Monster of Legend

Heroes on the Prime Material may slay many hydras, chimeras or medusae, but on the Outer Planes there is usually just one of each: the original that every story was based on. These monsters of legend live where great heroes can challenge them, such as the hills of one heroic upper-plane realm, and most pantheons keep similar beasts in their own heavens and hells.

Each is its earthly kind pushed to the limit, with improved powers or odd immunities. A legendary hydra might sprout two heads for each one severed; a legendary lion might shrug off every blade and arrow; a legendary basilisk's stare might petrify even those who look away.

No one stumbles on these creatures by chance. Characters meet one only when they seek it, perhaps on a power's orders to claim its treasure or for its blood as a magical ingredient, or when it hunts them, usually because they angered a power.

Each monster of legend should be designed individually. Guidelines, using as the example a legendary sphinx set to guard an oracle of forbidden lore:

Armor Class: at least 4 points better than normal (an androsphinx's AC -2 becomes -6). Movement: unchanged without good reason. Hit points: a fixed total at least equal to the normal creature's maximum; the sphinx gets 120 (10 per die for 12 Hit Dice, against a minimum of 96). THAC0 and saves: divide hit points by 5 to find effective Hit Dice, so the sphinx fights as a 20 HD monster with THAC0 5. Attacks: normally as the base creature, though a hydra or kraken may gain heads or tentacles; the sphinx adds a bite to its two claws, as some sphinxes have. Damage: double or triple normal, so the claws deal 4d6 and the bite 2d10.

Special attacks: the base creature's, possibly improved. The sphinx casts as a 9th-level priest instead of 6th, gains some gynosphinx spell-like powers, and its roar always has the effect of an androsphinx's third and mightiest roar, dealing double damage and functioning as a horn of blasting too.

Special defenses: whatever the base creature has, often enhanced, plus some unusual defense even if the original has none, but always with a weakness a clever hero can find. The sphinx's face is so beautiful that a viewer must save vs. spell or stand fascinated and helpless for 2-12 rounds, unless their eyes are covered by thin gauze or a veil.

Magic resistance: usually total, except for spells that exploit the creature's weakness. A legendary medusa might be vulnerable to gaze reflection, a legendary hydra only to magic that can remove a head, such as flame blade or disintegrate. The desert sphinx is harmed only by spells that affect stone or sand, like stone shape, passwall or transmute rock to mud, which deal it 1d6 per caster level.

Size: a bit larger than normal; the 8-foot androsphinx becomes a 12-foot size H giant. Morale: fearless (20). XP: 5 to 10 times the base creature's value depending on how hard its weakness is to uncover; the sphinx is worth 35,000 XP.

Monsters of legend are bound to particular powers and pantheons, and many were made by a power for a purpose: a serpent to guard a sacred garden, a gorgon sent to ravage a realm and then left to haunt its ruins. Killing one is therefore risky, since its patron may take notice; the lord of the dead would be furious if mortals slew his three-headed hound, and would look for ways to make them pay. Then again, victory brings fame, fortune and the kind of glory songs are written about.

Such monsters stand outside the local ecology or remake it: a fire-breather may reduce a realm to ash, and a venom-blooded beast may taint a river forever just by wading across.