Hydra
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Nature: Creature
Type: Magical Beast
Heraldry: Phiarlan

Alignment: True Neutral
CR: 4, +1 per additional head
Size: Huge

First Encountered: 15.3 "Quest for the Lost Magma-Forge"

Description: "This beast resembles some great reptile with a veritable forest of heads on long, slender necks."

Hydras are reptile-like monsters with multiple heads; they can quickly tear apart all but the most well-armored foes. The weakest breed has 5 heads, but specimens with as many as 12 heads have been encountered in the wild.

Its body is is gray-brown to dark brown, with a light yellow or tan underbelly. The eyes are amber and the teeth are yellow-white. The common hydra is about 20 feet long and weighs about 4 thousand pounds.

They prefer to live in temperate marshes and similarly moist environments, though as reptilians they don't appreciate cold environs too much.

Information: The defining trait of the hydra is not just its multiple heads, but also how it can regrow new ones after having them chopped off. Since each of its many heads can attack independently, a battle against a hydra is equivalent to combat with several monsters at once.

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A hydra can be killed either by severing all its heads or by slaying its body, and given how its body heals damage suffered within seconds, decapitation does often seem like a smart tactic. But this can be a fatal mistake, unless you know what you're doing.

Each time one of its heads is severed, 2 new heads spring from the stump 1d4 rounds later. A hydra can never have more than twice its original number of heads at any one time, and any extra heads it gains beyond its original number wither and die within a day. But until then, the monster has become even more dangerous than before, often leading to the death of unprepared opponents.
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Variants

Pyrohydra

Subtype: Fire
CR: +2

The reddish pyrohydra prefers deserts or volcanic mountains.

Each of its heads can attack by breathing flame,
and the beast itself is entirely immune to fire and heat.
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Cryohydra

Subtype: Cold
CR: +2

The purplish cryohydra lives in cold marshes or on glaciers.

Each of its heads can attack by breathing jets of lethal cold,
and the beast itself is entirely immune to frost and low temperatures.

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