Lurker in Darkness

These temple guardians were bred by human clerics of the Skulking God from ordinary fire lizards. A lurker resembles a fire lizard with a long, thick tail, or a lengthened red dragon without wings. Its scales are gray, mottled red and brown along the back and reddish below; hatchlings start pale gray and darken with age.

Rearing up on its tail, a lurker rakes with four claws and bites. Every fifth round it may also breathe a cone of flame 15 feet long, 5 feet across at its jaws and 10 feet at the far end, for 2-12 damage (save vs. breath weapon for half). It can still claw while breathing, but the flame replaces that round's bite, and anyone not fire-immune right in front of its mouth whom the bite roll hits takes the full 12 points, no save. Lurkers are immune to fire.

They climb at MV 5, can pry doors open and haul objects or prey. They cannot truly use magic items but mimic actions they just saw, such as throwing a lightning javelin or a missile bead; treat this as an attack at -3, and on a miss roll 1d10 for how many feet wide it lands.

Instead of three claws, a lurker can roll onto foes with a hit, trapping up to five man-sized creatures. Victims who lie still (and can cast verbal-only spells) are unhurt; those who struggle take 1-4 crushing damage per round and fight at -3 to attack and damage. Getting out needs both a Strength check, to shift the weight, and a Dexterity check, to wriggle clear, in one round, dead lurker or not. A paralyzed or held lurker's flesh goes rigid, imposing +10 on both rolls.

The god passed secret breeding rites and transformation spells to his faithful over the centuries, and the priests are thrilled that their lurkers now breed true instead of hatching plain fire lizards. They take every hatchling for training. Lurkers learn to protect anyone wearing the sect's garb, purple robes or tunics with four linked silver circles, and to guard a home lair, nearly always a temple, preferably dark or underground. They sleep half the time, shrug off heat and cold, wake instantly, and hoard nothing, guarding the temple's riches as a family with its residents. Removed from home, a lurker always knows the way back while on the same plane and plods there. Orphaned lurkers defend even a ruined lair, but accept new masters who arrive in the right vestments. Typical commands: Attack, Defend, Eat, Don't Eat, Stand Guard.

Priests supply cattle, lame horses and similar livestock, and lurkers can even eat tainted meat, being immune to disease, poison, parasites and rot grubs. Dragons and wyverns sometimes attack them, but they have no true foes. Eggs sell for 5,500 gp and hatchlings for 8,000 gp, yet any buyer earns the sect's undying hostility.

The faithful hail the Skulking God as lord of caverns, dungeons and the deep underworld, a guide for humans who must go below. His small, mostly chaotic neutral sect has grown since the cataclysm that cast the gods down to walk the world, and its fiery high priest now preaches in the taverns of a great coastal city over a famous dungeon. In truth the god is dead: the goddess of night slew him in that cataclysm, took his power, and now answers his priests, helps the lurkers breed true and sends the high priest dreams, using the disguise to erode her rival the moon goddess in that city. The lurkers are her gift to her followers.