chimera
Scarterra's chimera are based on the chimera of Ancient Greek mythology. They have three heads, dragon, lion, and goat. They have tails that are vipers. Chimera have wings, but it's taxing for them to fly over long distances.
Origins: The chimera were created by Greymoria fusing the base creatures together with powerful arcane energies. Greymoria’s intention was to send them into battle to weaken the dragons. This did not go as Greymoria planned.
the First Age: Greymoria intended them to fight the dragons who forsaken her but this backfired as the chimera nearly all became Thurekal. The chimera quickly offered their services to the highest bidder and served as scouts and outriders in many dragon armies. The chimera were usually paid with livestock.
Some legends say Greymoria punished them for their disobedience by stripping their intelligence down to the barely sapient level it’s at today, but if you ask a dragon about this story she will probably laugh and say, “Maybe they were always weak minded fools!” Bringing this up to a modern chimera is a good way to provoke an immediate attack.
Surviving the First Unmaking: Even before the elementals started swarming, many chimera were deserting their dragon masters as the dragon nations became less and less stable. Chimera are highly mobile, and their own real assets were livestock which were also fairly mobile. They survived the First Unmaking relatively unscathed, at least in comparison to everyone else.
the Second Age: As the dragon kingdoms they served declined, the chimera were already forming simple pastoral societies based on herding. This practice continued well into the Second Age. Their structures were very crude and simple, stockades made from stacked logs. Their government consisted of the biggest strongest chimera bullying two dozen of his or her fellows at most, but all modern chimera tell stories about the glorious "Chimera Kingdoms” of the Second Ages. Generations of storytellers embellishing the tales has led to modern chimera believe their ancestors lived in nothing less than an absolute paradise in giant glorious cities to rival those of the humanoids.
The chimera were not friendly with the emerging elves' kingdoms, but they didn’t fight a whole lot. The more organized and more numerous elves could have taken down the chimera’s little chiefdoms pretty easily, but most elves considered the remote lands the chimera occupied to be of little value to the point where clearing the chimera was not worth the effort to do so. By the time overcrowding motivated the nearest Elven kingdoms to begin clearing out the “mutant vermin,” the Second Unmaking was almost upon them.
Surviving the Second Unmaking: Void demons’ desired to destroy as many souls as possible and chimera do possess souls. Still, most Demon commanders would rather go after 2000 elves before pursuing 20 chimera, so attacking the chimera was generally a low priority. Chimera had to worry about fighting off leaderless, low caste Demon troops who were hungry as opposed to fighting off organized moves planned by the Demon Lords .
The chimera did not have any organized efforts to oppose the demons. They defended their lives, young, territory and livestock to the best of their ability when they thought they could prevail, and they fled when they thought they were outmatched. They rarely cooperated with other species. They were as likely to eat other species as they were to work with them. They took losses, but enough chimera survived with enough livestock to rebuild some of their old chiefdoms at the dawn of the Third Age.
Recent History and Distribution: The elves of the Second Age were only minimally interested in the chimera’s herding land but the humans and orcs of the Third Age coveted their lands much more fiercely. One by one, the chimera chiefdoms fell before the emerging “two-leggers” barbarian tribes.
Because the best grazing lands were all claimed by "two-leggers", modern chimera are no longer herders. Now they are all hunters. While chimera were never friendly with humanoid races, and had no qualms about eating sapient creatures for food before, now that their heads filled with legends of their stolen paradise, they will kill vulnerable humanoids they come across out of vengeance and not just for food.
Life cycle and Society: Chimera can live up to five centuries or more, but very few chimera live long enough to die of old age. They fight with humanoids, they fight with other predators. Male and female chimera alike will fight each other for mates or territory. Given the remote barren places chimera live, they often risk dying of starvation.
Chimera remain fertile from age 50 to 350. Females lay clutches of typically two to five eggs. If food and mates are readily available a female chimera can lay a clutch of eggs as often as once per three years, though once per decade is a more common timetable.
All chimera is born knowing the Draconic language, and they have the instincts, size, and ferocity to hunt and fend for themselves the day they are hatched. Many chimera parents leave their young to fend for themselves completely but it’s not uncommon for many mothers or the rare father to watch over the hatchling for a short while. Best case scenario a chimera will watch over her young for two or three years at most and then cut them loose.
Young chimera eventually wander and look for an unclaimed territory with good hunting. Chimera have to follow prey migrations. Male Chimera tend to fight for territory with males and females tend to fight for territory with females. Chimera both sexes want their territory to overlap with the territory of as many potential mates as possible, so chimera are more likely to tolerate chimera of the opposite sex in their territory, but male and female chimera will still fight each other when food becomes scarce. Of course chimera have to contend with dragons, humanoids, and a wide variety of other creatures.
Chimera are loners at heart, but they do have one outlet for (relatively) peaceful interaction. Every two to five years each region populated by chimera has a Gather. Without any visible trigger, chimera for well over a thousand mile radius will feel a compulsion to fly to the same area. Chimera tell stories, boast, show off for potential mates, and share what little news is relevant to the chimera as a whole. After a few days, they disperse, and only a tiny number of the attendees are slain by in-fighting.
Religious Practices: They have none. Most of them cannot name even half the Nine. They figure the gods have forsaken them, so they have forsaken the gods.
There may be exceptions, but a religious Chimera that tries to proselytize is going to have a hard time attracting mates and face more territorial challenges from rivals. When there is an exception, the chimera is probably aping the religious preferences of stronger being who bullied or bribed him into service.
Adolescent Chimera Stats
Willpower 5 Lethal Soak 6
Dexterity 3, Strength 7, Stamina 6, Appearance 1, Charisma 1, Manipulation 1, Intelligence 1, Perception 3, Wits 3
Abilities: Alertness 3, Animal Ken 3, Athletics 3, Brawl 3, Dodge 2, Intimidation 2, Stealth 3, Survival (tracking+1) 3
Multi-Heads: Chimera can take three physical actions a turn without penalty.
Head Attacks: Dragon and Cougar head bite for 9 dice lethal. Head Butt for 9 dice bashing,
Breath Weapon: Stamina damage in either 20 foot cone or 40 foot line. They can use their breath weapon as often as once every four rounds.
Wings: Chimera can fly.
Large Target: Difficulties to hit Chimera are -1
Viper Tail: Not all chimera have a viper tail. Vipers can bite at targets behind the Chimera at a -2 die penalty. They inflict five dice of lethal damage with follow up three levels of poison, resisted by Stamina difficulty 7.
Health: OK, OK, OK, OK, -1, -1, -3, -3, -5, Incap
Typical Adult Chimera Stats
Willpower 6 Lethal Soak 7
Dexterity 3, Strength 9, Stamina 7, Appearance 1, Charisma 1, Manipulation 1, Intelligence 1, Perception 3, Wits 3
Abilities: Alertness 4, Animal Ken 3, Athletics 4, Brawl 4, Dodge 3, Intimidation 3, Stealth 3, Survival (tracking+1) 4
Multi-Heads: Chimera can take three physical actions a turn without penalty.
Head Attacks: Dragon and Cougar head bite for 11 dice lethal. Head Butt for 11 dice bashing
Breath Weapon: Stamina damage in either 20 foot cone or 40 foot line. They can use their breath weapon as often as once every four rounds.
Wings: Chimera can fly.
Large Target: Difficulties to hit Chimera are -1
Viper Tail: Not all chimera have a viper tail. Vipers can bite at targets behind the Chimera at a -2 die penalty. They inflict five dice of lethal damage with follow up three levels of poison, resisted by Stamina difficulty 7.
Health: OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, -1, -1, -1, -3, -3, -5, Incap
Geographic Distribution
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