More Hydras

Microhydra. Size of a small dog. Carried around in handbags by fashionable society ladies. Excitable. If it grows too many heads the din of its yipping will become intolerable. Shortly thereafter, its heart will give out from the strain of pumping all that blood. Like all hydras, unbelievably poisonous.

Larger microhydras, maintained at a reasonable three heads, are often kept as guard animals. Their primary advantage over more conventional creatures is that foolish adventurers will go to the trouble of cutting off the heads and cauterizing the stump with fire instead of just stabbing it through the chest like they would with a dog.

Monohydra. Cut off the head, one more grows in its place. No net gain for the hydra. The new head will be slightly different in appearance, have a different personality and only retain 2/3 of the memories of the old head.

Monohydras are less confused than what they insist on referring to as "polyhydras" and, as a result, are more likely to participate in civilized society. They have a massive inferiority complex that they will go to some effort to disguise. Instead of openly terrorizing villages they will become involved in protection rackets, extorting money and livestock with promises to keep the villagers safe from some poorly-defined greater threat that may or may not actually exist. Their blood is so poisonous that the blood of anybody killed with it will also become poisonous, as is normal for hydras.

There are various myths and rumours about how a monohydra might become a regular hydra. Monohydras will pretend not to care about any of them. It is secretly the thing they yearn for above all.

Chronohydra. Grows two new heads before you have cut off the original. Which is to say, can grow two new heads as a move action, guaranteeing one attacker a critical hit at some point in the next three rounds. Can't use this ability if you have brought fire and are openly considering cauterizing the stumps. Temporal paradoxes cause minor earthquakes and deal d6 damage to everyone in the immediate vicinity, plus d6 more for every other temporal paradox you've participated in today.

inspired by Goblin Punch, as usual