Tanar'ri, True - Dracor'ri

Description

A great roar resounded through the green stone cathedral, shaking its foundations. The gold scaled great wyrm recognised the trap at the last possible moment, spinning and trying to get out of the cramped room. She was too late, a giant cage of shimmering green energy surrounded her, constricting, she was caught.

She lay there, struggling to breathe, and severely weakened by the magical net. Her attention turned to the side of the small chamber as the image of her abducted hatchling faded completely now, revealing a grinning cambion.

The dragon tried to launch a gout of flames at the Tanar'ri, but found the net too constricting to do so. The cambion laughed and was gone, his departing wink was promise of an unenjoyable stay in the Abyss.

The Dracor'ri are direct descendants of that first dragon's bloodline. The tanar'ri's motives were clear enough. They wanted to breed a new race of themselves to help wipe out the baatezu. And they nearly succeeded.

The captured hatchling male was whisked away and held until mature. The mother was immediately used as breeding stock, kept alive by the fact that she bore eggs rather than birthing her babies. Since the successful creation of the Dracor'ri, many more dragons, both good and evil have been abducted and used in such a way. There have only been a few offshoots of this race, only the following have been catalogued by Guvner sages:

• Tanar'ri, True - Dracor'ri (Demon Dragon)
  • Parentage: True Tanar'ri + Female Dragon
  • Method of Birth: Hatched.
• Tanar'ri, Greater - Dracorion
  • Parentage: Greater Tanar'ri + Male Dragon or Dracor'ri + Humanoid
  • Method of Birth: Born or hatched, depending on its mother.
• Tanar'ri, Lesser - Dracor'ling
  • Parentage: Humanoid + Dracorion
  • Method of Birth: Born.

NB: The explorer mimir holds dark on only the Dracor'ri itself at present.

Chant goes the dracor'ri is the most furious creature ever to be spawned by the Abyss. Immensely huge, its entire purpose of existence is to destroy. It is highly intelligent, save in battle, for once battle lust takes it over it becomes a mindless machine of destruction. By happy coincidence, this is exactly what the tanar'ri wanted.

The only tanar'ri to be born into "greater" status, rather than advancing to that power stage, the Dracor'ri understands all spoken languages, and communicates by telepathy. When enraged it screams its speech out loud; a truly deafening display.

From birth, to death a Demon Dragon's scales are pitch black, the edges of each scale highlighted by the colour of its parent's scales. "ie. black highlighted by gold."

Aside of their average draconic (if immense) appearance they have numerous small tentacles hanging from the sides of their forepaws, they uses these to cling to victims. Similar appendages make up a large beard-like growth on their chins.

Combat

Demon Dragons are never surprised. Their natural senses extend far beyond mortal reach, their magical senses even farther. There's a good chance a Demon Dragon will know you're coming before you do.

The dacor'ri attacks with a claw/claw/bite attack most often, holding its victim in its tentacles. It likes to grind victims under its massive paws, or swallow a victim whole.

If slain in the Abyss, the Demon Dragon will slowly melt into a boiling mass of acid. If slain on Baator, it will explode in a blinding ball of pure acid (50 hp damage for 100' radius. Double damage to Baatezu), 3d10 lightning bolts streaking out from the centre as well, causing 3d8+4 damage each (double damage to baatezu) and leaving a 40 foot deep, 100 foot wide pool of acid in their place.

In addition to those available to all tanar'ri, the Demon Dragon can use the following spell like powers at 20th level of spell use: detect invisibility (always active), detect magic (always active), true seeing (always active), detect lie (always active), dispel magic, corrupt water, darkness, summon insects, control winds, affect normal fires, pyrotechnics, heat metal, and shapechange (Most often into a normal looking dragon. Rarely it takes humanoid form). Once per hour it can automatically gate in 1-8 least, 1-6 lesser, 1-4 greater, or one true tanar'ri. Demon Dragons cannot cast magic, perhaps because they are too insane. They are immune to fire/acid/electrical/gas damage. Other than this they possess standard tanar'ri immunities.

Breath Weapon

The Demon Dragon can use the following breath weapons:

• Cone of fire 120' long, 20' wide at the mouth, 90' wide at the end.
• Stream of acid, 20' wide, and 90' long, fired in a straight line.
• 20' wide bolt of lightning that streaks out 160' in a straight line from the dragon's mouth.

Having a variety of breath weapon attacks ensures the dracor'ri will be able to maximise damage to fiends immune to one or more types of attack. Damage in all cases is as severe as that of a great wyrm, at 24d12+12.

Habitat/Society

Lucky for the Baatezu only one Demon Dragon exists at a time, much like the Prime's Tarrasque. Demon Dragons exist for one purpose, and one purpose only: War with the Baatezu. When a Demon Dragon egg is laid it is taken to a large secure cave in the depths of Pandemonium, where the hatchling inside is bombarded with the insane noises from that plane. Within days the egg grows to 60' feet in size and the hatchling extricates itself from within. The tanar'ri guards (consisting of no less than twenty cambions, and two chasmes) bind the hatchling with magic and feed it a steady diet of slain baatezu. It immediately begins growing, at a rate of 10' a day. Once it reaches the full size it is planeshifted to Baator and set free. Its natural hatred, and bloodlust for the plane's inhabitants takes over. The dracor'ri fights to the death (which has been known to take several weeks, costing countless thousands of baatezu deaths); the perfect kamikaze monster. Once the tanar'ri learn of its death, they immediately begin the process again. It's unclear why they don't make more dracor'ri at once, however...

Very rarely a Demon Dragon will overcome its insanity long enough to think for its self. Even more rarely will it take a mate. The resulting offspring is always a Dracorion.

Ecology

Demon Dragons will eat anything, for their stomachs are filled with volatile acid, which digests anything within minutes. Swallowed prey suffers 50 hp worth of damage a round. The only thing they hate more than the baatezu, are their parents. They can instinctively identify them and attack on detection.

Also in this section of the source

Tanar'ri, Greater - Kah'Lesar

By John Kastronis, Gothenem and Jon Winter, artwork by Michael Corriero

Statistics

Description

"I heard o' a Kah'Lesar once, the berk kept on rattling his bone-box on how the tanar'ri were just about to take over Baator. I saw the berk tell a pit fiend that. Poor sod's in the dead book now."

— Krainius Talfar, tiefling mercenary

Obsessed with pain, inflicting it and receiving it, the Kah'Lesar are probably the most dangerous tanar'ri in a toe to toe fight. They have no regard for their own bodies, flinging themselves into combat with abandon.

Kah'Lesar appear as large humanoids, covered in thick, rubbery, red-black skin. Hideous scars cover their bodies and open wounds ooze out thick, gummy blood that gives them a sickening sheen. Kah'Lesar use only a scythe-like sword as a weapon, and they seem to display an almost symbiotic link to it, prompting some scholars to suggest the scythe is actually a part of the creature rather than a weapon. This may well be so, for a Kah'Lesar has never been spotted without its weapon, dripping almost constantly with something blood. Their teeth are pointed and many, often too large for their mouths, forcing their mouths to jut open and giving them a gruesome appearance.

Kah'Lesar are usually the leaders of Blood War diversionary units, they're renowned (more so than your average tanar'ri) for attacking baatezu on sight. Unlike many tanar'ri, Kah'Lesar are not immune to electricity, they suffer half damage from it. They can communicate by telepathy.

Combat

These tanar'ri love combat more than anything else. They attack anything and everything unless a smarter or more powerful tanar'ri commands them not to. And sometimes they don't even listen to those orders. They recklessly throw themselves at opponents, no matter how dangerous.

Kah'Lesar can strike with their scythes for 1d8+2 damage twice a round, and with their pincers that do 2d4 damage. A creature bitten must make a save vs. paralysation or bleeds for 1d6 damage per round until the wound is bound. If a Kah'Lesar inflicts more than 30 points of damage in a single round, it flies into a blood rage, doubling the number of scythe attacks it can make per round. Worryingly, with every successful scythe strike, a Kah'Lesar gains 2 hit points.

Weapons that aren't holy, baatezu-, or yugoloth-forged have an unusual effect on Kah'Lesar. Instead of causing the tanar'ri damage, the Kah'Lesar are actually healed of the same number of points of damage the wound should have inflicted. There must be something about the force of hatred behind an attack these creatures can feed from, for only attacks intended to kill the Kah'Lesar have this effect. In addition, weapons of +1 or greater enchantment, even those forged by the aforementioned races, have no affect on the Kah'Lesar.

The bane of all Kah'Lesar are healing spells. All spells that would normally heal the target act as a reversed form of the spell (ie. a cure light wounds would become a cause light wounds). Damaging spells are also reversed, if possible (ie. a harm would become a heal, but a fireball would still deal normal damage). In addition to those abilities common to all tanar'ri, Kah'Lesar have the following spell-like powers: cause light wounds, cause serious wounds, cause severe wounds, harm (5 times per day), detect good, detect invisibility, and detect magic. They can also attempt to gate in 1d4 other Kah'Lesar tanar'ri once per hour with a 40% chance of success.

Habitat/Society

Kah'Lesar are often used to cause heavy damage in combat. They can inflict heavy casualties before they fall. They are often kept in isolated pens until battle, because they would attack their fellows if they were allowed to go free.

Occasionally, a slightly more self-controlled Kah'Lesar will be the leader of small groups of tanar'ri troops in the Blood War; in fact, anything considered a suicide mission by the tanar'ri high-ups is led by a Kah'Lesar. Strangely, perhaps, the Kah'Lesar don't seem to mind. Their hatred of baatezu is almost holy -- as much as the word "holy" can be applied to the foul tanar'ri -- in fact, it is rumoured by some members of the race that the Blood War started because of a Kah'Lesar.

Nobody really knows how these hideous creatures came into being, but chant goes it was an unnatural and terrible magical experiment conducted by a twisted Abyssal Lord or three. If their purpose was to find a new weapon to use against anything living, they certainly succeeded. Now, Kah'Lesar are usually created when a bar-lgura is promoted for exceptional service. Known for their stupidity, bar-lgura consider this a great honour - - high-up tanar'ri know the promotion's basically a death warrant, and a short one at that. But for those brief few days, the Kah'Lesar will be highly respected by his fellow tanar'ri. Well, as much as a bloodsucking beast of pure evil can show respect, at least...

Kah'Lesar are usually the first to die in a Blood War, because of the reckless abandon that they throw themselves at their enemies. They usually take with them a swathe of baatezu troops; the tanar'ri berserkers are well feared by the lawful fiends, who call them "Ravagers".

Ecology

Kah'Lesar care for nothing other than hurting and being hurt. They do not seem to understand anything else. The Blood War is only an easy way to cause harm to them. They usually don't live more than a few weeks in tanar'ri society, therefore their impact upon the Abyssal ecology as a whole is small. They are carnivores, and they can also eat teeth. No one knows why teeth are a delicacy to Kah'Lesar, but they are. Chalk it up to a mystery of the planes, eh?