Riding Lizard

Riding lizards are lean, light reptiles that sprint upright when unladen and run on all fours when they choose. Their three-toed feet carry adhesive pads, and a second secretion releases the grip instantly. Never seen on the surface, they fill the role of the horse for the intelligent peoples of the deep underworld.

Its bite deals 2d4, and it can kick with one or both powerful hind legs for 2d6 each. Those legs propel leaps of 30 feet up or 50 feet across, and it can drop 80 feet in a round unharmed; with a rider, reduce each distance by 10 feet. Clinging to whatever it lands on, it bounds across chasms to stalactites or remote ledges. Any leaping or clinging, laden or not, calls for a Dexterity check by the lizard.

Sticky feet let it run in total silence over floors, walls and ceilings while burdened. Unstrapped riders must pass a Strength check to hold on when the lizard jumps or hangs upside down. It regenerates 1 hp every 5 turns, takes half damage from heat and fire, and suffers an extra point per die from cold. It has excellent balance and 160-foot infravision, halved within sight of fire or magma. Drow-trained mounts become fearless (morale 20) when a drow rider is present and compelling them by spell or house insignia.

With one man-sized rider and gear, movement drops to 15; with two, to 13. Wearing a cargo harness like a pack lizard's, it moves 11 and can only make short downward jumps of up to 30 feet safely.

Wild lizards hunt boldly, taking small snakes and centipedes and relishing scurry rats most of all, and also eat lichen and fungi. That diet makes them immune to venom from centipedes, insects and arachnids, to fungal poisons, and to every known spore effect. Wild ones zigzag over walls, ceilings and dry formations instead of floors, leaving no trail for infravision-equipped predators.

They range in big, loose packs guarded by the strongest of either sex. They mate often without forming families, and the whole pack protects and feeds pregnant females. A female bears 1d8 live young roughly every 7 months, and the young run, leap and hunt with the pack from birth (young are 2 HD with AC 7, THAC0 19, morale 13 and 120 XP; they move and swim at 16 but cannot carry even a small rider; three attacks deal 1-4, 1-4 and 1-6; they share the poison immunities and regeneration; size M, a 4-6 foot body plus a tail of up to 4 feet).

Captured lizards, usually taken by spell, need most of a year of training before they will obey several riders. Most drow settlements capture wild ones only to refresh bloodlines and otherwise breed their own.

Many predators eat riding lizards, and their meat is a mainstay of the duergar table. Drow eat only those that die by accident. A well-trained mount commands as much as 1,000 gp, though 600-700 is usual; untrained young bring 200-500 gp.