Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Frightful Fridays! Fire Drogani

Welcome to an early edition of Frightful Fridays! Today's monster is a sort of Christmas present to the readers of the blog and this feature, as well as to my friends who fill my inbox with an increasing number of images that I plan to turn into Frightful Fridays! monsters. Kirk found the image below, and Paris coined the name "drogani," which was perfect. I hope you like these dog-dragon hybrids.
 
Thanks for reading Frightful Fridays! for the past year and change. Keep your eyes open this Friday, because many more monsters will be coming your way. I received a slew of mashup images over the past year, and they need an entire day to themselves...which they shall receive, starting at midnight CST.
 

These drogani can be found here.

This golden haired dog seems normal, albeit oversized, until it breathes a gout of fire.
Fire Drogani CR 5
XP 1,600
N Medium magical beast
Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, scent; Perception +9


Defense
AC 18, touch 12, flat-footed 16 (+2 Dex, +6 natural)
hp 57 (6d10+24)
Fort +9, Ref +7, Will +4
Immune fire, sleep


Offense
Speed 40 ft., fly 50 ft. (average)
Melee bite +9 (2d8+4 plus trip)
Special Attacks breath weapon (40-ft. cone, 3d6 fire damage, Reflex DC 17 for half, usable every 1d4 rounds)


Statistics
Str 17, Dex 14, Con 18, Int 11, Wis 15, Cha 14
Base Atk +6; CMB +9; CMD 21 (25 vs. trip)
Feats Outflank, Pack Attack, Tandem Trip
Skills Acrobatics +2 (+6 when jumping), Fly +8, Handle Animal +3 (+11 to handle canids), Intimidate +14, Perception +9; Racial Modifiers +8 Handle Animal to handle canids, +8 Intimidate


Ecology
Environment any terrestrial
Organization solitary, pair, or pack (3–12)
Treasure incidental


Combining a domestic dog's loyalty with a dragon's power, the first wizard to create a drogani hoped to devise the best possible guard dog. It worked out quite well for the wizard...until he created a second drogani, and the pair wanted the wizard to keep producing more drogani. After the wizard refused the drogani's pleas for more of their kind, the two clever creatures conspired to destroy their creator. After burning the wizard's tower to the ground, but before securing the wizard's note on drogani creation, the pair fled to another location where they found a more sympathetic wizard, or at least one who saw potential in having an army of the creatures.


Drogani consider themselves the ultimate alphas when it comes to canids, and they lead large packs of ordinary dogs and wolves. While drogani also have draconic greed to accompany their draconic arrogance, they roam too much to establish a lair where they can keep a hoard. Instead, they usually run protection rackets in which they extort a village or larger settlement to fashion jewelry they can wear in exchange for keeping the dog packs under their control at bay. Multiple drogani in a pack share leadership, but occasionally a rivalry between two results in a battle that nearly obliterates the pack for which they fought. Strangely, a solitary drogani that has never met another drogani exhibits none of this behavior and is perfectly content to acquiesce to its master's orders.


Drogani stand roughly 4 feet tall at the shoulder, are 5 feet in length, and weigh 200 pounds. While the most common type is the fire drogani, other types with different breath weapons exist. For unknown reasons, the fusion of fire-based dragon and dog proved the most successful.