The Drakon of the Hollow Root
Something enormous grew down here. A plane tree, two hundred years of it, came through the ceiling looking for water and died doing it, and what is left is the root: a cavern's worth of woody rope, braided and rebraided, going up out of your light and down under your boots. Amber sap has pooled in the hollows and gone to glass.
Forty feet up, where the trunk used to be, there is a ragged gap with cold night air coming down through it.
Your lamps go out. All of them, at once, in the same half second, with a sound like a long breath being let go — and then the roots on your left move, in a line, all the way across the cavern.
DM summary. A drakon that has grown into a dead tree and fights from inside the walls. No talking, no puzzle, no bargain: this one is terrain, patience, and fire, and it is the deck's honest answer to a table that wants a monster.
The Boon
The Mason's EarOptional item
An action and an ear on the wood tells you which wall it is behind, for one round
What it is. A bronze cone the length of a forearm, mouth as wide as a dinner plate, small end worked into a cup that fits over an ear. The Mason's Ear is a working tool: green in the seams, dented flat. Yard foremen press these to a column to hear whether the stone is sound.
Where it comes from. Plant it early, as junk — on a nail over a workroom bench, in a mason's kit, or on a loot roll in any room with tools in it, four drachmas of scrap. Late plant: the last surveyor sent down to the plane tree lies thirty feet short of the way in, the cone still on the wrist bone. Hand it over as an object, never as an answer.
What it does here. Phase one is an ambush tax: Stealth +7, the light gone to Douse before initiative, and a coil out of a wall nobody chose. The Ear touches none of its 237 hit points, AC 18, or three-quarters cover; it removes the guessing. An action, the cone flat to root or stone, and the bearer knows the Drakon's exact space within 60 ft while any part of it is in the root mass, no check against that Stealth. Calling the wall aloud is free. Shots into +5 AC are still shots, not guesses, and the coil's next target can move. The price is an action a round, for six to nine rounds.
What it doesn't do. It reports only the moment of listening. Back Into the Wall buys it 20 ft on its reaction once a round when something damages it, and Shift the Root buys 30 ft, so most reports are stale by the bearer's next turn. Noise beats it, and the party makes the noise: once a sap pool is burning the range halves to 30 ft for the rest of the fire. It grants no heat-sense, no light, and nothing in phase two. A party who never found it fights phase one blind, which is what phase one is.
Card and numbers or jump to the card ↓
Arena
Battle map: The Canopy Walks — pages 47 & 48, 110 × 75 ft
The canopy walks are the root mass: the printed tree platforms are the root shelves (note their heights), the plank ways are the climbing runs, and the dark green below is the tangle — difficult terrain, three storeys of it. Chalk the 15-ft daylight circle under the crown gap and shade the six amber sap pools.
- Dimensions. 90 ft × 70 ft, ceiling 50 ft at the crown gap and 15 ft at the edges. The party enters at floor level through a gap between two roots the thickness of a wagon.
- Light. None, once it has taken theirs. One shaft of open sky comes down the crown gap — a 15-ft circle of dim light on the floor directly beneath it, bright under a full moon, and the only place in the room where a creature relying on heat cannot easily find you.
- The root mass. The whole room is three storeys of interwoven root with gaps, shelves, and tunnels. Difficult terrain everywhere below 10 ft, climbing at half speed with no check up to the second level, Athletics DC 13 above that. The Drakon ignores all of it.
- The sap pools. Six of them, 10 ft across, half-set amber. A creature that enters one or starts its turn in one makes a Strength DC 14 check or is restrained until it succeeds. Sap takes fire on any fire damage and burns for three rounds: 11 (2d10) fire damage to anything in or adjacent to it.
- The deadfall. The upper third of the root mass is dry, dead, and will go up. If two or more sap pools are burning at the end of a round, the cavern starts filling with resin smoke from the ceiling down. See the clock.
- The tap-root well. A shaft in the centre of the floor, 8 ft across, going down 20 ft to black water. The Drakon drinks from it. Anything shoved in falls 20 ft and swims.
- The crown gap. 40 ft up, the hole the trunk left. Cold air comes down it. Nothing gets up there without a climb (Athletics DC 15 on root, three rounds) or flight, and the Drakon will not follow — it will not put its head out of the ground.
Roster & Budget
One animal, and the room it grew into.
| Count | Creature | XP each |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Hollow-Root Drakon | 10,000 |
Base 10,000 XP, ×1 for a single body = 10,000 adjusted, against the APL 9 Deadly budget of 14,400. That is a third under and the number is honest: the missing 4,400 is the arena. Three-quarters cover it can move between at will, three lair actions a round, sap that holds a character in place for the bite, and no light. A CR 13 dragon in a room built around its two best habits is a Deadly encounter, and adding bodies to it would only make it a longer one.
The optional wave, and only for a party of eight or a party that has taken no real damage by round six: four Serpent-Hounds come up the tap-root well and work the party's back line. That is +2,800 base and five bodies, so 12,800 × 2 = 25,600 adjusted, and it will kill people. Do not reach for it as a matter of course.
Phases / Clock
Phase one — In the Root. It never shows more than a third of itself. It strikes out of the root wall, takes its coil back in, and moves thirty feet through solid wood between attacks. Attacks against it are at three-quarters cover and it cannot be grappled, shoved, or knocked prone. The party's job in this phase is to make the root mass stop being a wall.
If the party carries the Mason's Ear, phase one stops being an ambush and becomes a fight against cover, which is a different room and still a hard one. One character stands with the cone against the root and calls out which section it is behind; the other five aim. That costs the party a sixth of its output for as long as it wants to know, and the Drakon answers the only way it can, by moving — once a round, when something hurts it, it is worth 20 ft of wall on its reaction, and the call is stale the moment it spends one. Note the party's own counterplay against them here: the first sap pool they light is fire in a confined space, so from that round the cone reaches 30 ft instead of 60.
Phase two — Out. Triggered by dropping to 118 hit points, by two sap pools burning, or by anything happening to the tap-root well. It comes out of the roots into the open floor and fights in the round. It loses its cover, gains 10 ft of speed, and its bite gets reach 20 ft as it stops being careful. It also stops regrowing.
The smoke clock. From the round two sap pools are alight:
| Round | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1 | Smoke gathers at the ceiling. Anything above 20 ft is lightly obscured |
| 2 | Smoke to 15 ft. Constitution DC 12 at the start of each turn above 10 ft or take 5 (1d10) poison damage and be unable to speak that turn |
| 3 | Smoke to floor level. The save becomes DC 14, applies to everyone, and the whole cavern is heavily obscured |
| 4+ | The upper root mass is alight and sections come down. See the third lair action |
Fire is the party's best weapon here and it is also on a timer against them. Say that out loud when the first pool catches.
Combat Resolution
Six to nine rounds. It is beaten by cold, by fire, and by refusing to fight it where it wants to be fought.
- Round 1. It takes the light. Every unshielded flame in the party's hands goes out at once — this is the Douse bonus action and it should land before initiative is even rolled. Then a coil comes out of the wall at whoever is furthest into the room and drags them into it.
- Lair actions on initiative 20, one per round, in this order and then repeating: (1) the roots close a 10-ft-wide gap somewhere the party was using, or open one somewhere they were not; (2) a sap pool splits and floods a new 10-ft square, Dexterity DC 14 or restrained; (3) a dead root the size of a mast comes down in a 30-ft line, Dexterity DC 15 for 22 (4d10) bludgeoning damage, half on a success, and the line becomes difficult terrain and cover.
- Tactics. It drags. Everything it does is aimed at getting one character alone inside the root mass, where the rest cannot reach them and its bite has advantage. It will not pursue out of the cavern and it will not go above the second level.
- The weaknesses, discoverable. Two, and a party can find both in one round of watching. Its blood is slow: below half hit points it is vulnerable to cold, and a creature that has taken cold damage since its last turn is invisible to the Drakon's heat-sense (Nature or Survival DC 14 to notice it hunting by warmth). It has to drink: it goes to the tap-root well every third round. Fouling that water with oil, salt, or a burning brand — one action, standing at the rim, while a drakon is in the room — costs it Regrowth for good and gives it disadvantage on Constitution saves.
- Withdrawal exists even here. The gap the party came in by stays open for three rounds and the Drakon will not follow beyond the root line. A party that leaves has left; the DM rolls d20 again at the next exit and the maze charges them a wandering-threat roll for the time.
- When it dies, it lets go of the root mass and the root mass lets go of the ceiling, and something in the dark drops for a long time before it lands.
Scaling — APL 6 / 12 / 15
| APL | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| 6 | 178 hit points, no Regrowth, bite reach 10 ft, two lair actions instead of three, no smoke clock. DCs −2 |
| 9 | As written |
| 12 | 296 hit points, a fourth legendary action, and two Drakon Whelps in the upper root mass. DCs +1, deadfall 10d10 |
| 15 | 356 hit points, four Drakon Whelps and four Serpent-Hounds, and a third phase at 25% where it takes the crown gap: it climbs to the ceiling, drops the burning upper third of the root mass into the room, and fights from above. DCs +3 |
Exit to the Resolution
Boon Card
The Mason's Ear
Wondrous item, common · a bronze listening cone, a yard foreman's flaw-finder · optional, and never on the loot table
AC 13, 5 hit points, and a hard dent ruins it | Weight 3 lb | Attunement none
Appearance: bronze, 18 inches, a dinner-plate mouth and an ear-cup at the throat, green in the seams, flattened down one side, leather wrist-loop
Call the Wall. Naming what the cone has found is free and costs no action. An ally who hears the call treats that creature as located: it does not have disadvantage on attacks for being unable to see it, and the creature gains no advantage against that ally for being unseen. Cover, concealment, and every other protection still apply in full.
One Round Old. It reports the moment of listening and nothing after it. Any movement the creature makes — a reaction, a legendary action, a burrow, a shift through the mass — makes the report wrong, and the bearer has to listen again to make it right.
Beaten by Noise. Fire in a confined space, falling timber, running water, a working mechanism, a shouting party: any loud continuous sound in the same mass halves the range to 30 ft. A mass that is not continuous — a gap, a void, an unmortared join — stops the sound dead at the break.
What It Is Not. It is not a spell and it is not a sense. It gives no darkvision, no heat-sense, no light, no reading of intent, and nothing at all about a creature standing in the open air. It does not detect the invisible, the incorporeal, or anything holding still and not touching the wall.
Put Your Ear to It. The bearer sets the mouth of the cone flat against a continuous mass of stone, timber, root, or bronze and holds still. Until the start of its next turn it knows the exact space of every creature within 60 ft that is inside or in contact with that same mass, whether or not it can see, and no check is made against the creature's Stealth. The bearer's speed is 0 while listening and it must stay in contact.
Sound the Timber. Rap the mass with a knuckle and listen to what comes back. The bearer learns whether the section within 30 ft is sound, hollow, waterlogged, or dry and dead, which finds a void, a tunnel, a cistern behind a wall, or a piece of structure that is ready to come down.
Creature Cards
The Drakon is this finale's only inline card. The Drakon Nest (W08) creatures named in the scaling rows live in the bestiary.
Shared across rooms, so the full cards live in the bestiary: Serpent-Hound, Drakon Whelp. Every mention above opens the numbers here on this page.
The Hollow-Root Drakon
Huge dragon, unaligned · CR 13 (10,000 XP)
AC 18 (bark-crusted scale) | HP 237 (19d12 + 114) | Speed 40 ft., climb 40 ft., swim 30 ft.
Saves Dex +7, Con +11, Wis +8 · Details Perception +13, Stealth +7 · Immune to poison damage, poisoned · Blindsight 60 ft. (heat) · Darkvision 120 ft. · Passive Perception 23
Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If it fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.
Legendary Actions (3/Round). It spends 3 legendary actions each round, one at a time at the end of another creature's turn, and regains them at the start of its own.
In the Root. While at least half its body is inside the root mass it has three-quarters cover, cannot be grappled, shoved, or knocked prone, and treats the root as open ground. It leaves the roots only when its second phase begins, or when the roots around it are burning.
Regrowth. At the start of its turn it regains 15 hit points, unless it has taken fire or cold damage since the end of its last turn, or the tap-root water has been fouled. It does not regrow at all in its second phase.
Slow Blood. Its blindsight is heat. A creature that has taken cold damage since the end of its last turn cannot be detected by that blindsight at all. While the Drakon is below half its hit points it is also vulnerable to cold damage, and it visibly slows when cold touches it.
Has to Drink. It returns to the tap-root well at least once every three rounds and spends 5 ft of movement doing so. If that water is fouled with oil, salt, ash, or a burning brand, it permanently loses Regrowth and has disadvantage on Constitution saving throws for the rest of the encounter.
Multiattack. One bite and two root-coil attacks, or one bite and one use of Drag Under.
Bite. Melee, +11 to hit, reach 15 ft, one target. Hit: 25 (3d12 + 6) piercing damage plus 10 (3d6) poison damage.
Root-Coil. Melee, +11 to hit, reach 20 ft, one Large or smaller creature. Hit: 19 (3d8 + 6) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 19) and restrained. It can hold two creatures at once.
Drag Under. One creature it is grappling is pulled into the root mass: it has total cover from everything outside, is blinded, and takes 14 (4d6) bludgeoning damage at the start of each of the Drakon's turns. An ally can cut it out with 25 slashing damage to the roots (AC 13) or by winning a DC 19 Strength check at the opening.
Choking Breath (recharge 5–6). It breathes a 60-ft cone of hot resin smoke. Each creature in it makes a DC 19 Constitution saving throw, taking 45 (13d6) poison damage on a failure or half as much on a success. A creature that fails is also poisoned for 1 minute and repeats the save at the end of each of its turns. The cone ignites any sap it crosses.
Douse. It sweeps a coil through the air within 15 ft. Every unshielded open flame in that space — lamp, torch, taper, campfire — goes out. Lanterns and magical light are unaffected, and it will spend a whole turn reaching for the one light it cannot put out.
Back Into the Wall. When it takes damage from a creature it can detect, it moves up to 20 ft through the root mass without provoking opportunity attacks. It cannot use this in its second phase.
Shift the Root (costs 1). It moves up to 30 ft through the root mass, and the roots close behind it: one 10-ft opening the party was using is no longer there.
Lash (costs 1). It makes one root-coil attack against a creature it is not already holding.
Tighten (costs 2). Each creature it is grappling takes 16 (3d8 + 3) bludgeoning damage and makes a DC 19 Constitution saving throw or is unable to speak or cast a spell with a verbal component until the start of the Drakon's next turn.