Scalamagdrion

The scalamagdrion looks like a gray-scaled dragon with green eyes, short short, stubby wings and a lengthy tail studded with bone spikes it can curl and grip with. In build it most resembles a silver dragon. People often assume there is only one, but it is in fact a race. The most famous specimen, Vurmalith, is the creature usually depicted in the book named after its kind, The Scalamagdrion, and those who do not know its proper name sometimes call it a Guardian of the Tome.

Some sages think the creatures share a soundless language of jaw, claw and wing movements, since witnesses describe gestures much like speech or sign. They are so silent and so hostile that no one has managed to study the idea.

Its favorite opening is to pounce from above, or to hover briefly and then drop. A pouncing scalamagdrion attacks with all four claws (1d6 each), its bite (2d6) and its tail (3d4). Its weak wings can only manage one pounce from a hover before it must land or fly away.

It often tries to land squarely on one foe and pin it. This takes a normal attack roll against AC 10, adjusted only for the victim's Dexterity and magic, and deals 2d6 damage to a creature of any size, though only size S or M foes are truly held: bigger ones are too heavy to keep down, and smaller ones can be held but not attacked while trapped. A pinned creature loses its Dexterity bonus to AC, suffers -4 to hit, cannot use two-handed weapons, and may need a Dexterity check to draw a weapon at the DM's option. Each round after being pinned it may try a bend bars roll to wriggle free. While holding a victim, or whenever it fights on the ground, the monster uses its front claws, bite and tail, which can whip to either side or the front.

Gases, intense heat and intense cold cannot harm it. It is surrounded at all times by silence 15' radius, reaching that far from every part of it, and it turns spells as a ring of spell turning, even gaining a saving throw against spells that normally allow none. Mages dread it for good reason. Vurmalith, which has maximum hit points and other unrevealed powers, has never been beaten, though some wizards claim to have killed other specimens with plenty of help. Some sages believe each scalamagdrion absorbs power from the mages it eats, so any one of them may have extra spell-like abilities.

It fears nothing and loves human flesh, yet it is smart enough to drag a kill, gear and all, back to its lair rather than risk being caught mid-meal.

The book's illustration shows the beast crouched in a sprawling cave network. Explorers report several scalamagdrions in caverns under a vast polar ice sheet, reached from a pair of cold northern lands. Ripping out or destroying the page that holds the picture does nothing to the creature or the gate to its home, but any such attempt is sure to bring it charging out. Only the scalamagdrion decides when the gate opens, and no other living being has ever passed through it.

Wands and rings lie scattered among the bones beneath its perch. If it really does soak up magic from its victims, its body might be a valuable ingredient in crafting magical items.