Brak Twan [Dwarven Tunnel Hound]

Nobody calls a brak twan handsome. This dwarven tunnel hound has a blocky, flat-topped skull, stubby ears, eyes like black beads, and a deep barrel chest. Apart from a curtain of fine gray hair hanging from its belly nearly to the floor, its pink hide is bare and as tough as old leather. Because the breed works as a guard and hunting animal, most adults are crossed with old wounds. Plenty of owners decorate their hounds with painted or tattooed runes, sometimes copying the patterns inked on their own skin, and dwarven berserkers are especially fond of these battered beasts.

Thick hide, a solid frame, and huge jaws make it a dangerous opponent. If its attack roll beats the number it needs by 4 or more, the hound has locked on; in every following round it hits automatically, tearing for another 2-12 points. Prying those jaws apart takes a successful Open Doors check. On a natural 20 the bite lands on the throat (provided the target has one), crushing the windpipe so the victim chokes to death in 3 rounds. The DM may rule that very large creatures shrug off this strangling bite. A share of its masters' stubbornness against magic grants it +2 to saving throws vs. spell.

Raised in lightless passages, the hound sees 60 feet with infravision and hears extremely well, earning +2 on surprise rolls. Its nose is actually duller than an ordinary dog's, with one glaring exception: it smells orcs, goblins, and related races at 20 yards in any direction, or 100 yards when they are upwind, and instantly comes up growling and ready for a fight.

Hill, mountain, and deep dwarves all breed the brak twan, and gray dwarf raiders have reportedly turned them loose as attack dogs. Dwarven kennel masters insist their creator god shaped the breed alongside the first dwarves; most others think it descends from some primeval mastiff thousands of years back. Litters run 3-10 pups, and they need almost no training to guard or fight, since a protective, combative temper is simply in the blood. A hound is grown and ready for battle at 1 to 2 years and seldom lives beyond fifteen.

Breeders gladly sell pups or grown dogs to anyone they judge worthy of such loyalty. The hound is utterly devoted to its owner and ranks dwarves above every other race. It bonds readily with gnomes, puts up with humans and halflings, and distrusts elves and half-elves, never accepting one as master. It also has a fighter's pride: a foe that seems harmless or gives in is usually left alone unless its owner orders an attack. Goblins, orcs, and their ilk get no such mercy.

As a domestic animal it matters mostly as pest control, clearing rats, kobolds, goblins, and similar vermin out of dwarven halls. Feral packs sometimes haunt abandoned mines and forgotten halls and pose a real threat to explorers who are not dwarves. A dwarf, though, can generally drive them off, or catch them and tame them again.