Guardian Dragon
Description
A guardian dragon is an immense, serpentine dragon created by a deity to hide and guard a fabulous, legendary treasure. Spiriting its charge away to the farthest ends of the earth and beyond, the dragon maintains its eternal vigil surrounded by a garden, a labyrinth, a palace, or something uncanny, either building such a place itself or occupying a structure crafted for it by the deity.
Over time, the guardian dragon enhances the defenses around its lair. As most guardian dragons have been protecting the same item for decades or centuries, a typical guardian dragon's lair is full of natural hazards and stocked with a variety of lesser mythic and non-mythic opponents that add to the lair's defenses.
A mortal hero might brave the dangers of such a lair, seeking the dragon's prize, but the guardian's thirst for vengeance when recovering its charge is unending. The dragon considers any theft of its possessions an affront to its honor, and takes such an offense personally. With magic that allows it to find any creature at any distance, the dragon is relentless in pursuit of its lost items. Many enterprising thieves have escaped with a treasure, only to be located days or weeks later, killed, and dragged back to the dragon's lair with the stolen items.
Because of its many victories over thieves and dragonslayers, a guardian dragon is usually in possession of a large collection of magic items, and it doesn't hesitate to make use of rings, scrolls, wands, and other items to protect itself or fortify its lair—or for instructing its lesser guardians on how to use these items. A guardian dragon might be willing to trade items it can't use for something more suitable, as long as the other party makes no attempt to take anything without permission (especially its charge, but it considers any theft reprehensible).
A guardian dragon is 50 feet long when fully uncoiled and weighs 7 tons.
Combat Stats
- Melee
- 2 claws +36 (2d8+14), bite +36 (4d6+21 plus grab and poison), 2 wings +34 (2d6+7), tail slap +34 (2d8+21 plus grab)
- Space
- 20 ft.
- Reach
- 15 ft. (20 ft. with bite)
- DR
- 15/epic and magic
- SR
- 35
- Defensive Abilities
- fortification (50%), poisonous blood (dragon bile), unstoppable
- Aura
- frightful presence (300 ft., DC 30), security (1,000 ft.)
- Racial Modifiers
- +8 Knowledge (geography), +8 Perception, +8 Stealth, +8 Survival
Ability Scores
Special Attacks
Agonizing Venom — Any creature failing its saving throw against the dragon's breath weapon, poison, or poisonous blood is sickened with pain for 1 minute. A second, third, and fourth failed saving throw mean the creature is also staggered for 1 minute, nauseated for 1 minute, and helpless for 1 minute, respectively. This is a pain effect. If the dragon expends one use of mythic power when poisoning a creature, the dragon's breath weapon and poison overcome any poison immunity the target has.
breath weapon (60-ft. cone, 2d4 Con damage from poison, Fortitude DC 33 half, usable every 1d4 rounds)
constrict (2d8+21)
Lingering Poisonous Cloud — The guardian dragon can expend one use of mythic power when it uses its breath weapon to have the cloud remain for 10 rounds, functioning as cloudkill. The dragon can expend one additional use of mythic power for this to function as mythic cloudkill.
mythic power (10/day, surge +1d12)
Poison — Bite or swallow whole—injury; save Fort DC 33; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d4 Str and 1d4 Con; cure 2 consecutive saves.
swallow whole (6d6 bludgeoning damage plus poison, AC 25, 52 hp)
Special Qualities
Heroic Challenge — Once per day, a guardian dragon can give a non-mythic creature the agile, arcane, divine, invincible, or savage mythic template (Pathfinder RPG Mythic Adventures 224). The dragon must expend a number of uses of mythic power equal to the amount the target creature's CR increases. The creature isn't under the dragon's control, but won't willingly attack the dragon unless magically forced to do so. Alternatively, the dragon can expend one use of mythic power to create difficult terrain in a 100-foot-radius burst; the type of difficult terrain is appropriate to the area (mud in plains, rubble in mountains, and so on). The effects of this ability persist as long as the dragon remains within 10 miles of the affected creature or area.
mythic immortality
recuperation
Secret Lair — A guardian dragon can spend 1 hour concentrating to create a labyrinthine extradimensional lair for itself and whatever it is guarding. This functions like greater create demiplane (Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Magic 213) and creates a demiplane with the morphic, portal, shape, and structure properties. The demiplane is approximately a 500-foot-diameter sphere, and the dragon usually fills it with a maze of corridors (most of which are large enough for the Gargantuan dragon to move through) to confuse and delay invaders intent on stealing its treasure. The demiplane's portal is connected to a spot in the dragon's hidden lair, and over time the dragon usually brings guardian creatures from the Material Plane to add to the demiplane's defenses. The dragon can have only one demiplane active at a time, and the demiplane dissolves 10d10 minutes after the dragon leaves, so the dragon leaves only for a few minutes at a time or if its treasure has been stolen.
Vengeful Seeker — A guardian dragon gains the swift tracker and quarry abilities of a ranger when tracking or hunting any creature that has confirmed a critical hit against it, penetrated its spell resistance, or taken any amount of its treasure. Any divination spell-like ability a guardian dragon uses to locate such a creature or its treasure counts as the mythic version of the spell, if appropriate.
Feats
Blinding Critical, Cleave, Cleave, Mythic, Critical Focus, Critical Focus, Mythic, Death from Above, Flyby Attack, Great Cleave, Hover, Improved Initiative, Improved Initiative, Mythic, Iron Will, Iron Will, Mythic, Multiattack, Power Attack, Power Attack, Mythic, Staggering Critical, Stunning Critical
Special Abilities
Universal Monster Rules
Special Abilities
Feats, Traits & Items
Whenever you score a critical hit, your opponent is permanently blinded. A successful Fortitude save reduces this to dazzled for 1d4 rounds. The DC of this Fortitude save is equal to 10 + your base attack bonus. This feat has no effect on creatures that do not rely on eyes for sight or creatures with more than two eyes (although multiple critical hits might cause blindness, at the GM's discretion). Blindness can be cured by heal, regeneration, remove blindness, or similar abilities.
As a standard action, you can make a single attack at your full base attack bonus against a foe within reach. If you hit, you deal damage normally and can make an additional attack (using your full base attack bonus) against a foe that is adjacent to the first and also within reach. You can only make one additional attack per round with this feat. When you use this feat, you take a –2 penalty to your Armor Class until your next turn.
Whenever you use Cleave or Great Cleave, one of your attacks can be made against a foe that is within your reach, but not adjacent to the foe you attacked. You can expend one use of mythic power when you use Cleave or Great Cleave to continue making attacks against foes within your reach, regardless of their position, as long as you continue to hit each foe. You can't use this ability to attack a foe more than once per round.
You receive a +4 circumstance bonus on attack rolls made to confirm critical hits.
You automatically confirm critical threats against non-mythic opponents. In addition, when you threaten a critical hit against a creature wearing armor with the fortification special ability or similar effect, that creature must roll twice and take the worse result when determining critical hit negation.
Whenever you charge an opponent from higher ground, or from above while flying, you gain a +5 bonus on attack rolls in place of the bonuses from charging and being on higher ground.
When flying, the creature can take a move action and another standard action at any point during the move. The creature cannot take a second move action during a round when it makes a flyby attack.
As a standard action, you can make a single attack at your full base attack bonus against a foe within reach. If you hit, you deal damage normally and can make an additional attack (using your full base attack bonus) against a foe that is adjacent to the previous foe and also within reach. If you hit, you can continue to make attacks against foes adjacent to the previous foe, so long as they are within your reach. You cannot attack an individual foe more than once during this attack action. When you use this feat, you take a –2 penalty to your Armor Class until your next turn.
A creature with this feat can halt its movement while flying, allowing it to hover without needing to make a Fly skill check.
If a creature of size Large or larger with this feat hovers within 20 feet of the ground in an area with lots of loose debris, the draft from its wings creates a hemispherical cloud with a radius of 60 feet. The winds generated can snuff torches, small campfires, exposed lanterns, and other small, open flames of non-magical origin. Clear vision within the cloud is limited to 10 feet. Creatures have concealment at 15 to 20 feet (20% miss chance). At 25 feet or more, creatures have total concealment (50% miss chance, and opponents cannot use sight to locate the creature).
The bonus on initiative checks granted by Improved Initiative increases by an amount equal to your tier. This bonus stacks with the bonus from Improved Initiative. In addition, instead of rolling initiative, you can expend one use of mythic power to treat your roll as a natural 20.
Whenever you roll a Will saving throw against a spell, spell-like ability, or supernatural ability from a non-mythic source, roll twice and take the higher result.
The creature's secondary attacks with natural weapons take only a –2 penalty.
You can choose to take a –1 penalty on all melee attack rolls and combat maneuver checks to gain a +2 bonus on all melee damage rolls. This bonus to damage is increased by half (+50%) if you are making an attack with a two-handed weapon, a one handed weapon using two hands, or a primary natural weapon that adds 1-1/2 times your Strength modifier on damage rolls. This bonus to damage is halved (–50%) if you are making an attack with an off-hand weapon or secondary natural weapon. When your base attack bonus reaches +4, and every 4 points thereafter, the penalty increases by –1 and the bonus to damage increases by +2. You must choose to use this feat before making an attack roll, and its effects last until your next turn. The bonus damage does not apply to touch attacks or effects that do not deal hit point damage.
When you use Power Attack, you gain a +3 bonus on melee damage rolls instead of +2. When your base attack bonus reaches +4 and every 4 points thereafter, the amount of bonus damage increases by +3 instead of +2. In addition, the bonus damage from this feat is doubled on a critical hit, before it's multiplied by the weapon's critical multiplier.
You can expend one use of mythic power when you activate Power Attack to ignore the penalties on melee attack rolls and combat maneuver checks for 1 minute.
Whenever you score a critical hit, your opponent becomes staggered for 1d4+1 rounds. A successful Fortitude save reduces the duration to 1 round. The DC of this Fortitude save is equal to 10 + your base attack bonus. The effects of this feat do not stack. Additional hits instead add to the duration.
Whenever you score a critical hit, your opponent becomes stunned for 1d4 rounds. A successful Fortitude save reduces this to staggered for 1d4 rounds. The DC of this Fortitude save is equal to 10 + your base attack bonus. The effects of this feat do not stack. Additional hits instead add to the duration.
Skills
Climb +38, Fly +11, Intimidate +36, Knowledge (geography) +26, Knowledge (local, religion) +18, Perception +44, Sense Motive +36, Spellcraft +18, Stealth +13, Survival +44, Swim +22, Use Magic Device +23
Spells
- Type
- Dragon
- Alignment
- N
- Size
- Gargantuan
- Environment
- any
- Organization
- solitary
- Treasure
- triple, plus one artifact or major item
- Senses
- blindsight 120 ft., darkvision 120 ft., detect magic, detect scrying, low-light vision, mistsight; Perception +44
- Aura
- frightful presence (300 ft., DC 30), security (1,000 ft.)
- Languages
- Abyssal, Celestial, Common, Draconic, Infernal, Sylvan
- Source
- Bestiary 4