Her skin beneath the thief's leathers was prickled at the cold black. Sitting up, a headache: some soreness in the muscle - but ... unharmed? Was her dagger missing? No... neither her pack. The lantern? The lantern!
A sudden urgency worked its way into her rib cage. Rummaging into her pack, she fumbled at the buckle - a clatter as something fell - a curse at herself: where was her flint? She needed the flint.
"Maejea."
It wasn't a question - more an observation, the Dwarf's voice in the darkness.
"Radovan!"
Clutching the pack closed to her stomach, Maejea felt her way over to the voice's point of origin.
"I've a torch beside me," the Dwarf said, his voice forced, deliberate, "but I'm not sure you want to light it. I've got a nasty break in the leg it'd be like to show."
"You've got a working mouth in your beard, though, Radovan," she replied, "That's a start."
The torch was in her hand in a moment; her heartbeat again regular, the flint soon followed. It was in the small pouch she'd stitched to the pack's flap, near the strap. Steeling herself, she went to work on the torch.
And a click.
She paused. Silence to her left. An inquiring grunt in a Dwarfish tone.
Back to work - the torch was fresh; alight - trailing smoke upwards. She
held it aloft; removing herself from the billows, offering them instead to
the distant cavern ceiling.
A click in the darkness. This time, to her right. Then silence.
"We'd best double back," she said, "I haven't heard Bogdana or Erluf - we'll need to get out if we're apt to get our bearings."
Radovan was heavy - it helped... she pulled his hand over her shoulder... that he could put part of the combined weight of Dwarf and armor on his good leg. They dragged a few steps together. Her foot slipped - she shifted, looking down, caught herself. Looking up again...
A hiss - not a hiss, a cacophonous whisper: a voice in the sound of molten steel quenching in a pool.
"Don't forget to write."
From above, a neck came into view - the length of a man, the thickness of his thigh - atop it came the head, a smiling loaf: a row of daggers on daggers - taunting. Smiling.
A scream.
Her own scream.
An exclamation of pain and the thump of flesh and steel on flagstones - and the fleeting light of a torch, flickering, its flame fighting against a quenching faux wind, bypassing with rapidity the still cavern air: bound to a fleeing, clutching hand.
Laughter.
Why We Fear the Dark
Nightmare Dragons are the beast in the dark - the monster in the sweltering depths. Their scales are jet black and have a reflective quality to them, as though polished: enough to glimmer in torchlight if caught at the right distance. Their wings are bat-like, their tails terminating in a triangular bone prong, usable as a barbed whip. Their snouts are long - like a gharial - and lined with long teeth standing side by side in almost machine-like precision of their order and orientation.
Nightmare Dragons are found in deep caves within a few hours flight of civil settlement: or in the deep places where they might creep on under-dwellers. They are only encountered outside of these caverns at night, hiding from the moonlight.
Encountering Nightmare Dragons
| Nightmare Dragon |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Armor Class: | 1 |
No. Appearing: | 1 |
| Hit Dice: | 7 | Save As: | Elf 7 |
| Move: | Std: 90' (30') Fly: 240' (80') |
Morale: | 11 |
| Attacks: | Claw / Claw / Bite |
Treasure Type: | ~ (H) |
| Damage: | 1-6 / 1-6 / 2-24 |
Alignment: | Chaotic |
| Frequency: | Rare | Chance In Lair: | 70% |
- Chance of Talking: 40%
- Chance of Being Asleep: 30%
- Spells by Level (1/2/3): 3/1/~
Highly intelligent, Nightmare Dragons will intentionally con their prey (and
see everything with the concept of terror as prey items!) Their voices are
sibilant, their pitch varied, and they are fond of speaking to those able to
speak with them - aggrandizing themselves within a shroud of mystery, seeking
awe and fear from the onlooker.
Nightmare Dragons have the ability to Hide in Shadows as a Thief of level equal to half again the Dragon's hit dice - so, an HD 7 Nightmare Dragon would have a 75% chance - equivalent to a level 10 Thief. Similarly, Nightmare Dragons have the ability to Move Silently as a Thief of level equal to the Dragon's hit dice - so, an HD 7 Nightmare Dragon would have a 55% chance to Move Silently.
Using their tail, a Nightmare Dragon may make a whip attack in lieu of their two claw attacks. This attack deals 1-8 damage, but also benefits from a bonus to hit against armored targets, the bone spur serving as a puncturing implement:
- Against AC 6 or greater, the whip attack gains no bonus to hit.
- Against AC 3 to 5, the whip attack gains a +1 bonus to hit.
-
Against AC 2 or less, the whip attack gains a +3 bonus to hit.
Nightmare Dragons have perfect sight in darkness - including magical darkness
- out to 120 feet.
Breath Weapon
- Template: Cone
- Range: 80' x 30'
The breath weapon of a Nightmare Dragon does not deal damage.
Instead - it emits a pungent, choking gas of a dark color - ranging in color from gray-black to purple, varying from dragon to dragon - which has an extreme anesthetic or narcotic effect on living beings exposed to it.
Any character hit by the breath weapon must immediately Save. Characters of fewer hit dice to the dragon breathing are affected as follows:
-
On a success, the character is affected as though by the
Cause Fear spell.
-
On a failure, the character falls into a deep slumber - unable to be woken
but by the most extreme stimuli (e.g., sudden submersion in ice water). This
slumber will last a number of turns equal to 1d4 times the difference in hit
dice: thus, a HD 7 Nightmare Dragon breathing on a level 5 character would
put them to sleep for 2d4 turns.
Characters of hit dice equal to or greater than the dragon are subjected to a lesser effect as follows:
-
On a success, the character is shaken, suffering a -1 penalty to hit and to
Saves made against the dragon which breathed on the character to elicit the
save.
-
On a failure, the character is affected as though by the
Cause Fear spell.
Characters of any hit dice comparison - if subjected to the same dragon's
breath attack a second time within 24 hours - may re-roll their save if the
first fails. Dragons who put characters to sleep tend not to kill them - but
revel in taking some captive, leaving others; in moving the characters into an
unfamiliar part of the dungeon; or other tricks designed not to kill, but
instead to inspire a stress response.
Lair and Treasure
Nightmare Dragons make their lairs in rocky places - places where they can
hide in darkness, but still prey after nightfall on surface dwelling sentient
peoples. Alternatively, Nightmare Dragons have also been known to roost in the
deep places of the earth - preying on dwellers under the mountain instead.
They are prideful things, prone to hubris - collecting treasures and trinkets
from defeated foes out of vanity as much as anything else - and take pleasure
in arraying that horde in a way as to tempt, to lure, the unsuspecting.
Resistances and Immunities
Nightmare Dragons are immune to fear-based, sleep-like, and similar mind-influencing effects.
Nightmare Dragons resist raw magic - such as Magic Missile - taking
half damage therefrom.
Deeper Lore
Fear feeds the Nightmare Dragon.
Spawned from the chaos and tumult in the spirit sea by the countless worries and terrors thrashing and resonating like ripples proceeding from a stone thrown into still waters, Nightmare Dragons are a plague on the world imposed by the Lords of Entropy so as, to their ends, to unintentionally destabilize the societies on which they prey by sowing fear, by reaping dread and consternation, in order to satisfy their natural, insatiable appetites.
The size of the dragon is proportional to the society on which it is able to
prey - as such, the largest, most dangerous of them tend to be hidden in plain
sight - or underneath plain sight, as it may be - in metropolitan areas. Some
live in the labyrinthine sewers of ancient metropolises - causing discord and
fright in the shadows:
others live in crags surrounded by many small villages - sustaining themselves
by insinuation, by turning the suspicions of the villages against one another.
Nightmare Dragons are not prone to wanton violence - understanding that death is the final terror: a delicacy, surely, but an end to the meal: the throat slit on the goose with the golden egg. They may injure their prey - they may resort to violence, may resort to more blunt appearances - in situations where the atmosphere of a place is insufficient to sustain them: however it is not typically a first choice for the reasoning provided. Younger dragons will be less aware of this fact - and older dragons far more clever from experience.
Public domain artwork retrieved from
Pixabay and
OldBookIllustrations.com
and adapted for thematic use. Attributions in alt text.
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