and oases.

Habitat/Behaviour. The Bachiks are always tunnelling. That is how they find much of their food and how they keep their tunnels open. The hardened slime only stays hard for a couple of months so they need to reenforce the tunnels every now and then. The tunnels are most times two handspans wider than the digging Bachik.

The Bachik tunnels alone but always returns to its nest at the end of the day. It lives in families and many family tunnels can be connected to one giantic tunnel system. They stay in one nest for their entire life if its not destroyed. Both of the parents help in the raising of the young ones, but the mother tends to be more protective. When the Bachik reaches eight months it is full-grown and starts to dig its own tunnels, often connected to those of the parents.

Diet. When living in the desert you basically eat whatever you get. Same is valid for the Bachik, who prefers mostly insects and small rodents, like mice and vilerats.

When the Bachik is tunnelling it sometimes comes across a nest of its favorite food . It then kills the animals and takes them back to the nest. Sometimes the Bachik comes above ground as well to hunt during the night when it couldn‘t find enough food underground. The Bachik also eats plants and roots around the oases whenever it comes across them.

The tame Bachiks are fed with garbage and leftovers from the dwarf-family it belongs to.

Mating. The hard thing for a young Bachik is to find a partner, but once they do they stay together for the rest of their lives. The females are very selective and by far outnumbered by the males.

They mate once a year around fall. At day when they usually sleep, they instead mate for hours. The male tries this every dawn, the whole year, but the female always turns away except for the mating season. This process is repeated every night for about a week until the female is pregnant.

Usages. The tame Bachiks that live with the Plain Dwarves are held for the secret they produce. The dwarves use the slime to make their HolHunds (Thergerim HolHunds, desert homes). The Bachiks are taken young and then kept as domestic animals near the HolHund.

They aren’t aggressive and during all the years the dwarves have kept Bachiks as domestic animals only a few incidents have been reported. One of them was the incident with the young girl Disuma Avarim who kicked and screamed at the family’s Bachik every day until one day it bit the young girls foot. The entire leg was infected and the girl died. The Bachik of course was killed, and the Bachik disease was named Disumara after this incident.

Myth/Lore. The origin of the Bachik is hard so find but it is believed that it first appeared around the War of the Chosen. It is said that the mages at that time tried every spell they could find to create new useful animals. Some tried to create serving monsters, but not all were successful. Among the dwarves it is said that a spell went wrong and instead of creating a crossing between a lesser drake and a horse it created a crossing between a badger and a lizard. After several attempts, all failed the same way the mage gave up. It is not needed to say that the mage did not use it in the coming battle. Instead the creatures ran away out in the desert and became forefathers the Burrow Bachiks. If this story is true or pure legend, nobody knows, but at least the Kavogerim strongly believe in this legend.

Researchers. There has only been one dwarf who has spent some time studying the animals that help them so much. His name was DishunHthuu (155 b.S.-23 a.S.) or Nomli as he also was called. He was in fact a librarian at a library, along with his brother.

Nomli spent a whole year researching about the Burrow Bachik. For three weeks he lived underground in tunnels were he became close to one Bachik famliy. He wrote down his discoveries in the book "Bachik for Life". Here is a part about the time when the female leaves her young ones: