NPC creature

The Hunderthrawl

Not a person. A creature. The Dragonblood Family’s tracking beast and warden.

Appearance and Voice

A long, low, sinuous thing — somewhere between a lizard and a hound, with skin the colour of wet stone and a back-spine of small flat plates. About the size of a large mastiff but able to flatten itself to a hand’s breadth to creep under doors. Six legs. Two enormous nostrils set above the jaw. No visible eyes; the nostrils do all the work. Pads on its feet allow it to climb walls and sleep on ceilings.

It does not speak. It chirrups, low and conversational, when it has found something it likes. When it is hunting it is silent.

What It Does

• Scent through stone. The Hunderthrawl can smell a person through a foot of masonry and the better part of a steel safe door. This is the central horror of the safe-emergence scene at Lux’s Fine Gems.
• Climb anything. Ceilings, walls, the underside of bridges.
• Track for days. Once it has a scent, it follows. Setting a strong false trail (smoke, vinegar, perfume) can confuse it; killing it is the more reliable solution.
• Loyal to Kriv Dragonblood. Will not attack him under any circumstances. Will defer to other Dragonblood family members if Kriv has marked them.

Useful Knowledge

The Hunderthrawl does not know anything in the way a person does. But its behaviour is information: where it is, who it sniffs, what it ignores.

Ideals, Bonds and Connections

• Bond: Kriv. Absolute.
• Flaw: it is loud about smells it likes. If the party can offer it something it truly prefers — a sample of Strom’s pony, a particular cured-meat — it will follow them rather than hunt them.

Stat block (loose, adjust to party level)

• AC 15 (natural plates)
• HP 78 (CR ~4 for current party; scale up if party gains levels)
• Speed 40 ft., climb 40 ft., burrow 10 ft.
• Senses: blindsight (scent) 120 ft.; smells through walls up to 5 ft. thick.
• Bite: +6, 2d8+3 piercing, plus a grapple on hit. The Hunderthrawl prefers to grapple and drag prey to its master, not to kill.
• Flatten: as an action, becomes 1 inch thick for 1 round. Can pass through any gap of that size.
• Wall Climb: no check required on any non-greased surface.
• Weakness: strong scent (cinder cone, smoke bombs, vinegar) imposes disadvantage on its blindsight for 1 round. Loud noise close to its nostrils stuns it for 1 round (Con save DC 13).

How to use it

• The Hunderthrawl is a scene-setter, not a fight to be won quickly. In the safe-emergence, the dread is what makes it work: it is on the other side of the door, sniffing.
• If the fate roll demands combat, treat it as the hardest single enemy in the encounter. It will try to grapple, not kill.
• After Session 14, it may imprint on a party member if exposed to that PC’s scent often enough. This could later become an asset or a recurring danger.