| Notes | The eyes of this purple-scaled dragon glint with a mischievous intelligence and the sting of its tail has a silvery sheen.
The house drake is not a true drake, but rather an unusual variant of the more common pseudodragon—an example of how a creature placed under extreme conditions might adapt and evolve to grow stronger. In this case, house drakes are the result of brutal and violent predations upon their pseudodragon ancestors by imps, who began to become a true infestation in the early years after the mages guild was founded and its students began accidently releasing the little devils into the urban wilds after failing to claim them as familiars. These imps found the indigenous pseudodragons to be a delightful (and delicious) population to torment, for there was little that the pseudodragons could do against an imp’s defenses.
It wasn’t long before the most able, wise, and stubborn of the city’s pseudodragons began fighting back. Many nobles decorate their roofs with tiny amounts of precious metals, among them silver-lined weather vanes, shingles, and gutters designed to catch the sunlight to give their homes a distinctive sparkle in the sunlight. By spending years sharpening stings and teeth against these silver-enhanced decorations, or sneaking drinks of holy water from outdoor fonts at various temples, some house drakes have effectively transformed themselves into deadly weapons against the city's imps. Others gained this by chewing on silver coins to build up traces of the metal in their teeth and stings to be able to penetrate their enemy’s supernatural skin. They also spent time focusing their studies on magic to see through impish invisibility and recover from the constant fights, and gorging on fat dream spiders to develop a befuddling breath weapon. The evolution of the pseudodragon into the house drake took only a few generations, quickly enough that many scholars suspect the outside influence of a mysterious patron of some supernatural source.
Immunity to sleep and paralysis
Spell-Like Abilities (Intensity 2)
Constant—see invisibility
3/day—cure light wounds
1/day—alarm, obscuring mist
obscuring mist
Range 20 ft.
Effect cloud spreads in 20-ft. radius from you, 20 ft. high
Duration 1 min./I
Saving Throw none
A misty vapour arises around you. It is stationary. The vapour obscures all sight, including darkvision, beyond 5 feet. A creature 5 feet away counts as poor visibility (attacks are hard). Creatures farther away have count as partial darkness (formidable).
A moderate wind (11+ mph), such as from a gust of wind spell, disperses the fog in 4 rounds. A strong wind (21+ mph) disperses the fog in 1 round. A fireball, flame strike, or similar spell burns away the fog in the explosive or fiery spell’s area. A wall of fire burns away the fog in the area into which it deals damage. This spell does not function underwater.
Breath Weapon:
Up to three times per day and no more than once every 1d4 rounds, a house drake can breathe out a small cloud of silver mist in a 10-foot cone. All creatures in this area must succeed at an opposed WIL roll or be confused for 1 round. This is a mind-affecting effect.
Ferocious Will:
House drakes have a stubborn streak of fierce independence and gain a +10 bonus on WIL saves (this bonus is included in the stats).
In addition, the first time in a day that a house drake successfully saves against a mind-affecting spell or spell like ability, the caster of the spell must succeed at an opposed WIL save or be staggered for 1 round (unable to attack or cast spells) by a blast of magical, mental feedback.
Silver Strike:
All of a house drake’s natural attacks are treated as being silver (and or good) for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.
Conections
Majenko has countless other house drake friends scattered throughout Korvosa, and the house drake can be sent out to gather information at any time in the city. Each information-gathering mission takes Majenko only 1 hour to complete; he attempts a Perception check in place of the normal influence check to determine the success of its information gathering efforts. |
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