Alright, so I’m starting off with a big one here. This is one of my favorite monsters to run for a short campaign, or for an arc in a longer one. In designing the Assassin Drake, I actually worked alongside one of my regular players, and took considerable inspiration from memory-editing monsters like the infamous False Hydra. That said, whilst the False Hydra is a much more narrative-heavy monster, this one is much more combat oriented in its memory-altering abilities. The core concept is for an ambush hunter that edits the players’ memories of what it is after escaping from combat.
Running the Assassin Drake in Combat:
The Assassin Drake is meant to serve as a sort of nemesis for the players for a couple of levels worth of a campaign. It’s initial meeting should be unceremonious, an ambush against the players whilst they are travelling, preferably at night, as that is its preferred hunting time. For the first time the players would meet this thing, the DM should use a Bulette, Ankheg, or Displacer Beast token to represent it, describing the Assassin Drake as whichever they chose. Find ways to describe its attacks as strange quirks that don’t align with what the chosen token can normally do to account for the “Cognitive Dissonance”. When the players have driven it to half or three-quarters health (Whichever feels most appropriate for your players), have the Assassin Drake retreat using its Burrow Through Shadows reaction.
Over the course of the next couple of levels (I tend to throw my first Assassin Drake encounters at my players when they’re at fifth level), it should ambush them, fight to half health, and then retreat, with later encounters having it try to abduct any downed player (Use this as a hook to get your players to try and rescue their missing member, whether they’re able to or have enough time to do so depends on the tone of the campaign and your table’s disposition on character death). Over the course of this series of ambushes, the players should hear whisperings of attacks on livestock and lone wanderers at night, as well as mysterious sightings of Shadows (https://www.5esrd.com/database/creature/shadow/). Eventually, should they choose to investigate, they should be able to put enough pieces together to try and either follow it back to its den, or figure out where its den is based on the frequency of attacks and where they happen (This can be done with a series of investigation checks over time, with a cumulative DC 73). Particularly attentive players should also be given information on its resistances, immunities, and vulnerabilities piecemeal over the course of the investigation. Once the players have cornered and engaged the Assassin Drake in its den, it is time to reveal the Drake’s true appearance, as at this point this is a fight to the death for it, and even if the players try to escape, it will chase them relentlessly, regardless to the danger to itself.
The Assassin Drake’s Lore and Environment:
It is widely believed that this creature was created by a cabal of evil Fey Lords intent on sowing chaos and humiliation amongst their enemies. However, its memory editing capabilities and cunning nature allowed a number of these creatures to escape into the wider Feywild, and then eventually into the material plane. They are clever creatures that value their own lives, and will often only abduct what they can to eat, targeting the weakest prey, and will break off from any battles that seem to be going poorly for them. Because of their capacity to passively edit the memories of those that they have fought, no two accounts of one in an area ever seem to betray its true nature, some will claim a Bulette attack, others might believe what they sighted was a Displacer Beast. However, groups of individuals will always agree that they encountered the same culprit if they encountered it at the same time. Some enterprising wizards have been able to “tame” them by stealing fertilized eggs and raising them. The Assassin Drake will typically only hunt in the evening or at night, however it may come out in blizzards or on particularly overcast days. They often make their dens in hidden caves near forests, mountains, and grasslands, and terrorize the local populace and wildlife. On average, an Assassin Drake stands 7 feet tall at the shoulder, and 19 feet in length.
Lair: An Assassin Drake’s Lair Is typically a well-hidden, fairly spacious, yet shallow cave with all manner of fungus and stalagmites growing there. The entrance is typically a small, difficult to see crack just large enough to fit the drake amongst either open plains or hilly grassland.
Personality: Behaviorally, the Assassin Drake is a violent and fickle dragon, mostly focused on its own survival and growing its influence and territory above all else. Much like the Grey Render, each Assassin Drake has its own quirks and behavioral tics, meaning that while most cannot be reasoned with, despite having intellect and the ability to speak Draconic, some are more than capable of diplomacy (With almost unilaterally dangerous and double-edged terms for any who wish to engage it).
Keep these things in mind if you as the GM wish to run an Assassin Drake as a non-antagonistic NPC (Note, I mean this in a combat sense, barring extraordinary circumstances the Assassin Drake will almost always treat the players with malice and deceit). In its social dealings, an Assassin Drake embodies the all of the worst and cruelest qualities of a Fey creature, marked with the relentless ambition and greed of a Chromatic Dragon.
Combat Tactics
Ambush Tactics
The Assassin Drake will generally try to attack and pick off the weakest party members first. Often targeting small or less heavily armored individuals. It will regularly reposition itself throughout a fight, trying to use distance and the layout of the battlefield to its advantage, typically only engaging in melee one-on-one, and repositioning via burrowing or climbing when necessary if it gets surrounded. If a party member should fall before the Assassin Drake can be driven away, it will attempt to collect the unconscious individual before leaving. Otherwise, it will simply flee from battle as soon as it drops below one-half of its maximum Hit Points. And make sure not to use the Assassin Drake’s actual token or name for these combats, re-naming/re-flavoring its attacks as necessary to maintain confusion as to what it is. I personally like to use Bulettes, Ankheg, Displacer Beasts, Kruthik, Chuuls, and Young Dragons for these occasions. Sometimes I’ll simply use another Drake, or a Panther or Lion.
Lair Tactics
When cornered or fought in its lair, the Assassin Drake will fight the party to the death, fiercely working to protect its gathered hoard of bones from its prey and various cursed artifacts. Assuming that the Drake has previously encountered the party it will immediately use the full force available to it to try and down the physically weakest party members, particularly those that it knows to be powerful spellcasters or competent healers. From there, it will generally not directly interact with the Shadows that its Dread Dive summons, only using them as environmental hazards or living shields to force the melee combatants to engage them. Ever the arrogant creature, the Assassin Drake will not continue attacking downed opponents (Unless they get up again), and will instead use its actions to focus the living, leaving the injured at the mercy of the Shadows.
Upon falling below half of its maximum Hit Points, the Assassin Drake will begin to be more aggressive and frenetic in its attacks, and will occasionally spit and snarl insults at its foes in Draconic. When brought down below one-tenth of its maximum Hit Points, some Assassin Drakes may try to use cunning tactics to avoid further hits while whittling away at the party. Other may try and bargain with the party. Many will simply grow more violent and frantic in their attacks on the weakest party members. A select few may have had the foresight and planning to rig their lair to collapse, and those will make an attempt to use their remaining actions to spring the trap, if an Assassin Drake succeeds in triggering the trap (It must move to the center of its lair, and spend two turns using its actions to trigger the trap), then the players must make a DC 14 Dexterity Saving throw or take 8d10 Bludgeoning damage (The damage and DC can be adjusted to account for a party of either higher or lower levels). If you wish to, you may assign each of these possible actions to a D4 and roll it before combat to make the decision.
Social Tactics
There are a few notable ways that the Assassin Drake could end up being engaged socially with the player characters. For example, it may have heard of their exploits and sent an agent (perhaps a Kobold or Guard Drake) to attempt to make contact and invite them back to its lair. Or the players happen to stumble upon its lair during their travels, at an opportune time for the Drake to request their services.
In any given social situation, an Assassin Drake can be quite cunning and capricious. The Assassin Drake will have advantage on any checks made to contest attempts to Intimidate it. The DC that players must make when performing a Deception check against it is 17. If you wish to have an Assassin Drake function as a quest-giving NPC, the following list holds some example quest hooks:
- The Assassin Drake wishes to access an ancient reliquary of forbidden artifacts, however it needs someone to go through the dungeon ahead of it to clear foes and spring traps. It will lie to the players and tell them of a hoard of gold deep within the dungeon, “warning” them of a dangerous reliquary to be avoided.
- The Assassin Drake wishes to expand its territory, but stronger Drakes or Young Dragons hold the place it wishes to take. It may use its foes visage to attack a small town, and use that to inspire the players to attack its enemy.
- A powerful local Archdruid threatens to discover the presence of the Drake, and it wishes to avoid significant risk to itself by contracting the players to slay the Archdruid, making up any necessary pretenses to get the group to slaughter it.
- Wishing to impress a much more powerful Dragon so that it might become a vassal, the Assassin Drake will attempt to trick the players into taking a quest that is far to dangerous for them, stealthily following them and swooping in to take them out if it feels they’re sufficiently weakened at any time.
- (If in the Feywild) The players have found a wounded Assassin Drake, offering them a chance to pick items from its hoard if they can take down the Fey would-be captors that are chasing it. Unbeknownst to the party, all of the items in its hoard are terribly and discreetly cursed.
As should be evident form the list above, while an Assassin Drake may choose to be talkative with the party, it will mostly lie and twist the terms of any offer that it makes (such as offering seemingly powerful magic items as quest rewards, only for the items to turn out to be terribly cursed), the only exception to this being if the Drake is tricked or forced into signing a contract of any kind, which it must then fulfill. Attempts to keep an Assassin Drake under thumb by threat of death or similar coercion will usually result in the Assassin Drake trying to find roundabout ways to get the party killed.
That does it for this entry, next up is general information on the setting I’ve been running most of my campaigns in, and from which most of these monsters come!
The Wyrm Scribe 