Question: From what I can gather Slavic dragons tend to be multi-headed and wingless. My question is, which dragon do you think I should use to represent Slavic dragons, or perhaps another monster entirely?
If you're planning to use stats for a creature from the book (which I generally don't recommend because so many of those critters are kind of a huge mess stat-wise, but whatever works for you), you have a few options for similar beasties, depending on the Legend rating and challenge you want them to pose. Lindwurms and Tatzelwurms (Scion: Hero, page 313) are a good choice for a Hero-level threat. Scion: Demigod has a whole subsection on dragons on page 232, and Ladon, the first on the list, is exactly the kind of ground-bound multi-headed monstrosity it sounds like you're looking for, sized more for a Demigod-level encounter (the Tatsu, a few pages later, may also be a good place to look). The Hydra, found on page 262, might also be a good place to look, though whether or not you want to preserve its regenerative powers depends on the flavor of the encounter you plan on running. For more divine antagonists, I'd consider the Nagaraja from Scion: God, page 322, (just add legs!), the stormvurm (Scion: Ragnarok, page 123), the multi-headed Azhi Dahaka (Scion: Yazata, page 34) or even a slightly watered-down version of Jormungander (Scion: Ragnarok, page 113).
In general, though, I'd recommend statting your own zmey; you know your PCs better than any book and can tailor the dragon to be a good challenge for them, not to mention not having to pare away someone else's less useful creature qualities or rewrite material that doesn't quite fit. I'm not the master authority on antagonist creation - that's John - but I'm sure he'd be glad to give tips if you've got specific questions. You might also get some use out of Scion: Companion's Creating Titanspawn section on page 148, which is specifically geared toward helping you create antagonists that haven't been statted yet on your own.
Question asker: One of my players (Russian MurderBatman) has a Zmey was that was given to him as a gift by his father, Chernobog. It has three heads, breathes fire and does fly, since the pictures I found of Zmeys have them with big honkin' wings. There are some that don't fly, but apparently some that do.
ReplyDeleteI believe I based the PC's Zmey off the Tatsu, as Anne suggested. He was significantly modified, but the basics are there. Mostly, the modifications were to make the Tatsu more evil and smashy rather than intelligent and graceful.
Zmey Tugaretin has been a lot of fun for everyone, except the random civilians he eats whenever his master stops paying attention to him. In fact, his owner has been investing in Animal (Dragon) to get along with the Zmey better and has now learned to transform himself into a Zmey.