Monsters

Dragons

The region known as the Dragonsmarch earns its name from the unusual number of dragons which dwell in the area. It seems that the temperate climate with plentiful hill country, lakes, swamps and large quantities of game make for splendid conditions for the growth of the dragon population.

Dragons are a little different in this campaign setting than they are in other fantasy worlds, not immensely different but the details are worth fleshing out.

Dragons are ravenous hunters whose natural behaviors often seem vicious and cruel, giving them a reputation for having an evil nature. In folklore Dragons speak, cast spells and change shape into the forms of men but more often than not a being capable of shifting form between a dragon and a man would more likely be some manner of demon than an actual dragon.

Dragons are long lived but they do not speak and they do not wield magic. Dragons are highly territorial and they prefer to occupy locations of previous value to rivals and competitors for territory such as the strongholds of men, dwarves and elves. They seem to have a fondness for shiny objects and things that glow and will gather these together into their lair to create a horde.

Wyrmlings

Dragon mating habits are somewhat obscure, probably because those who have attempted to study their habits have been eaten. It is known that after mating a female dragon will lay a clutch of eggs which in a matter of months will hatch into slithering scaled wyrmlings. Wyrmlings are more snake like with long serpentine bodies and numbs where their wings will grow. Over a period of years they will develop legs and claws. Wyrmlings do not have a breathe weapon but their bite is a poisonous type in the kill you in hideous agony over a period of hours variety.

Wyrmlings inhabit the lair of the mother dragon and snatch food from any kills she hauls back with her. Their main purpose seems to be eating and growing while avoiding becoming food themselves. Dragons have been known to snack on their own young when no other ready game is available.

Snarling

Somewhere between the age of five and ten years a wyrmling dragon grows into a snarling. A snarling dragon has all the familiar features of an adult dragon including wings in most cases and a breathe weapon of fire or acid, lightning or cold depending on the variety. Snarlings flee from the territory of the parent dragon and usually vanish far off into the wilderness hundreds of miles from home. Some lazier offspring will flee the territory of the parent but fall into wandering in the lands nearby and this usually runs them afoul of any men, especially villagers or farmers living in the area.

Snarling dragons primarily hunt at night and sleep in hidden places in nearby forests, swamps or caves. They have no set lair of their own but will occupy a temporary one for a period of weeks or even months. During the night a snarling dragon will fill itself up on whatever it can get its greedy teeth around and farm livestock, crops and even peasants asleep in their beds make for easy pickings.

If a snarling dragon moves into an inhabited area the local villagers or Lord will place a bounty for its destruction.

A snarling dragon is any young dragon between the size of a very large dog and a horse.

Drake

Between the ages of twenty and fifty a dragon grows into a drake. A drake is typically twice the size and ferocity of a snarling dragon. Drakes are still young and mobile. They remain in this state for another fifty years and may range between entire Kingdoms or further in that time. Drakes are still mobile and they are usually the dragons that seek out older mates with established lairs and territories (hunts).

Drakes are large enough and tough enough to stand at the top of the food chain in most areas they wander into and for this reason they no longer operate as nocturnal creatures. Drakes make good use of their powerful wings and typically fly at high altitudes using their keen eyes to spot likely food.

Depending upon the variety a Drake will begin to enter the hibernation habits of a larger dragon. They will find a cave or other secure place to hibernate in during the winter or spring, summer or fall months of the year and will emerge hungry and ready for active hunting in the months immediately following.

Few wyrmlings survive to become snarling dragons and even fewer snarling dragons survive to be drakes and so full fledged drakes tend to be wary of large settlements or obviously armed bands of enemies which might pose a real threat.

Dragon

A drake grows into a fully grown dragon around the century mark in age. At this point they will seek out a ruin or some other defensible location or they will find what appears to be a location they can occupy and turn into a lair. They will work tirelessly to drive out any obvious threats from the lair and the surrounding landscape usually out to a range of five to ten miles in every direction.

The land surrounding a lair will become the full grown dragon's "hunt" and they will afterwards restrict their activities to this territory unless driven to take action outside of their hunt for some significant reason. As a dragon ages the months long period of their hibernation will increase until they emerge from resting for only a few months a year.

Dragons can live to a very great age as their metabolisms slow and their months of hibernation extend beyond the year mark. Very old dragons are known to hibernate for one, two, three or even five years in extreme cases.

Hibernating dragons are not so sleepy as to be easy victims to those who decide to hunt them.

Pig Faced Orcs (Southern)

Orcs are a race of savage barbaric humanoids which once dominated much of the lands which are now the Kingdom of Daria. It is said, that they migrated into these lands out of the mountains to the North during the years when the Dwarves ruled over the Kingdoms of Mithril. Here they found the ruins of a once powerful elvish kingdom lost so long ago that the names of the ruins and the origins of the monuments which remain are utterly forgotten.

The Orcs were the most resistant humanoids to the slow migration of men into the region and they fought against the construction of every village, every road, every human fort.

Today the Orcs continue to dwell in the wilderness and remote areas of the Shire and the Kingdom of Daria. They remain vicious and cruel and they do not organize themselves in any greater unit than their immediate tribe. A tribe of Orcs might have up to five hundred members, gathered in three or four different settlements. They are usually led by the biggest and strongest of their warriors, usually advised by a shaman with limited magic.

Orcs have facial features similar to boars with small cruel eyes of bloodshot black or brown. Males have tusks which grow longer as they mature while female tusks tend to grow to shorter stubs just visible above their lips. Orcs have flat noses like swine which are excellent and sniffing and snuffling out traces of enemies. Their sense of smell makes them unusually effective trackers.

Pig Faced Orcs are organized in tribes and bands. Most often a band of pig faced orcs consists of ten to thirty four members 1d10+2d12. A band is made up of a leader surrounded by muscle, the toughest and most experienced orcs in the band. The rest of the orcs are typical Southern stock, wicked, mean and tough.

Standard Pig Faced Orc

Armor Class: 6/13, Hit Dice 2, Attacks Sword, Axe, Spear, Short Bow, Crossbow, Special None, Move 12, HDE 3 / XP 60.

Pig Faced Orc (Muscle)

Armor Class 5/14, Hit Dice 2+2, Attacks Sword, Axe, Spear, Short Bow, Crossbow, Special None, Move 12, HDE 3 / XP 60

Pig Faced Orc (Leader)

Armor Class 5/14 Hit Dice 3, Attacks (Same as others but +1 damage.) Move 12, HDE 4 / XP 120

Mountain Orcs (Northern)

Long ago a large tribe of Orcs wandering within mountain range known today as the Central Goblinspite came upon a shrine to the Goddess Aglaeca, Mother of Monsters. The shrine was constructed for her by trolls which had since been hunted down and killed by dwarves from the Kingdoms of Mithril.

The orcs worshiped at the temple of Aglaeca and tended to it and to reward them and also to avenge her slaughtered trolls the goddess used some of her power to impart partial trollish blood into the tribe. These orcs grew larger and stronger than their Southern relatives and because of their new found strength they prospered and multiplied. After the fall of the Kingdoms of Mithril there were no longer patrols of dwarves to cull their numbers and so they spread all up and down the Goblinspite mountains.

These larger breeds of Orc are called Mountain Orcs. They retain the tusks of their Southern kin but have lost their pig like snouts in exchange for more trollish looking features.

Mountain Orcs worship Aglaeca. Their shaman are granted divine spells by her but only to the extent of her current power. (No spells higher than third level.) As devoted servants of Aglaeca the Mountain Orcs are interested only in expanding their territory and power within the mountains and seeking out whatever last ruins they can find of the lost civilization of the elves in order to destroy any items of power or important lore or knowledge of the elves to be found in such places.

Gupper Halflings

Long, long ago all of the lands of the Awkley Shire region were pleasant countryside suitable for farming and light forests. An age ago the Elves defeated the forces of Chaos and sent one of its hideous gods fleeing into the lands of the South and across the Sea. During its flight the vile Chaos goddess known as Shub inserted a piece of herself into a large hill at the center of what would later become the Boglunds.

That seed of evil grew in the heart of the hill and stretched forth its influences causing the land to sour and change. In those days the pleasant halfling village of Skittern was located at the foot of the hill but over the centuries the halfling folk dwelling at the base of the evil became strange and changed, largely through the continued influence and dark magical forces coming from within the hill.

Gupper folk are born looking just like any halfling infant and until they reach the age of twenty are almost indiscernible from regular halfling children. At this age they are referred to as tadpoles by the surrounding Gupper community and are encouraged to take part in community events and tasks to learn their place. Around the age of twenty Gupper youth develop webbing between their fingers and toes and subtle changes begin to appear in their facial features. Over the next ten years the young halfling will mutate into a typical Gupper whose wide lips, large staring eyes, rubbery features and frog like feet and hands separate them from all other types of halfling.

The regular halfling community in the town of Kettlebee consider the Gupper folk to be queer with strange and dark customs. They whisper that when the Picts marched out of the Northern forests and built the stone temple atop the hill to worship dark gods of Chaos that the Gupper folk danced with delight and aided their evil deeds as willing servants.

For many years the halflings in Kettlebee and the Gupper folk in the Boglunds had little contact. In the last hundred years or so small groups of Guppers have been found traveling outside of the Boglunds and throughout the larger shire. The Kettlebee halflings swear that the Gupper folk are up to no good and that their folk are spies or worse. For their part the Gupper folk keep to themselves, living their own strange isolated lives and keeping their business affairs in the lands outside of the swamps secret.