Copyright 2011 Wizards of the Coast.

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When someone in the Nentir Vale points behind you and shouts “Look out, a three-headed dragon!” you should always look.

The Lore

I mentioned in earlier posts that the Vale was first settled by people from Nerath about three hundred years ago, and that the first area they settled is now known as the Old Hills.

What we hadn’t learned yet was that this settlement process was far from peaceful. Back then, the Dawnforge mountains that make up the Vale’s eastern border were home to a small community of chromatic dragons who considered all they saw to be their domain. The first few attempts by human settlers to build villages in the Old Hills were thwarted by dragon attacks, with great loss of life and material.

It was only when the settlers asked the dwarves for help that they succeeded in establishing a foothold. The next wave came accompanied by a sizable dwarven military force, which was quick to build the fortress of Hammerfast and use it as a base to fight off the dragons. It didn’t take long for them to meet the creature that was ultimately behind these attacks: Calastryx, the three-headed red dragon.

Calastryx was too powerful for even the dwarven army to defeat, but they gave the wizard Starris enough time to cast a curse upon the dragon, placing her in a slumber that was supposed to be eternal. This allowed Nerath to finally settle the Vale, and Hammerfast to eventually grow into one of its major cities. To this day, no one knows the dragon’s history or why she has three heads. Does she suffer from a genetic or magical mutation? Is she the creation of a cruel god or of some other entity? Answers are thin on the ground, but your PCs just might get the chance to ask her.

You see, that curse held strong for three centuries but it’s starting to weaken. It’s possible Calastryx will awaken in the near future. The region of the Dawnforge mountains where her lair used to be is currently inhabited by the Emberdark kobold tribe, who have their own share of historical beefs with the Hammerfast dwarves. Their priests have begun receiving visions from Kurtulmak, one of Tiamat’s Exarchs, speaking of Calastryx’s imminent awakening. The kobolds have starting raiding nearby travelers and settlements with the aim of gathering a treasure trove they’ll use to bribe their future mistress into accepting their loyalty. You can already see some of their warriors wearing shoulder pads that mimic extra heads, in honor of Calastryx.

The Numbers

The star of the show here is clearly Calastryx, but we also get a stat block for an Emberdark-specific kobold that you can mix in with the standard kobold stat blocks.

Emberdark Kobold Pillager

Apparently the Emberdark are pretty fond of fire, because this kobold here is something of a fire-themed paladin of Tiamat. It’s a Level 4 Soldier with 55 HP which, given the usual kobold level range, makes it one of their most powerful champions. It has Speed 6 and Darkvision.

The pillager fights with a Flamebiter Spear that deals fire damage, marks for a turn, and makes it so targets that ignore the mark take 5 fire damage. They can also cast Fire Dart spells that do fire damage and mark for a turn, though they don’t have a “punisher” rider attached to them.

When the pillager hits 0 HP, it goes out in a Blaze of Glory, making one final spear attack as a free action.

I would probably turn the “take fire damage if you ignore the mark” rider from the spear into a trait that applies to both attacks, because things can get fiddly if you have to remember if a mark from the pillager has it or not.

Calastryx

Our star is a Huge Natural Magical Beast (Dragon) and a Level 14 Solo Brute with 684 HP. Level-wise she’s an adult red, but her actual stats differ quite heavily from the standard dragon template.

She still has the standard draconic Action Recovery trait that ends any dazing, stunning or dominating effect on her at the end of her turn. The new bit here is that her Multiple Heads give her three turns per round, at fixed initiative counts of 30, 20, and 10. The only limitation here is that she cannot delay or ready actions (something monsters rarely do in my experience) and she only has one set of immediate actions between these turns.

Her Reach 3 bites damage and slide 3 squares. Her Breath Weapon (recharge 6+) does light fire damage, half on a miss, and creates a damaging fire zone for a turn. She can also fire single-target Inferno Shots at will to deal heavy fire damage. Finally, Rip and Tear is an encounter power that allows her to bite up to three targets for slightly less damage than the basic bite.

These actions seem a little weak, and they indeed are, fit more for a regular monster than a solo. But remember that Calastryx get three full turns per round to use them in. Each of her heads has a fully independent mind and they’re in perfect coordination. The Power of Three means each of them tracks their Breath Weapon and Rip and Tear powers separately. So she actually gets three uses of Rip and Tear per encounter, and three independently recharging uses of her breath weapon.

Once she is first bloodied, Calastryx immediately grows a fourth head, which from then on acts on initiative 40 with its own independently tracked breath weapon and encounter power.

Calastryx might be much more wrathful than your typical red dragon, but she’s still very smart. She will fight the PCs in places where she can herd them into tight spaces to ensure they’re all hit by her breath weapons and bites.

Final Impressions

Calastryx shows us how far we can stretch the mechanics and still end up with something that feels like a dragon, and I love her for it. Story-wise she’s pretty much your standard slumbering kaiju. She could be an awesome final boss for a campaign that ends at level 10, or a memorable “welcoming gift” for PCs who just made it to paragon tier.

A lengthier campaign focusing on Calastryx could present the threat of her awakening early, and have its early conflicts be against the Emberdark kobolds. It might even be possible to reach a diplomatic resolution with them and get them onboard as allies against Calastryx when she finally awakens. I mean, your typical dragon already doesn’t have a great track record of treating its kobold lackeys very well, and Calastryx is even less inclined to do so no matter the size of the tribute they present her with.