Hydra

Description:

A Hydra (or perhaps, The Hydra) is a legendary creature - sometimes referred to as the king, or god of dragons. Whether or not this is a type of creature, some sort of ‘chimeric dragon’ or a unique being is not entirely clear, but regardless, it is a creature of unspeakable power.

A Hydra is a massive dragon with eight heads - each of the heads corresponding to one of the eight major species of Dragon; Cave, Desert, Forest, Ice, Jungle, Plains, Sea and Swamp. Each of these heads is intelligent, and has it’s own personality. Between them, they speak dozens of languages, possess profound knowledge, and can cast many powerful spells. Each of the heads is also able to attack independently, enabling it to do a staggering amount of damage.

On top of all of this, a Hydra is all but unkillable. Supposedly, the only way to kill a Hydra is to sever all of its heads, but the terrible beast is able to regrow its own severed heads at a startling rate - making it all but impossible to sever them fast enough to finish off.

Special:

A Hydra is so large that it is unable to effectively bring its claws to bear in combat, but it remains able to attack with all eight of its heads every turn, either biting or attacking with any or all of its seven special attacks. Each of the different heads of the Hydra represents one of the eight different major kinds of dragon, and each is able to unleash its own special attack, as defined in the entries for the dragons above.

A Hydra can only be killed by simultaneously severing all of its heads. If a Hydra’s health is reduced to the point of death, it will only be comatose - the work of severing its heads must still be done.

Severing a single Hydra head requires landing a critical hit with an edged weapon that does 30 or more damage to its Health (38 total after Protection is taken into account). From this point it will take the Hydra 20 turns to regrow the head (restoring 30 to its Health) and four turns after that, the head will be able to resume fighting normally. Permanently killing the Hydra, then, requires successfully severing all 8 heads in 20 turns, before the first one that was severed can be regrown. Needless to say, a Hydra is not stupid enough to fight to the death, and will certainly considering fleeing if more than a couple of its heads are severed in a short time frame.