Sea Dragon

Sea dragons are the only dragons that live in water, and they are found in oceans and seas across the known world. Sailors and merchants, who often wrongly call them sea serpents, fear and hate them. Though serpentine, they have four legs with webbed claws, a hide of overlapping shimmering scales, and heads crested or studded with rows of spines. Old ones lose their sheen and grow barnacles and algae that make them look bearded. They reach 40 feet.

They are solitary; a mated pair is a rare sight. Like most dragons they hoard treasure, hiding their lairs among coral reefs, kelp forests or underwater rocks. They are said to be intelligent but have no skill in magic of any kind.

Savage hunters, they attack almost anything moving in the water, mostly at dusk and in the evening, sleeping through the day. Their cunning leads them to chase ships for both treasure and crew. They overturn small and mid-sized boats by swimming beneath or around them, and against large ships they rip or ram a hole in the hull.

They are hunted in turn. Kraken and the Makara attack them when food runs short, some island tribes hunt them for their gleaming rainbow scales, and sailors and traders want their long curved fangs, which are carved like ivory into scrimshaw. In some places the teeth sell for up to 50 gold pieces a pound; a typical sea dragon yields 3-12 fangs weighing 5-30 pounds each. Its scales also make high-quality scale mail, one hide giving enough for 1-4 human-sized suits. Ramming a ship, a sea dragon deals d6 damage per level, and it has a 10% chance per level of overturning a small boat.