Saffravi the Greater Purple Dragon

Saffravi is one of a kind. Her long, serpentine body recalls the dragons of the east, but the resemblance ends there. Millennia ago she was a pet leopard belonging to a prince of a vanished empire, who renounced his riches to wander as a beggar in search of enlightenment and founded a faith still practiced in a neighboring mountain realm. Close contact with that holy man gave her a soul and set her on a cycle of rebirths, the latest as a great purple dragon.

She fights like the hunter she has been in past lives, crippling foes with spells and breath while minimizing her exposure, then closing in.

As mistress of the desert winds, she controls all air movement within 500 yards, and twice a day she can raise a dust storm lasting five rounds that deals 2d4 per round and knocks victims down; a save vs. breath weapon halves the damage and keeps them upright. Up to nine times daily she breathes a 100-foot cloud of fine purple dust that spreads from 5 feet wide at her jaws to 50 feet, inflicting 8d10 choking damage on anything that breathes (half on a save vs. breath weapon).

At will she may take astral form or polymorph into any beast of prey, leaving behind a purple-dust shadow of her body that only +3 or better weapons can strike. Letting one dust body fade and shaping a new one far away lets her travel great distances in an instant.

She casts each of these once per day. Wizard: (1) gaze reflection, color spray; (2) whispering wind, darkness 15' radius; (3) wind wall, blink; (4) rainbow pattern, dimension door; (5) teleport, telekinesis; (6) project image, control weather; (7) vanish, reverse gravity. Priest: (1) locate animals or plants, animal friendship; (2) speak with animals, snake charm; (3) summon insects, hold animal; (4) repel insects, giant insect; (5) animal growth.

She favors high, dry country and wanders as a nomadic huntress, keeping no treasure. Solitary by nature, she avoids people, though certain powerful individuals sometimes force her cooperation.

In astral form she lives on the world's mystic energies; in the flesh she is a ravenous carnivore.