Fire Drake [Dragonet]

Newcomers tend to take the firedrake for a red dragon hatchling, yet it is far duller and weaker and answers almost anything with flame. It is a red dragon in miniature, 4 feet long and just over 2 feet tall, but its hide is thinner and clearer than even the youngest true dragon's, faintly twitching and mottled mauve and burgundy over red. Heat shimmers off it, and its wings beat slowly even at rest, cooling it and shooing insects.

A disturbed firedrake attacks half the time (50%). Its main weapon is its fire, up to five times a day: a cone 60 feet long ending in a 10-foot circle, dealing 2-16 to everything inside, halved by a save vs. breath weapon. Its claws go unused, but it bites for 2-8.

That fire is really its own blood, rich in phosphorus, spat out deliberately to burst into flame in the air. Clubs and staves are therefore safer than blades: a successful slashing or piercing hit splashes the attacker, who takes 1-2 fire damage unless he makes a save vs. breath weapon.

Aloft it attacks from below and behind, its rising heat buffeting creatures that need smooth air to fly or glide, and it may ram smaller flyers in the belly to stun them into a fatal fall.

Firedrakes pair for life and share a lair in a small cave or a sheltered rock shelf beneath an overhang. In early summer the female lays six to eight eggs, warmed by the parents' bodies, which hatch in about 60 days. The young can breathe fire before they can fly, which takes about another 60 days, and they are even jumpier than adults, belching flames several times a day around the lair. Parents usually range 1-2 miles from home but double their patrols while the young are vulnerable. The next spring the young leave, sometimes flying scores of miles before finding a lifelong mate. Rare mating fights are spectacularly fiery, but the loser usually yields before it turns deadly. They hoard nothing, though remains of their victims lie where they fell.

They live only 75 to 100 years. Their blood burns inside their veins, which is the source of the heat shimmer, and the constant wingbeats feed it the oxygen it needs; cut off from air, a firedrake suffocates in about half the time a similar creature would.

Stored in an airtight vessel or under water or another inert liquid, the blood stays liquid. Thrown, it works like a burning flask of oil, and it can also make weapons flame: a sword dipped in it blazes for 3-6 rounds, but the sudden heat gives it a cumulative 2% chance per round of snapping on each blow while it burns. Afterward the blade is unharmed.