Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Flaming Coward



Flaming Coward
This critter is a large creature, approximately 12-15 feet in length. The Flaming Coward is a clever, skulking predator that travels the Underdark in search of easy prey. It is particularly fond of Drow sandwiches.Flaming Cowards are, as their name says, cowardly creatures. They prefer to lie in ambush or stalk foes from the shadows. A Flaming Coward will often wait for it's prey to engage in combat before moving in for an opportunistic bite attack. Because of this hunting technique, the Flaming Coward will normally "shadow" other creatures that are often in contact with Drow. The Flaming Coward, if attacked, will try to run from the fight unless victory is assured. In the event that it is unable to flee, and it's death looks evident, it will use it's special attack. Once a day, the Flaming Coward has the ability to put their body into a state of extreme stress. This causes a chemical to be released into their body (similar to our adrenal response) that causes a dramatic rise in body temperature. So dramatic is the rise in temperature, that is can cause burns upon contact, and is even known to cause flammable material to spontaneously combust within 10' of the Flaming Coward.
For this creature I came up with the idea that the power of the heat comes from two seperate chemicals that when mixed causes a reaction and radiates immense heat, killing anything up to 10 feet away.