Few beasts possess such a storied history as the Salamandra. And none of those others have such wildly differing accounts. Some tell tales of it flying on leathery wings like a drake. Others insist that it charges on land as a rhinoceros, or even swims like a snake through rivers of molten magma. People like a good story.
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| As it turns out, no one has an accurate depiction on account of they get eaten or they exaggerate |
We know what the Salamandra looks like. You can go out and see one now. Well, provided that you live near something pyroclastic. Or if you take an ill-fated stroll in the rain. You probably shouldn't. It stands on six amphibian legs, with leathery skin, slick with a membrane, leading down to a thick tail with a conical shape. Young lack their third pair of legs, and their tails are smoother. The tales told in taverns are likely due to misconceptions formed long ago, when people still questioned if it was related to serpents or dragons.
Let us be clear, it is not a dragon, nor serpent. But it is an apex predator and feasts readily on anything, but prefers to eat sources of magic.
Life Cycle
It is understandable where some of the misconceptions come from. When born, Salamandra young - called eft - do not develop their limbs for two years and possess a serpentine body. They emerge from craggy shaped eggs that look like igneous rocks, laid in clutches of ten to twenty. Most of the unhatched young are cannibalized by the first efts to hatch. The hatching period, as well as the first two years of growth, is spent submerged entirely in magma, on account of their body temperature, which is far colder than freezing.
This is caused by their blood. The temperature of this blood, called "rime-blood", is such that a single drop on the palm of your hand can induce frostbite up to your wrist in less than a minute. And due to this, the body of the Salamandra must be in otherwise inhospitable temperatures to counteract this.
During this time, the eft will swim through rivers of magma in volcanoes, coated in a naturally secreted liquid membrane, until they find deposits of magic, which they can sense as if using detect magic. These deposits, really just gems, crystals, and the like, contain concentrated magic that, due to the long-term exposure to superheated environments, align with fire. This, then, progressively enriches the eft with fire essence that slowly warms their blood.
Once they get to a certain internal temperature (which is still far too cold for anyone to touch unscathed), they begin ascending the magma channels in search of egress points, as now, the efts have developed two pairs of limbs. At this point, they are referred to as basks, termed by how the majority of their time is still spent half-submerged in lava streams or pools of lava in the cauldron of volcanoes.
The basks will venture out readily, but only when they see food. Staying out of lava too long will cause the slick membrane on their bodies to harden until they die of exposure. Their favorite food at this point, outside of scouring for gems, includes other magical beasts. And people.
After a bask eats a certain (massive) quantity of magic, be it from beasts or people or gems, they sprout a third pair of legs, and their jowls sprout clusters of long, tubular appendages called magmatic ampullae. These semi-porous growths hang in numerous bunches and fill with large amounts of magma. These ampullae function like stores of heat that allow the now matured Salamandra extended periods of time out of the lava. In fact, these are so efficient, that a Salamandra can sojourn through a territory spanning several miles over several days without worrying about succumbing to petrification-by-freezing.
Consumption of more magic over time does not produce any known further adaptations, but it does seem that Salamandra can grow to rather massive proportions. With greater size, their magical appetites increase, but their naturally cold blood comes with a very slow metabolism, allowing them to go incredible lengths of time without food to no ill effects.
Abilities
Salamandra have a wide range of abilities that develop over their lifespan. From the very beginning as efts, they are born with two rows of needle-like teeth, and these only grow in size and number of rows with age. As mentioned, they can innately detect magical sources, and the radius to which they can do this only grows greater with time, as well as their ability to discern what the source is from afar. Their liquid membrane they secrete from birth is especially important, as it not only aides their mobility in magma through the Leidenfrost effect, but it is highly toxic to both touch and consumption. Speaking of lava, submerging in it at any stage of life regenerates its vitality, as does contact by fire effects.
As efts become basks, they gain the ability to generate an acrid breath attack that can fill a 20 foot cube in front of it with ease. This is highly poisonous if inhaled, but also completely obscures vision. Basks are also able to selectively direct heat away from certain parts of their body to harden the membrane to form armor in those spots. Doing so is quick enough to blunt oncoming blows, but the armor is brittle and succumbs to hammers faster than swords.
Mature Salamandra (also termed Great Newts) can use a fire breath attack out to a 30 foot cone. Additionally, the magma in their ampullae can be utilized to do a magma-based breath attack. It affects a cone 15 feet in front of them, and is very dangerous, as it removes much of what they need to stay alive outside of volcanoes. A desperation tactic, it can only be done once. Conversely, anyone hit by it takes damage as if contacting lava, so it is usually very effective to the ill-prepared.
It should go without saying that their bite, tail sweeps, and claws are no joke either.
Rainstorms
Against expectations, Salamandra thrive well in rainstorms. The slimy behemoths adore them, actually. When rainfall occurs over volcanoes, they are able to do a controlled "breech" of sorts, that lets the rainfall contact their head, upper limbs, back, and tail. In so doing, the rain mixes with the natural fluids of the outer skin of the Salamandra to create an "organic" equivalent of Prince Rupert's drops all over the exposed areas. Well, if they were made of obsidian anyway.
In practice, these function like thousands of extra ampullae made of that the Salamandra will channel their internal heat into once they make landfall. As a result, they will lose their affinity for heat during the storm, and instead mimic an affinity for water which grants them an ice breath. This not only affects a large area, but since Salamandra are fueled by rime-blood natively, they can do this frequently, and makes them more dangerous than normal. Though without the influence of heat, they slow down considerably. Additionally, the "rug" of armor is significantly stronger than the stony armor they can generate naturally, making them take moderately less damage from every physical source.
The armor they wear during this phase completely subsumes their membrane otherwise, which means it loses the toxic qualities related to contact and ingestion. This also means that the Salamandra can subsist for extremely long periods out of lava while in possession of this armor (but eventually, the magma chambers of these drops runs too cool for them to subsist and they must return). However, the Salamandra can violently spasm the sections of its body covered by this armor, and with pinpoint precision, enough to shatter them, causing violent explosions that send shards of obsidian flying out in a 30 foot radius. Worse still, if adjacent to the Salamandra when it does this, one runs the risk of inhaling the glassy particles. Explosions of these lengths of obsidian can also happen if someone uses a slashing weapon.
A Game of Cat and Mouse
Mature Salamandra have one other key ability that has set the tone for much of people's interactions with them: caudal autotomy. As certain lizards, Salamandra can lose (and then regrow) their tails. However, instead of the expected rationale being that this helps evade predators, they actually do this to lure people.
As it stands, the value of the Salamandra to people is twofold: their meat is tender and hearty; and they have valuable blood which is used as the sole component able to create fire-resistance and immunity potions. This is to say nothing of the value in harvesting Salamandra poison from their slimy exterior, or their skin, which when worked with appropriately naturally has fire-immune properties for armor. Salamandra are very smart beasts. They quickly understood what people wanted of them, and used this ability in an ingenious way. Their tail, when shed, periodically writhes and undulates. From afar, it resembles the overall shape of a bask Salamandra (ostensibly, this would be easier to kill, too). But only upon approaching dangerously close would someone realize that this is, in fact, just the tail.
This is not inherently bad, as if they managed it, this would give them blood for potions and meat for market. But upon finding naught but a tail, a hunter would, in fact, realize that they are the ones who are being hunted. You see, after their prey comes to realize the deception, the Salamandra is usually not far behind, and it is at this point it prefers to strike.
Thus, now anytime a bask is thought to be seen, hunters pay heed to the possibility that they might be walking into a trap. Not that dispatching a Salamandra was easy in the first place.
Weaknesses
Hunting for Salamandra is not necessary, per se. People don't really require fire-resistance. But there are many dangers that bring fire closer to home, so having it makes countering fire trolls and rogue clans of firekeeper druids achievable.
The best person to take on a Salamandra is, against conventional thought, rarely a warrior, but rather an accomplished mage. Magical users schooled in the art of big game hunts have learned vital spells; with but a single large diamond ground to dust, it can be magically suspended in a disc. Mages attune this to cold temperatures before expeditions, and hold it at their side in a constant spin, wielding it as a shield as necessary. Due to the cold attunement, the diamond dust can soak up heat from several fire breaths without injury.
This allows them to safely get close, but what keeps them close is that any mage wishing to do this comes with spells ready that can dissipate the toxic smog cloud that the Salamandra can generate.
Once those fronts are covered, there are actually several viable approaches for how to dispatch one. Cold and water spells are twice as effective, and electricity is helpful for stunning and interrupting. Salamandra can regrow every limb if it is removed, but this is exempt from the head and torso, meaning their vitals are still predictable targets. In reality, Salamandra can be trivialized, but only with the utmost preparation. Especially so if a mage finds themselves in the Salamandra's tail trap, where most mages on the hunt meet their end.
However, not even mages are fool enough to step foot into Salamandra territory in the middle of a storm.
A Perfect Beast
Salamandra are impressive not just because of their huge size, nor because of their keen intellect and powerful abilities, but also because they represent what some scholars theorize is one of the "perfect beasts" in the realm.
They start off attuned to fire as they hatch, and gain an affinity for earth as they consume more gems. Their forays out of magma expose them to the air, to which they attune further, and finally they incorporate water attunement into their life cycle (further, they are propelled by a default attunement to water with their rime blood). Respectively, these are evidenced in their abilities: fire breath, stony armor, noxious clouds of gas, and raindrop armor (not to mention their chilling breath!).
Scholars debate this, but the prevailing theory is that everyone displays different measures of attunement to the four classical elements. In the case of the Salamandra, the attunement of all four is to the extent that some scholars insist that they are mostly equal among all and may even have abilities not yet witnessed. Some have stories that particularly old and magical Salamandra have been able to tap into the interactions of these elements more finely. Rumors abound of Salamandra with lightning breath, metallic armor generation, and even, in particularly unbelievable accounts, the ability to fly.
Afterword
Thanks for reading! This is long, and more encyclopedic than I try to do, and not my favorite entry purely for those reasons, but, I also had a lot of fun designing the concept to this point.
I think Salamandra are primed to be relatively epic encounters for a party, provided they do their due diligence. Mages trivialize the encounters only on paper. Actually acquiring a large diamond is out of reach for most encounters until far later. Prepping spells just to dissipate a cloud of smog is often less desirable than another damaging spell. Warrior-type classes shouldn't be too discouraged from joining the fight, but they should be aware of the constant risk of frostbite from any blood that may spatter against their skin.
Since Salamandra are also smart, they know the concept of action economy (i.e. being outnumbered is bad), and will target the "easiest" prey they are aware of to try and even the numbers. If you want a cheaper alternative that levels the playing field some, martials with a wide berth on the battlefield might want to have permanent anti-magic fields on them. It won't do anything for the abilities of the Salamandra, but it will shield them from detection (the eyes of a Salamandra are actually almost useless, they rely almost entirely on their sense of smell and magical detection).
Hope you all enjoyed!