Wizard-Bonding Beast Overview

Old tales tell of magical beasts that bond with wizards and bestow favors on them. Historians cannot say whether they were companions, servants or agents of the gods, or even whether they ever existed, and scholars still argue about whether any survive. Those who believe say their power has faded since ancient days but remains formidable.

Eight such beasts have entries of their own: the siddwynd, garigal, audreeana, tualleiaght, breiryn, rhoeghn, cabhaigh and daegandal. Their statistics are reconstructed from old texts, and where the sources disagree an entry reads "Mythical" or "Unknown." Some may be real and others pure fable.

Each beast is named for the wizard who first wrote of it; since the sightings predate the cataclysm that ended the age of the old gods, all those wizards were elves. Their true names are known only to dead gods, and curious apprentices sometimes quest for them, because legend says knowing a beast's true name grants total control. Bound so, it would be soldier, servant and partner rather than companion, and its master might sweep across the land toppling realms with a gesture.

They supposedly appear only to people who passionately embrace magic, and a wizard ruler can attempt to contact one through methods recorded in old tomes, none of them certain. In return for their gifts they want payment: simple company, costly potions or magic items, which they reputedly hoard and occasionally devour, or the completion of a quest. A beast may stay a day or a year, but most tales describe visits of a few days before it returns home. No tracker, woodsman or wizard has ever found a lair, and a few who came close vanished, perhaps punished for it.

Should one appear in play, treat any 1, 2 or 3 rolled for its hit points as a 4.