Hydra,
Huge Reptiles, Hydras are feared throughout the known world, yet very little is known about them.
First originating in greek myth, their existence is widespread.
Being coldblooded, they prefer climates where they can easily switch from a close to a warm situation, lying almost dormant in the cold and being active in the warmth. Hydras are oftentimes found in bogs, cave-filled deserts and Volcanic Icelands.
Hydras adapt very well to the climate they live in, over a period of up to 3 years, a hydras scales will change colour to reflect their hunting methods.
In Icy areas they will often lie in wait just slightly buried in the snow, resembling an Icy hill, raising their heads to strike at the last second.
Swampy Areas hydras use a different tactic, they often lie on the bottom of a large bog, with one head raised looking around the surface and breathing for the other heads, while it carefully awaits anyone to enter.
In deserts they use either of the tactics, either they borrow beneath the sand with one head on lookout duty, or resemble big sand dunes to strike onwary travellers.
Being terribly stupid, whether hydras have "personalities" and Sentience is widely debated. Scholars have come to the conclusion that some of them do and some of them don't the different hunting tactics, and migrating patterns too complicated to understand, means Hydras are very hard to calculate, their odd mating habits, some of them mating for lives while others don't suggest they are quite sentient though.
Not that any hero worth his hydra-slicing salt cares specifically much whether the Hydras understands the difficulties of childhood at all.
Contrary to popular belief, Hydras are actually not entirely Carnivorous, they are true omnivores. In season with a bad hunt of meat, a hydra will often chew down large parts of a forest to satisfy its hunger. They do enjoy human flesh but eat creatures smaller than a large dog, unless threatened by them. Being slow, Hydras are known to scavenge food, and cooking anything in a hydra infested bog is a sure way to gain their attention. Many unwary travellers have been killed by not leaving their camp fast enough when a hydra decided to degorge itself on their feast from the day before.
Hydras have four hearts, pumping their blood around in their huge amount of heads, to sustain this amount of hearts they eat a huge amount of food. They walk on big bodies, with 4 giant finned claws, allowing them to swim as well as they walk on land. Although they breathe air, Hydras can maintain themselves without air for as much as two hours.
The scales on their body are much heavier than those on their head, this is probably a cause of natural selection.
A regular hydra has 5 heads, but a randomly generated one usually have D6+3 heads.
Dice Average
STR 8D6+20 48
CON 6D6+10 31
SIZ 5D6+25 43
INT 1d6+2 6
POW 3D6 11
DEX 1d6 4
CHA -
1 Tail 10/14
2 Right Hind Leg 10/16
3 Left Hind Leg 10/16
4–5 Right Front Leg 10/16
6-7 Left Front Leg 10/16
8-12 Body 10/19
13-20 One head chosen at random 3/6
Typical Armour: Hydra Scales (10 AP on lower body, 3 on heads), Natural armour, no penalty.
Traits: Dark Sight, Night Sight, Formidable Natural weapons, Many heads, Multiplication (see below).
Combat Actions: 1 per head.
Damage Modifier: +2d12
Magic Points: 11
Movement: 6m On land/12m In water
Strike Rank: +18
Skills:
Athletics 75%, Brawn, 125%, Perception 25%, Resillience 105%, Persistence 45%, Stealth 65% (15% if their scales haven't adjusted to their hunting method yet), Swimming 105%, Unarmed 95%, Track 20%.
Many Heads: Each head of a hydra works as a seperate creature with regards to combat actions.
One head minds not if another heat is impaled, bleeding or stunned. On each of the hydras combat actions, one head will act. A hydra can still only move up to it's base movement each round, and uses one of the head combat actions to do so. A hydra will still go down from wounds to it's other locations.
A hydra does not go down or suffer fatigue from damage to it's head, see below.
Multiplication: Whenever a Hydra goes down into the same negative HP as a head usually have HP (normally -6), the head immediately falls off.
The hydra suffers no damage from a head falling off, in fact it thrives on it. Whenever a hydra loses a head, two new will grow in its place on the hydras next combat action, these heads regrow fully rested and do not suffer from any fatigue the previous head. If the hydras body is tired, such as by causing a bleed to it, or due to the too many heads rule, all the heads suffer the same fatigue penalty.
Any fire or acid damage to the stump can prevent this regrowth, and the hydra is down one head for an entire day before it can regrow it's head. It matters not whether the head was reduced with a slicing, impaling or bludgeoning weapon, the hydra simply loses the head like a lizard can lose it's tail.
Too Many Heads: If a hydra ever has more than 10 heads, it's 4 mighty hearts have a hard time supporting it. Whenever the Hydra takes a combat action and it currently has 11 or more heads, it must pass a resillience test, with -5% per head in excess of 11, failure and the hydras body (meaning all the heads and future heads as well) suffers one level of fatigue.
Attacks:
Code:
Type, Skill, Size Reach Damage AP/HP
Bite, 95% H L 3d12 As for Head
Tail, 60% L VL 1d6+2d12 As for Tail
Notes:
Tactics against a hydra: There are two ways of taking down a hydra, either by increasing it's number of heads till it goes down from fatigue, or by focusing on the body. Taking it down through increasing the number of heads can be easy if it can be caught off guard and thus shot down before it can reach you.
A typical hydra will however try to hide in a body of water to prevent it's heads from being picked off by missile weapons, only preferring to strike when it is within immediate reach of it's enemies.
The other option, taking down the body, might seem hard at first. But using something to break a few holes in it's panser, like a lucky critical with a crossbow can really ruin it's day. As soon as it starts taking too much damage to the body, the slow hydra can only prance at its slow speed after an adventurer while he runs away and peppers it with arrows.
Fire-Breathing Hydras: Some rare hydras breathe fire, they have the Breathe Fire Combat style 50%, and deal 3d6 damage with this breath weapon, each head can use this breath weapon one per minute.
