Lizard [Mystara]

Lizards here range from harmless to lethal. Several can be trained by someone with animal training who has picked lizards as a specialty.

Six feet long, with a fierce, dragonlike face, it shades from a red head through a yellow neck to a green tail. It has no wings, but skin flaps between its legs let it glide like a flying squirrel. It prefers dumb prey, yet a hungry one may swoop from a high perch onto a human or demihuman, who suffers -3 to surprise. It can be trained to hunt or guard but refuses riders.

This slim, flat, slate-gray reptile is 8 feet long, with a ridged back, spindly legs and sticky toe pads that let it climb all but the slickest surfaces, even sheer ones. Raised from youth it becomes a superb mount or pack animal, prized by gnomes and other underground folk for its sure footing. Burdened with a rider it cannot handle slopes steeper than 60 degrees, and it carries a pony's load (320 pounds at most). Its hide goes into gauntlets of swimming and climbing.

This 5-foot lizard is pale blue dotted with orange-brown, and it lives mostly where giant insects and spiders are common, since it relishes them. It hunts at night, scaling trees or walls on adhesive toes and dropping onto prey for a -2 penalty to the victim's surprise. It can learn guard duty.

Seven feet long plus a 10-foot tail, this lizard shifts color to match its surroundings, giving foes -5 to surprise. Viciously aggressive, it attacks people unprovoked. Its sticky tongue lashes out 5 feet; a hit reels the victim in for a 2d4 bite. It also gores with its horn for 1d6 and sweeps its tail at anyone within 10 feet, rolling to hit each one; a hit deals no damage but costs the target its next round of attacks.

It dwells among bubbling magma pools in deep caverns, a rocky shell holding in the heat it needs. Its hide is reddish brown, studded with glowing red lumps like embers; its eyes shine pale yellow and it smells of smoke. Its quick, weak bite deals 1d6; the victim must save vs. breath weapon or be held for 1d6 more heat damage that round (magical fire resistance can reduce this). Normal and magical fire do not harm it. A nonmagical metal weapon that strikes one must save as an item vs. magical fire or melt; it still deals that blow's damage but is ruined afterward. They can roam miles from their pools, but not for long; some are found frozen like statues.

This gentle biped, perhaps an ancestor of lizard men, is common in underground dwarf and gnome communities and is about as clever as a dog. It is very fast, with long forelimbs for snatching prey and strong jaws, colored white or pale green or blue. It thrives in captivity, catching rats, carrying riders, hauling carts and running in treadwheels to drive machinery. It and horses frighten one another, and sunlight kills it, dealing 1d6 per hour until it dies.

An 8-foot cross between iguana and toad, it has olive, pebbled skin and white spines along its back. A heat-sensitive membrane it lowers over its eyes grants 90-foot infravision. It sleeps by day, hunts small animals by night, and attacks anyone who strays near its lair. It can be trained to attack, but the spines make it a poor mount.

Travelers sometimes mistake this 8-foot, six-legged desert lizard for a dragon because it breathes fire. It is mostly yellow, mottled red and orange on the back, with long toothy jaws, and can go weeks without water. Packs prey on caravans and desert-edge settlements, usually opening with a fiery cone 30 feet long and 10 feet across at its base for 10d4 damage (save for half) before closing in to bite. Alchemists use its throat sacs to make potions of fiery breath. Training one is hard (+4 penalty to proficiency checks): it must be raised by its trainer and obeys no one else. Only the sandscale lizard-kin commonly keep them.