Dracohydra

Dracohydras have between two and five heads: 25% have two, 50% have three, 15% have four and 10% have five. The hide is a dull mud-brown that pales to nearly cream along the belly, and every head has red eyes. They speak their own language, descended from the tongue of evil dragons; each side can follow about half of what the other says. They know nothing else, though cult mages can teach them to understand common.

A dracohydra fights like a true dragon and can use the full range of dragon maneuvers, such as kicks, snatches, plummets, stalls, tail slaps and wing buffets. Each claw deals 1d8 points of damage, and each round every head chooses either to bite for 2d8 or to breathe.

Its hit points are split: the body and wings get half, and the heads divide the rest equally. A three-headed specimen with 72 hit points, for instance, has a 36-point body and three 12-point heads. A head brought to 0 hit points is useless. The creature dies when every head is gone or the body reaches 0.

Where a blow lands depends on the attacker's position. From the front, 80% of hits strike a random head and 20% the body. From the flank the odds flip, 80% to the body and 20% to a random head. Attacks from behind always hit the body.

Instead of fire, the creature sprays concentrated acid, much like a black dragon. Each spray is a 40-foot line, 3 feet across; a successful save vs. breath weapon halves the damage. The heads breathe independently, and may split their total damage over any number of sprays, which makes a five-headed great wyrm, with 12d2+12 per head, a terrifying opponent. Breath damage, armor class, magic resistance and treasure all increase with age, from 1d2+1 for a hatchling up to that great wyrm figure. Its special abilities function at 8th level plus its combat modifier. Every dracohydra is immune to acid from birth, and more powers come as it ages.

In the wild these beasts claim lonely mountain ranges far from settled land, preferring snowy peaks lashed by storms. In temperament they resemble white dragons: greedy, selfish and savage. Their low Intelligence keeps them from planning or abstract thought, so they act directly. They kill trespassers whether hungry or not, flee from a strong opponent who stands firm, and love to toy with a weaker one before finishing it.

That bullying streak is easy to exploit, which is why a dragon-worshiping cult values them. Cult cells usually post them as fixed guards over secret passages, caches of treasure or magic, or a leader's private sanctum. The cult keeps them in line with the same bribes, deceptions, mental manipulation and charm or domination magic it uses on all its servants, because a dracohydra left to itself would happily attack the cult's own members and other draconic allies.

They prefer to live alone and meet only to mate. Young stay with their parents until reaching the young age category, then leave or, rarely, fight a parent for its hoard. Parents defend their offspring but flee rather than die for them. More than one dracohydra means a mated pair plus one or two young, either hatchlings (60%) or very young (40%).

They loathe every other kind of dragon-like creature and will attack one on sight if they think they can win. They have no fondness for humans, demihumans or humanoids either. They sometimes take such creatures as slaves, but the slaves are always eaten once the dracohydra gets hungry.

Sages disagree about where they came from. Some think they descend from the pre-dragons and slept through millions of years; others call them the next stage of dragon evolution, or the work of a chromatic dragon goddess or other powers. The cult claims they are one of many crossbreeds its mad founder created while studying draconic life, several of which its cells still use.

Like all dragon kind, a dracohydra can eat almost anything, even stone and gems, but its fierce and growing appetite is best met with fresh meat. Keeping one fed is the cult's biggest headache: it must be stationed near a large herd or some other easily managed supply of food. Like the dracolisk, it is a true species rather than a hybrid like the mantidrake, wyvern drake or dracimera, so its traits do not depend on parentage. Its worst enemies are red dragons, stone giants and storm giants; red dragons consider dracohydra young a delicacy.