Dracimera

A dracimera carries three heads. At the front is a dragon's head ringed by a lion's mane, much like a mantidrake's. Midway along its spine rises a blue-green lizard head with a chimera's amber eyes and a pair of ocher goat horns. Where a lion would have a tail, it has a second dragon head and neck that match its dragon parent.

Many consider it the most dangerous of the known dragon hybrids. A single round brings six attacks: two forelegs at 1d3 each, two goat horns at 1d4 each, and the front and rear dragon heads at 1d12 each.

It inherits its dragon parent's breath, usable six times a day, two per head. A head that does not use its turns cannot pass them to the others. The breath deals damage equal to the creature's normal full hit points. That number stays fixed as the creature takes wounds or recovers, and magic that temporarily raises its hit points does not strengthen the breath.

A dracimera is immune to attacks like its own breath; one with a white dragon parent ignores normal and magical cold, for example. Weapons meant to slay dragons have no special effect on it. A sword or arrow of dragon slaying still deals its normal damage but cannot kill the creature outright.

Wild dracimerae haunt the same tropical lands as chimerae and are usually sired by black or red dragons. They live alone and seek a mate only once a decade, producing a single young. So few exist that most are born from a fresh chimera and dragon pairing rather than from two dracimerae. Each claims a hunting range of at least 400 square miles and lairs in its most remote corner, hoarding treasure for the same reasons dragons do.

A wild dracimera speaks its dragon parent's tongue and usually has a halting grasp of red dragon speech (unless its parent was red). Those raised from the egg by a dragon-worshiping cult also learn common, which they speak with a faint human accent. The cult posts them at vital sites, treasure stores and secret passages, or sends them as shock troops against caravans and powerful enemies.

This fierce hunter permits no other large meat-eater or omnivore in its territory and attacks intruders the moment it sees them. Its daily hunt covers at most 25 square miles, yet it can fly 100 miles and still be home by dark. Unlike a chimera it eats only meat, which rarely troubles it, since its reptile body can go a week without food. When prey is plentiful it gorges. It will eat any creature of flesh and blood, humans and humanoids above all, and the many giant-sized items found in dracimera lairs show what it is capable of.