Wyvern
| Wyvern | |
|---|---|
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| (Creature) | |
Wyverns are a race of venomous drakes known for their aggressive personalities.[1]
Appearance
Wyverns average around 15 feet in length and normally weigh about 2,000 pounds. While wyverns resemble blue-coloured dragons, the most obvious differences being their lack of front arms, as they have only rear legs and wings, and their tails ending in venomous stingers.[1]
Habitat and ecology
Wyverns favour warm and temperate areas, particularly hills, although they can dwell in many environments. They usually claim an area from 100 to 200 square miles as their exclusive hunting territory and fight other wyverns to the death over their domain.[2]
Wyverns are highly aggressive creatures, and though capable of speech have little interest in conversation beyond taunting prey, issuing territorial challenges or demanding tribute.[1] These violent tendencies and lack of sophistication results in most dragons seeing wyverns as hopelessly primitive savages.[2]
When hunting, wyverns prefer to crash into their targets talon-first, as their resilient bodies take little damage from such collisions, in order to stun their prey before injecting it with venom or carrying it over a cliff. As wyverns lack the strength to carry intact prey items in flight for extended periods of time, they prefer to drop subdued prey from great heights and afterwards pick through their remains.[1]
Wyverns are distant relatives of amphipteres, which unlike them lack even their hind legs and possess only a pair of wings. Both species possess long tails tipped with inborn weapons; unlike a wyvern's poisonous stinger, however, an amphiptere's tail ends in a sharp spur used primarily to spear targets.[3]
Society
Due to their aggressive tendencies, wyverns are normally solitary creatures, though they sometimes band together to hunt larger prey that a single wyvern cannot kill alone. Wyverns can sometimes control their violent urges long enough to ally with others, such as giants and tribes of violent monstrous humanoids. There have even been reports of tribes of lizardfolk and boggards that have bribed wyverns to serve them as mounts.[2] Despite their otherwise antisocial tendencies, wyverns enjoy grim humor and violent tales, and can be appeased with meat, treasure and flattery to serve as guardians or steeds for brief periods.[1]
Variants
Night wyvern
Covered in dark blue scales to provide camouflage, night wyverns are a more powerful nocturnal variant of the standard wyvern. However, such wyverns are inhibited in strong sunlight. This variant definitely exists in Varisia in the area of the Iron Peaks and the Wyvern Mountains.[4]
On Golarion
Wyverns inhabit places across the Inner Sea region, ranging from the half-frozen Antler Rock in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings of northern Avistan[5] all the way down to Dahak's Teeth in The Shackles where Aashaq's wyverns terrorise the people of Garund,[6] and east to the Tors of Levenies in the Stolen Lands.[7]
Several prominent locales across the Inner Sea region are named after the ferocious beasts, most notably the Wyvern Mountains atop the Storval Plateau in Varisia[8] and the orc city of Wyvernsting where beastmasters of Wingripper tribe soar on their semi-tamed wyverns above the city.[9]
References
For additional resources, see the Meta page.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Mark Seifter, et al. (2019). Bestiary (Second Edition), p. 133. Paizo Inc. ISBN 978-1-64078-170-2
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Jason Bulmahn. (2009). Bestiary (First Edition), p. 282. Paizo Publishing, LLC. ISBN 978-1-60125-183-1
- ↑ Dennis Baker et al. (2015). Bestiary 5, p. 18. Paizo Inc. ISBN 978-1-60125-792-5
- ↑ Wolfgang Baur. (2007). Fortress of the Stone Giants. Fortress of the Stone Giants, p. 21. Paizo Publishing, LLC. ISBN 978-1-60125-039-1
- ↑ Matthew Goodall, Jonathan Keith, Colin McComb, and Rob McCreary. (2011). Lands of the Linnorm Kings, p. 23. Paizo Publishing, LLC. ISBN 978-1-60125-365-1
- ↑ Mike Shel. (2012). Isles of the Shackles, p. 42. Paizo Publishing, LLC. ISBN 978-1-60125-408-5
- ↑ F. Wesley Schneider. (2010). The Stolen Lands. Guide to the River Kingdoms, p. 53. Paizo Publishing, LLC. ISBN 978-1-60125-203-6
- ↑ James L. Sutter. (2007). Varisia. The Hook Mountain Massacre, p. 62. Paizo Publishing, LLC. ISBN 978-1-60125-038-4
- ↑ Tyler Beck, Jason Garrett, Alex Greenshields, and David Schwartz. (2014). Belkzen, Hold of the Orc Hordes, p. 17. Paizo Inc. ISBN 978-1-60125-710-9
