Drake [Mystara]

A drake's real shape is that of a little dragon with no forelegs and stubby wings that manage only slow flight for an hour at most. It is rarely seen this way. Drakes spend most of their time disguised as humans or demihumans, each variety favoring one or two particular races, and they can shift between dragon shape and disguise as often as they like. They have neither breath weapons nor spells, but speak whatever languages suit their current guise.

Two broad groups exist, the chaotic drakes and the elemental drakes, and sages argue over how closely the two are related. Both are about the size of a man.

Drakes are sharp-witted and cunning. They lie whenever it helps and would much rather surrender than die fighting. In humanoid shape a drake may use any weapon a thief could; the listed attacks and damage apply only to its dragon form.

Every drake has the skills of a 5th-level thief: pick pockets 50%, open locks 42%, find/remove traps 40%, move silently 40%, hide in shadows 31%, hear noise 20%, climb walls 90%, read languages 25%, and a backstab for triple damage. Naturally they prefer to strike from hiding, catching enemies by surprise and on ground of their choosing. For many the urge to steal is a compulsion, and it is the challenge, not the prize, that excites them: a worthless bauble behind locks and burly guards tempts a drake far more than a jeweled crown lying in the road.

All drakes ignore spells of 4th level and lower. By concentrating, one can drop this immunity for a round, for instance to accept a cure wounds spell. They make saving throws as wizards whose level matches their Hit Dice, and protection from evil (or good, as fits the drake) keeps them at bay.

Chaotic drakes are evil or good with equal odds (50% each) and are always chaotic. Long ago they embraced chaos as a cause: they remembered an age when human invention nearly wrecked the world and meant to keep civilization just unsettled enough that it could never advance to the point of destroying itself. Over the centuries that mission faded from conscious purpose into simple instinct.

Chaotic evil drakes do as they please and answer to no one. They enjoy the company of other chaotic evil creatures and delight in tempting people toward greed and wanton ruin. Chaotic neutral drakes share that indifference to others' opinions but are not actively spiteful. Chaotic good drakes still chase a worthy goal through chaos. They think all order is rotten at heart and that only anarchy lets nature flourish, but since tearing down all order is impossible, they target tyranny and other law gone obviously bad, and lawful evil is their sworn foe. Some take up adventuring for this cause and may make temporary common cause with lawful good beings, or even lawful neutral ones, against a shared evil.

Mandrakes are tan in dragon form and pass as humans, whose company they enjoy. They take humble jobs in taverns and stables, never posts of influence, or pose as adventurers, pilfering from town storehouses and passersby. A few join thieves' guilds to hone their craft, though most find such organizations far too lawful. Wooddrakes are dark green and take elf or halfling form, behaving much like mandrakes and sometimes uncovered in elven or halfling villages. Colddrakes are white, avoid daylight and live deep underground, usually in icy caves, wearing dwarf or gnome form and sometimes living among subterranean communities of those folk.

Rarer still are the four elemental drakes, distant relatives of the chaotic kinds: blue airdrakes, brown earthdrakes, red flamedrakes and sea-green waterdrakes. The flamedrake has nothing to do with the small dragonet also called a fire drake. Elemental drakes need not be chaotic, and only magical weapons can hurt them; normal and silver weapons are useless.

On the Prime Material Plane each can assume the shape of a young giant standing 1 to 4 feet under full height: cloud giant for the airdrake, stone giant for the earthdrake, fire giant for the flamedrake and storm giant for the waterdrake. In that guise they cannot hurl rocks and deal only 2d6 in melee rather than the giant's usual damage. On their own planes they cannot take giant shape and instead become small elementals with all the abilities of a 6 Hit Die elemental. They share the common drakes' thieving skills, spell immunity and vulnerability to protection from evil or good.

These drakes dwell on the elemental planes and seldom reach the Prime Material Plane, since they cannot cross between planes on their own and must hitch a ride with an elemental or other traveler. Those that do arrive often live among the real giants they mimic, pursuing purposes no one has pinned down. Mostly they seem to watch, and perhaps they serve as spies for the lords of the elemental planes, reporting on the doings of giantkind. Like their chaotic cousins they organize into supporting cells while keeping their cover.

They eat what the giants they resemble eat, but also draw sustenance from regular contact with their native element, something easily arranged without drawing notice given the giants they imitate. Cut off from that element for days, an elemental drake grows weak and short-tempered, much as a human would without food and water. Some sages say they descend from a minor dragon breed adapted to the elemental planes, others that their dragonlike shape is a coincidence of elemental evolution, and a few mavericks suggest they were magically bred from elementals and dragons.

Because their true form looks so much like a dragon, and their shapeshifting resembles that of the world's gold dragons, drakes were long grouped with dragons and wyverns. An owl-folk sage has since argued convincingly that mandrakes, wooddrakes and colddrakes are actually kin to the mischievous faerie races.

Drakes live alone or in small bands, usually among humanoids who never guess what they are. Each cell keeps in touch with others, forming networks that can stretch across continents. These links help members travel, build a fresh identity when one is unmasked, or fence stolen goods; some evil drakes help human thieves move hot loot to faraway buyers for a fat share. Both good and evil chaotic drakes love jokes and pranks and have a keen sense of humor.

To advance their cause, drakes slipped into the societies of humans, elves, dwarves, halflings and gnomes, quietly stirring their neighbors toward quarrels and confusion. They are omnivores with diets much like those of the folk they live among, though they enjoy raw meat more than most humans do.