Hydra

The hydra is an incredibly dangerous creature of legend. Some argue that the hydra is only a tall tale, while others claim to have seen one with their own eyes. It is difficult to believe that such a powerful creature exists.

As the stories go, hydras are multi-headed, serpent-like amphibians. Notably, their bodies have a highly regenerative reaction to losing a head. When one head is removed, two more grow back to take its place. Allegedly, the only way to truly kill a hydra is quickly and with fire. The fire is said to counteract the regenerative abilities of the heads. Approaching a hydra unprepared is a surefire way to make a terrible situation even worse, as any attempt to subdue the beast results in it only growing stronger.

Hydra

Aspects

Multi-headed serpentine beast of legend • Vulnerable to fire • Primarily aquatic amphibian • Highly regenerative

Skills

• +(Special) Razor jaws (Fight)
• +(Special) Many eyes (Notice)
• +3 Unstoppable force (Athletics)
• +3 Unmovable wall (Physique)
• +2 Entirely intense (Provoke)
• +2 Force of nature (Will)

Health

Heads

[2] • [2] • [2] • [2] • [2

Mild consequence [2]

Moderate consequence [4]

Severe consequence [6]

Stunts

Heads

Hydras track their stress with ‘heads’ rather than with stress boxes. On the surface level they work the same as standard typeless stress boxes, absorbing physical and mental stress. Checking a ‘heads’ box means one of the hydra’s heads was removed or damaged beyond function. If ‘heads’ boxes are ever added or unchecked, this represents the hydra regrowing new heads. Stress to the heads track overflows from checkbox to checkbox, allowing characters to destroy more than one head in a single attack.

Head-first approach

The skill rank of a hydra’s Razor jaws (Fight) and Many eyes (Notice) skills are equal to the number of unchecked ‘heads’ boxes they have.

Regeneration

At the end of their turn, a hydra will regrow heads if they lost at least one within the last round and did not receive any stress from sources of fire within the last round. When this happens, the hydra regrows two heads. For each head they regrow, uncheck a ‘heads’ box if possible. If there are no ‘heads’ boxes checked when a head regrows, add a new [2] ‘heads’ box instead.

Poison breath

A hydra may spend a fate point to spew poison breath from one of their heads. They choose to target either the zone they are in or an adjacent zone. The targeted zone gains the Poison breath aspect. Any character other than a hydra that ends its turn in a zone with Poison breath must defend against a static 2 difficulty Poison breath attack. A hydra may not use this ability if it has three or less functioning heads