Geyser Dragon [Dragonet]

These miniature, wingless dragonets live among geysers and hot springs. Long, snaky bodies on stubby legs carry trailing fins at shoulder and hip, and they flow like swimming eels whether in water, in the air or scuttling over rock. Steam clouds around their hot, silver-flecked greenish-blue bodies.

Believing themselves true dragons, they hurl themselves into fights, biting and raking with tiny claws. Their real threat is a jet of boiling water and steam, three times a day, in a cone 50 feet long and 10 feet across at the end. Damage grows with size: 2d6 for 1 HD, 2d8 for 2 HD, 2d12 for 3 HD, halved by a save vs. breath weapon.

As with firedrakes, their blood is scalding and under pressure. A slashing or piercing melee hit releases a gush of it, and the attacker must save vs. breath weapon or take 1d2 damage. Heat cannot hurt them. Fire can, but they save at +4 against it and never take more than half damage, even on a failed save.

They live in magma-heated springs, several sharing a tight little cave nest where they sleep and mate by night. By day they swim and chase steam bubbles in the boiling water and surface to hunt animals, sometimes wandering into bathhouses built over hot springs. Hugely overconfident, a lone geyser dragon will take on animals far bigger than itself, so many die young despite a natural span of 21-32 years; luckily they breed fast and often and have few underground predators. With both gills and nostrils, they breathe air or water equally well.

They bond only with humans they see as their equals in power, so companions tend to be as boastful as the dragonets. Communication is limited to empathy, with no other telepathy.

Fierce, headstrong hunters, they grab whatever meals they can and often become meals themselves. No wizard or alchemist has found any use for their remains; even the blood boils away soon after death.