Hydra

Hydra are rare giant reptiles thought to be kin to dragons. They are generally smaller than dragons, with thick, muscular bodies and shorter tails, and above all they have several heads, which marks them out from the rest of dragonkind. A hydra can have up to nine, and each can act on its own. Some scholars argue that one dominant head directs the body, but no one has proved it. A more popular idea holds that a hydra grows a new head about once a century, so counting heads gives its age. Lost or injured parts grow back in about seven days (the appendix gives 2-7 days).

Besides the winged ouranabad, known species include the common or fanged hydra, largest and strongest; the pyrohydra, which breathes fire and is thought the most aggressive; and the aquahydra, a water-dweller so little known that some naturalists think it died out long ago.

Semi-intelligent hunters of smaller animals, hydra lair in caves or abandoned buildings, patrol their territory closely and, unlike dragons, rarely sleep for long. Both parents hunt and always carry prey home to eat, and they feed and protect their young until they can fend for themselves. Being filthy feeders, they leave the inedible leftovers, such as bones, armor, coins and weapons, lying around the lair, which may hold riches or nothing at all. Young hydra with two or three heads can be trained as guard beasts, and the few trained ones fetch over 10,000 gold pieces from choosy buyers, but no one has managed to raise a hydra from a captured egg.

By the appendix a hydra's level equals its number of heads; the young hatch with two and gain another every 1-4 years, a far faster rate than the chapter's hundred-year estimate. Every species heals 1 hit point a minute. A pyrohydra can breathe fire once a day for 2-12 damage per head, and an aquahydra can breathe water.