Black Unicorn [Forgotten Realms]

It has a white unicorn's build but a coat like coal, a silky dark mane, burning red eyes and a long spiral horn worked with silver. Stallions are bearded; mares are leaner but still powerfully muscled. They are bright enough to learn Common, and rumor says certain evil mages hope to teach them purely verbal spells.

It cannot move silently or sense foes as white unicorns do, yet it is never surprised. It kicks with its forehooves, gores with a horn that has no special bonus to hit, and bites with keen teeth. After a run of 30 feet or more over open ground, a charging horn hit deals 3d12 piercing damage, but the hooves sit out that round. Three times daily it can cause light wounds with a touch, even as part of a horn strike, and once daily it can teleport without error. That teleport never takes the rider along, so many a rider has been left stranded mid-battle.

Only evil human or drow women may ride one, and each must ask. A unicorn that approves serves; one that does not attacks her at once. Even then the mount is unreliable, chaotic and selfish, ready to buck off its rider or vanish when a fight goes wrong. In their homeland most are pets of the slaver-wizards or troops in their army. Escapees form small wild herds, led by the strongest of either sex, that torment others for fun and above all hate horses and true unicorns.

The slaver-wizards bred them by blending the blood of tanar'ri and other evil beings into unicorn stock, producing demented killers that crave battle. They eat flesh, preferring humans, elves, horses and normal unicorns. For all their unruliness they serve in large mounted units under the ruling school-masters, among them a regiment of priestesses of a mad god of strife. Powdered horn makes a Type N contact poison (onset 1 round, death or 25 damage), and a horn fixed to a lance lets a charging rider deal the unicorn's 3d12.