Carp Dragon [Yu Lung]

A carp dragon has a dragon's head on the body and tail of a giant carp. Its blue-gray scales carry markings of many colors, and it has two arms, long, wispy whiskers and bright yellow, catlike eyes. It cannot fly and moves on land only by hauling itself along with its claws.

Timid and peaceful, yu lung avoid fights. Threatened, they claw and bite but rarely chase a retreating enemy. Their limp tails cannot slap, and their bodies are not built for kicks or snatches.

From young adulthood a yu lung can dislocate its jaw like a snake and gulp down a victim no bigger than a small man. The swallowed creature takes bite damage, then 1 point per round from digestive fluids, with a cumulative 5% chance per round of suffocating. Rescue becomes possible once the dragon is down to half its hit points; cutting out from inside is at -2 to hit, and a 20% chance exists that any piercing attack from outside hits the captive instead.

Unlike other oriental dragons, carp dragons cannot polymorph or become invisible. They breathe only water and can survive on land for one hour, after which there is a cumulative 5% chance per round of suffocation. Very young yu lung gain bless and curse, each 1/day. As juveniles and young adults they can, once a day, exhale a 10-foot-diameter cloud that heals everyone inside as a potion of healing (2d4+1 hit points).

At adulthood, precisely at midnight on its 101st birthday, a yu lung transforms in an instant, amid a booming crack of thunder, into a randomly determined adult of some other subspecies. It is then reassigned to a fresh domain with duties suited to its new station by the celestial court of heaven.

Carp dragons inhabit freshwater rivers and lakes of every kind. They are the smallest, shyest and gentlest of the oriental dragons and hold no office in the celestial court, since they are expected to transform later. Their homes are small, tidy mansions of mud and stone hidden in the murkiest depths, sturdy but plain by dragon standards and nearly empty, for yu lung collect no treasure.

They speak their own language, those of all freshwater creatures, the tongue of the celestial court, and every human language.

Yu lung are scavengers, sifting organic and mineral matter from the bottom mud, and they live in peace with all water life. Now and then one befriends a human, and such bonds are famously long-lasting, surviving even the dragon's transformation.