Brine Dragon

Brine dragons are freakish mutants, perhaps the experiment of an ancient sea power. They claim distant black dragon ancestry, which is hard to believe since the two look nothing alike. Their huge plesiosaur-like bodies carry dragon heads, flippers instead of claws, and oversized teeth set in a perpetual, unfriendly grin. The hide is rough, mottled and creased, with badly fitted, irregular scales and big clumps of salt, the oldest so stained by bodily fluids that water no longer dissolves them.

The only wholly marine dragon, it can neither fly nor walk, and dislikes even surfacing unless tempted, say by a boatful of tasty humans. Despite its bulk it swims without a ripple, so foes take -1 on surprise rolls, and its sensitivity to currents means it is surprised only on a roll of 1 on d10. Its clawless attack is a bite that gouges deep even into whales and amphi dragons.

These dragons embody chaos: they may attack for no reason or hold back when a fight seems certain, and nobody can predict them.

The breath is an acidlike cloud of salt and alkali 90 feet long, 45 wide and 45 high, halved by a save vs. breath weapon, usable every third round and equally effective underwater or against airborne targets. Brine dragons are immune to poison and acid but cannot breathe air. Powers gained with age, each usable three times daily: acid arrow (adult), stinking cloud (old), fear (wyrm) and cloudkill (great wyrm).

If its breath meets a black dragon's, the two cancel out into water equal to both volumes, plus a pound of sulphur per age category of the black dragon, since its acid is sulfuric. The reaction makes the water scalding, dealing 12d4+12 to anyone where the breaths mix (save vs. breath weapon at -2 for half). Tinker gnomes have tried for centuries to arrange such a meeting for study, gaining only many dead gnomes, so clever adventurers could sell them news of one.

Brine dragons are violent, nihilistic sea anarchists with no leaders and no society. A scheming sea witch long ago stopped trying to enlist them, since they breathe on her troops as readily as on her foes. They carve lairs into coral or rock with their breath and hoard only on a whim. A territory may range from 100 yards to ten miles and change daily; only the cave stays fixed.

Parenting is equally random: the mother, the father, both or neither may raise the young, and hungry parents sometimes eat eggs or hatchlings, which keeps their numbers low.

They are named for their craving for salt, which they eat and also absorb through the skin while swimming, and they often haunt coastal salt marshes. They hate black dragons but never eat them, instinctively knowing what acidic flesh would do to their alkaline guts. Otherwise they eat anything, and are one of the few sea species that devour undead.