Fatalis Ecology
A legendary black dragon said to have prowled these lands from the days of old. Many skilled hunters have sought to challenge it, but none ever return. A monster shrouded in mystery... - Excerpt from an Ancient Text
Introduction
Reports of an ancient almost forgotten lineage of Dragons has surfaced with only obscure texts in Elven Libraries mentioning these dragons. By no means are they appearing everywhere, but when a powerful new breed of dragon takes roost most, every kingdom takes notice. Our guild is the highest priority on this research, I'll be leading the team to not only dig up any information we have but also conduct extensive field research to better understand this dragon.
Physiology of Fatalis
Origins
Fatalis is not a lineage of dragons as much as a specific dragon. This makes him an old and part of the new classification of Major Dragons. Like Tiamat, Bahamut, and IO, they are some of the first and strongest of modern dragons in their lineage. This means that Fatalis is at least older than elvish civilization upon our Material Plane and quite likely predated the plane itself.
Only a few texts in our combined efforts mention Fatalis or any dragons of his kind, to be exact. Going on the "Legends of the Hunters," an old text depicting an ancient yet advanced civilization of gathering/hunting humanoids at full-scale war with dragons that ended in almost mutually assured destruction. Both cultures long lost and nearly wholly devastated. It seems that Fatalis was indeed a part of this war and maybe the key to it.
Aesthetics of Fatalis
Fatalis is certainly draconic but different in many ways to known dragon convention. First and most notably, he is more reptilian in body form and movement than any other dragon. Whereas Chromatic, Metalic, Gem dragons, and all other prominent and known dragonkin are feline in body shape. This certainly means that Fatalis is not of the lineage of IO, the legendary "first" dragon. His body shape is undeniably different, yet he shares too many characteristics with dragons to not call him one.
Fatalis is more of a skinny looking dragon but seeming just as strong or even more so than Gold and Red dragons some of the few most physically impressive varieties we are currently aware of. His head is long and a crocodilian. His impressive lower jaws, when shut, have protruding teeth upwards like many crocodilian species. Similar to Red Dragons, he has 4 backward-facing horns, although his horns are more crooked and twisting than that of a Red Dragon. His scales are an obsidian black but with bright white spikes running down the spine. His tail is exceptionally long for a dragon, almost doubling his length behind the hind legs but has no marking features aside from the spinal spikes.
Relatively Small for a Dragon
Many dragons grow to immense sizes the older they are. It seems that Fatalis didn't follow this convention either. While not a small creature, he is more akin to a young adult in dragon sizes. With only about (only as in relative to a dragon) 60 feet from snout to tail, 12 feet tall when all fours and 25 feet when reared up on his hind legs, he's relatively small. This has thrown many dragon experts, dragons, and other creatures off. Just go to show how much knowledge we assume from what we already know despite facing something entirely new.
Battle-Scarred Warrior
Fatalis has seen many fights, and it is incredibly apparent. With a cracked right head horn, missing left eye, chest, leg, and wing tissue scars, it's exceptionally apparent he's either lost fights for came out worse than he entered. This is surprising considering how old and powerful this dragon is. Then again, no dragons to our knowledge possess better healing than that of any usual creature, which means these could be ancient wounds.
Scales like Steel
Despite many dragon claims of their own scales like steel and unpenetrable, it is not the case, they are just extremely thick due to their size. However, Fatalis does indeed have scales that are genuinely this strong. They are actually thinner than that of a Chromatic dragon. The scales are more restrictive in movement, which explains his more stilted and less agile way of moving than traditional dragons. These scales are woefully sharp too, which seems to back up some texts claiming to have made weapons from dragon scales of his kind.
Clumsy and Slow Flight
Fatalis is a heavy dragon for his size. This makes any flight with his massive wings difficult, and it's apparent. While he can hover, it is more of bobbing in place. His attitude wildly changes each wing flap, but the head stays at an even height due to his long neck.
Fire Pitch
As with the recent study of Breath Weapons, Fatalis sports the variety of a fiery ball of the pitch. Again unusual for true dragons as most tend to have cones or lines of breath weapons. This firey pitch is significant swelling to 6 times the size when leaving the mouth and exploding on impact. This can be fired much more frequently than most dragons and is devastating in the destruction.
Nomadic Predator
Fatalis is a mighty dragon but defies many conventions of dragon knowledge, especially in not having a den or hoard. More proof that much traditional knowledge about dragons is based on a shared lineage we know of the IO line of dragons. He roams lands it seems eating what he can, which is a lot, as he goes. Being a powerful dragon, he does not seem to fear attackers and merely sleeps in a comfortable space, not where he's protected. Eating doesn't seem to be a driving force for his movement, but he is actively searching for something. We do not know what that is currently, but this information will be crucial, I suspect, in understanding him.
Interactions with Other Creatures
Fatalis has been under constant mental observation by unseen psychics for months with various races and creatures interacting with him in an attempt to discern anything we can. For now, as long as he stays in these mountainous regions, we may not need to exterminate him, but if he does leave, we will have severe issues.
Humans
As previously mentioned, Fatalis seems to particularly hate humans. With further delving into the mind of rage, our researchers uncovered much more information about the events that spark this hate. Humans look incredibly similar to an unknown race, which is only referred to as the "Hunters" in the texts we've uncovered. It seems that the humanoids and Fatalis were in an open war long ago, and the events that led to this war fostered a deep hatred, even before what we now refer to as the "Ending Event" that stopped the fight.
Other Dragons
Surprisingly Fatalis did not immediately attack other dragons. However, these discussions were not discussions but mere stand-offs. It was clear that he did not recognize any of the dragons, but it was not afraid of, regardless of size, nor friendly toward any dragon it encountered. Instead, the dragons were met with skepticism. Eventually, all of the dragons were attacked at some point, one of which suffering some severe damage.
Battle Tactics
Savagery is how I would describe the Dragon of Destruction, he's now being called, fights. With constant biting, snapping, pummeling with claws, and his tail, a relentless rush-down style of attack seems to be his way of fighting. Interestingly enough, while not an agile fighter adjusting the direction of the attack outside the neck range is difficult, it seems to ignore this weakness and go for front-facing attacks almost exclusively. His tail does a whip around but not really in any planned fashion it seems, more in hopes of hitting an enemy than an active defense. To turn quicker, Fatalais stands on his hind legs making large steps then slamming his chest down to rush forward.
Whenever possible during these sudden rushes of attacks, then adjustment he fires the balls of flaming pitch. With his power and speed, this can be a deadly mix having to avoid fireballs. Even with his lack of ability to maneuver well, I doubt he lost many of his battles.
Variations and the Full Story We can Get
Our Best Guess to Fatalis
With our extensive research, we've deemed the damaged Fatlais a truly extinct dragonkin from a lost lineage. With his mind broken and only able to serve pieces of and glimpses into his past under such a state, many secrets will die with him one day. Being kept in check by many groups, if he ever leaves his mountain home, we will know. We know that he was a key player or even a leader of sorts in the old war. There was a weapon unleashed by the "human-like" side that decimated the dragons and humanoids alike, with Fatlais being the one to bring it down. We also know that his lost eye and cracked horn are a result of this battle with the "Weapon." This final battle ended with a victory, but exhaustion took the dragon, where he fell into a deep slumber. The last known of his thought is falling in battle. From here, we can find in the texts that the "Black God" was sealed away, which we assume is Fatalis himself by the humanoids that did not survive time.
Waking up in a strange world and driven mad by the final scarring fight has all but sealed his fate mentally. Maybe one day he can recover, but I find that possibility very slim. We have learned about 2 other of his kind by delving into this past, though.
Crimson Fatalis
Considered a "brother," the Crimson Fatlais was larger in size and orangish in color. Looking very much like our subject, the only memories of hearing the Crimson Fatalis are that of high pitched screeching during battle. It also could rain down meteors from the sky, it seems. Crimson was also much more adept at flying though this could have been a feeling imparted rather than fact.
White Fatalis
Another "brother" that fell earlier in the war but considered the most powerful. White Fatalis seemed to harness a Red Lightning to vanquish foes. White's fall was not witnessed by our subject but served as a turning point in the war. White Fatalis was clearly the one in charge and had stunning white scales with fur down the spine and a beard-like structure on the lower jaw. The red of his eyes was a frightening memory to our team who did witness these memories.
DM's Notes
Fatalis is a dragon from the series Monster Hunter and the final boss of the original game. This is meant to be a brutal and challenging fight with a dragon. When adapting a monster from another game or lore, I try to keep close to the source material as possible. I would suggest rather than making a whole new stat block use an Ancient Red Dragon and adjust to the dragon accordingly, probably upping AC and even damage but account for the reduced agility.
A Special Thank you
This is 50th Ecology and wanted to do one for myself that I could once again delve into my favorite game series. I thank anyone who's read this article or any other ones. This has been 4 years in the making and quite the trip. I will still be writing more as I just love doing this, but I felt like this was a significant Milestone personally.
If you enjoyed this, have questions, have article requests, or anything, leave a comment. If you like here, my collection of articles includes the previous 49. Next up, I'll be filling the gaps of the OG project meant to handle all the 5E base monsters. We've had some of those articles (not mine) disappear, so I'll be writing my take on those monsters.