Dragonfly

These creatures are the product of magic blending the familiar harmless insect with true dragon blood. Sometimes called giant dragonflies, they run 3 to 4 feet long and look like the insect in every way except for a faintly dragonish head. They have two pairs of wings, the forward pair smaller than the rear, and the wings stay spread even when the creature rests.

Five types are known, white, black, green, blue and red, each tied to the dragon whose color it shares and whose breath it mimics. They have only animal cunning and never speak or cast spells. Their young, called nymphs, look and act so differently that they are almost a separate monster.

Even ordinary dragonflies can hit 60 miles per hour in a sprint, and the giant kind are just as nimble, stopping dead to hover and then shooting off at a new angle. This makes them hard targets.

Each round a dragonfly may both bite and breathe, and its breath is unlimited. The blast deals damage equal to its Hit Dice and covers a narrow strip just 1 foot wide by 3 feet long, so it usually hits a single creature. A victim not meleeing the dragonfly may save vs. breath weapon for half damage; anyone fighting it hand to hand gets no save at all.

Dragonflies range almost everywhere except cool or cold mountains, and most favor warm, well-watered lands.

White dragonflies push farthest north, into conifer forest and the edge of the tundra. Adults emerge in spring, gorge through one short summer on mosquitoes, lemmings, rats and the small migrant birds drawn by the insect swarms, and lay eggs in late summer in lakes, bogs and slow streams. The first frost kills them, which is why they never exceed 3 Hit Dice, but the eggs and nymphs survive freezing solid through winter. Their breath is a burst of frost and ice crystals.

Black dragonflies crowd tropical to temperate swamps and bogs. Fierce competition keeps them small. Their breath is a stream of acid distilled from the foul chemistry of rotting marsh.

Green dragonflies share that climate range but prefer forest, breeding mostly in lakes and slow rivers and occasionally clashing with black ones over territory. They breathe a small, dense cloud of chlorine, extracted from ordinary salt in their surroundings.

Blue dragonflies hunt open plains, feeding on prairie dogs, thrushes and similar small game while ignoring any insect smaller than giant size. They breed in prairie ponds and river eddies. Farmers watch for them in hot months, since their lightning breath easily touches off grass fires.

Red dragonflies are the strongest, reaching 5 feet, and wander any temperate or warmer terrain after food, especially hills and moors. Rabbits are common prey, and tales say they have carried off lambs. They are savage enough to attack their own kind, and their small column of fire is the most dreaded breath of the five.

A nymph is a wingless, long-legged creature with a flat body under a chitin shell, colored dark brown or black. Its color says nothing about what kind of adult it will become. At two to three weeks it is about a foot long with 1 Hit Die; after a year it reaches 2 Hit Dice and 2 to 3 feet. Nymphs have AC 5, cannot fly, and otherwise share the adult statistics.

Every nymph, whatever its type, spits a thin greenish jet of acid at one target within 3 feet, dealing 1 point per Hit Die. Only someone not in melee with it may save. On a failed or denied save, one item chosen by the DM is splashed and must save vs. acid or be ruined. The bite does 1d2. A nymph can spit and bite in one round but usually does both only when agitated. Bigger nymphs, if hungry, will go after man-sized prey, and they are too dim to be scared off; only repeated failure, such as missing an armored target again and again, makes one give up.

Nymphs are wholly aquatic and swim in sudden spurts (Sw 12) by sucking in water and jetting it out behind, legs tucked against the shell. They live purely on instinct, devouring insects, soft plants and small amphibians, and the earliest to hatch often eat their siblings.

The small natural dragonflies hunt gnats and mosquitoes, while the giant breed eats rodents, birds, bird-sized insects, worms and slugs. All need standing water to breed, sometimes traveling far from home in mating season. Females fix tiny eggs, about half an inch across, to underwater plants, sometimes slitting a large stem to tuck them inside. They hatch in three to eight weeks.

A nymph lives two years. It feeds hard in warm months and goes torpid in cold ones, and during its second winter it transforms inside its shell. In spring the adult crawls from the empty husk, unfolds its shimmering wings and leaves the water for the open sky.