The Strange
The first hydra still exists somewhere in Ardeyn, having crawled down into a lair in the Night Vault, heavy with dozens of heads. Lesser hydras may also accumulate extra heads, but when they reach ten or more, they tend to discard the excess heads, which braid together and crawl away as a newly "born" hydra.
A hydra is a hideous predator with five or more heads. Legend says the very first hydra was formed when a coterie of human sorcerers who served Lotan were slain, and their severed heads were thrown into a cursed well. Some thread of evil magic remained in those heads, binding the souls together in a form of hideous life, which crawled back out three days later as a hydra.
Hydras scavenge for food like regular beasts, but their favorite fare is human flesh, except for the head. Heads without merit are left to rot, but those with useful bits of knowledge or skill are incorporated onto a hydra. At first, such a head begs and pleads for release from the horror of its new existence, but eventually it seems to find peace as part of the collective, and it becomes as eager to sample new flesh as any of the other heads.
Motive: Hungers for flesh, high-value human heads
Environment (Ardeyn | Magic): Borderlands
Health 24
Damage Inflicted: Minor wound (2 points)
Armor: 1
Movement: Short
Modifications: Perception as level 7 due to its many heads; Speed defense as level 4 due to size.
Combat: A hydra is an exceptionally dangerous foe, given that all five of its heads can simultaneously bite foes in immediate range. If three or more heads coordinate their attack, the heads make one attack as a single level 7 creature dealing 12 points of damage.
If a human target is killed by a hydra, the hydra regenerates 5 points of health and gains the killed target's head as a new one of its own on the following round. A newly acquired head retains its previous motivations, but it can take only purely verbal or mental actions.
The heads of a hydra also possess remnants of previous abilities from back when they were still people. Any head not involved in a direct physical attack can use one of these abilities, once per round.
Interaction: A hydra talks among itself, almost to the exclusion of interacting with other sentient creatures. Very rarely will a hydra bargain, especially if it means forgoing the buffet of human flesh right in front of it in return for a later reward.
Use: The PCs investigate a qephilim ruin hoping to find artifacts of the ancient war between Lotan and the Incarnations. A hydra saw the PCs enter and trails them through the crumbling structures at a considerable distance, waiting for them to take a rest or become otherwise distracted before attacking.
Loot: Hydras sometimes knot cyphers and other valuables into their hair; a defeated hydra may possess 1d6 cyphers and 1d100 crowns.
GM Intrusion: The PC strikes the hydra and her weapon becomes tangled in a mass of knotty hair.