Dendar

__NOTOC__
Dendar the Night Serpent is one of the elder, eternal evils of the Outer Planes created in the dawn of Abeir-Toril's prehistory. She came into existence shortly after the first being slept in Realmspace and had a nightmare. Supposedly, she will be the harbinger of the end of the world, the gods, and the entire crystal sphere of Realmspace.
The Night Serpent's slit-pupilled eyes are the sickly yellow-black of rotten eggs. Her tongue is forked and flickers incessantly over her smooth lips. Her monstrous fangs are always coated with the viscous essence of lost dreams. She speaks with a sibilant, malignant voice that drips with ancient horrors. Her hide is covered in midnight-black scales, the physical embodiment of the most terrifying nightmares she has swallowed.
Although she can slither across the Gray Waste or any of the lower planes at will, the Night Serpent is almost always found in her lair. Dendar lives in a vast cave near the oozing river that serves as the moat for the Crystal Spire (or its predecessor, Cyric's Bone Castle). The hiss of the Night Serpent's breathing echoes through the City of Strife as she sleeps, contentedly gorged on the world's unremembered nightmares. Anyone who approaches her cave finds her awake and awaiting them with anticipatory delight as she savors and relives their worst unremembered nightmares. Her cavernous maw is large enough to swallow a hill giant, and her tongue can knock an armored man to the ground with a single flick. Beneath her tongue is a foul mire of greasy spittle and half-devoured bones-the corporeal manifestations of the remnants of her dream diet.
To the ancient Rus, Dendar was known as Nidhogg, the serpent who gnaws on the roots of Yggdrasil. In Calimport, she is known (incorrectly) as the Mother of the Night Parade. (However, those horrid denizens of another world who survived their war with Myrmeen Lhal and her Harper allies have begun to venerate Dendar since their permanent loss of the artifact connecting them with their home world.) In the Jungles of Chult, Dendar is known as the Eater of the World, and stories tell of how Ubtao will battle the Night Serpent when she emerges through a gigantic iron door located beneath one of the Peaks of Flame to attempt to eat the sun. According to legend, Dendar will succeed in breaking down the door to readily devour the sun if Ubtao fails in his duty when the doom of the world finally arrives.
Only the legendary blade of Alban Onire, Titanslayer, has ever truly injured the Night Serpent. When Gwydion the Quick dared to challenge the Night Serpent during the revolt against Cyric in the City of Strife, she battled the servant of Torm with a host of nightmare visions and lost. Dendar conceded defeat and unleashed the night-terrors that belonged to the denizens defending the Bone Castle, allowing the revolutionaries to storm the fortress.
==Combat==
Although Dendar can attack with her magically envenomed bite, she prefers to unleash unremembered nightmares on anyone so bold as to attack her. Her fangs cut through armor as if it does not exist-the Armor Class of any opponent is calculated using magical and Dexterity bonuses only. Anyone bitten by the Night Serpent must make a successful saving throw vs. death magic or fall into an eternal sleep, stalked by an endless stream of nightmares replayed over and over. The only way to end this tortured state is with a limited wish or wish spell followed by heal to prevent the victim from being permanently feebleminded. On an unmodified attack roll of 20, Dendar can swallow an opponent of huge size or smaller whole. When swallowed in this manner, victims can only be helped by forcing Dendar to disgorge nightmares and leaving her gullet in the outgoing flood. While in her gullet they take 1d6 points of acid damage per turn.
For every point of damage an opponent inflicts on the Night Serpent, one scale explodes and stretches into a fully formed nightmare, similar in effect to a nightmare spell (as the reverse of the 5th-level wizard spell dream). Although every nightmare is actually experienced instantaneously, each hideous and unsettling vision seems to go on forever. If the victim fails a saving throw vs. spell, each nightmare inflicts 1d10 points of damage and leaves the recipient fatigued and unable to regain spells for a week. If a second saving throw vs. spell is failed, the victim is under the effects of a permanent fear spell until remove fear is successfully cast upon them.
Dendar can also disgorge up to 10 nightmares per round against each attacker, although she is loath to do so unless confronted by a particularly dangerous opponent, since each lost nightmare delays the end of the world and her triumph just a little bit longer.
The Night Serpent can vomit forth any specific spirit's worst nightmare from its entire life. Such nightmares fly forth to attack their originators, wherever they may be (even on another plane). If victims have already confronted particular attacking visions and laid them to rest (as adjudicated by the DM), they are unaffected, and the Night Serpent must concede defeat to such opponents and be henceforth unable to ever harm them through night terrors ever again. If victims have not confronted and defeated particular attacking nightmares in the past and fail a saving throw vs. spell at -5, they become insane with a pernicious insanity curable only by a wish granted directly from a deity. If victims who have failed this saving throw are in the process of physically attacking the Night Serpent, a gathered host of horrors envelop them and draw them into the gullet of the Night Serpent. Such a fate results in the permanent annihilation of these victims and not even a greater power can restore the unfortunate being to life or the afterlife.
Dendar can cast one of the following spells at will (as an ability) once per round: demishadow magic, demishadow monsters, dreamspeak (as the 1st-level wizard spell, also known as Detho's delirium), fear, or nightmare (or its reverse, dream). The Night Serpent can intangibly manifest anywhere in the Realms and cast any of the above spells as well.
Dendar can only be hit by weapons of +5 enchantment or greater. She regenerates 5 hit points per round. She is immune to poison, hold, fear, or charm spells, illusions, psionics, and death magic.
Dendar can only be truly slain by mortals or powers under conditions similar to those required to slay a demipower on its home plane. Otherwise, she always reforms in the Gray Waste after one day has passed. All of the Realms' inhabitants remember every nightmare they have that night in excruciating detail for the rest of their lives.
==Habitat/Society==
Dendar is a unique being who resides in the Gray Waste, eating the unremembered nightmares of Faerûn's populace. The Night Serpent has an uncountable horde of horrible dreams and foul visions in her gullet that she has been devouring since the dawn of time. She relishes the taste of particularly choice nightmares and savors the dreams of kings and deities alike.
==Ecology==
Dendar has consumed the unremembered nightmares of Faerûn for uncounted eons, slowly fattening herself in preparation for the end of the world when she can escape to the Realms in order to devour the sun. If she did not feed her insatiable appetite, every being, mortal or deity, would remember every nightmare she or he ever dreamed in excruciating and possibly incapacitating detail.
Prior to Cyric's tenure, the Night Serpent ate only unremembered nightmares. Then, in his madness, the Prince of Lies fed her numerous denizens of the City of Strife (petitioners and other spirits). She developed a taste for the Faithful. As a result of this new diet, Dendar quickly swelled up to the point where she could no longer leave her lair and hence could no longer hunt for the most succulent nightmares or manifest in the Realms. Kelemvor, the new Lord of the Dead, no longer feeds denizens or any other Faithful to the Night Serpent, and Dendar has shrunk back to her normal gargantuan size, allowing her to leave her cave. She has developed a taste for the Faithful, however, and, like Kezef the Chaos Hound, any of the Faithful the Night Serpent manages to catch and consume are utterly destroyed. Since Cyric's defeat, Dendar is careful to only consume the occasional spirit morsel as a treat, and her diet once again consists predominantly of the world's unremembered nightmares.
Category:NPCs
Category:Powers & Pantheons NPCs