Zmeu - Monster Design

## The Zmeu

##### Monster Design: The Zmeu [Garen O'Donnell 1606002].

The Zmeu are a form of draconic shapeshifting monster which, in their natural form, resemble a serpentine dragon, however due to the shapeshifting qualities of said beast they will often take the appearence of young men. The Zmeu is a selfish and greedy creature which will often be noted as stealing items of great value, for example in one story the zmeu steals golden apples from a king.

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### Monster Implementation

There will be varius quests in the Transylvanian area which will involve a Zmeu. However they will not be roving monsters on the overworld as they could easily be seen as mid tier boss monsters. Quests that make use of this monster would have them as a form of sub leader of a group, or perhaps a side quest where a person has been kidnapped or a rare item stolen, which might be awarded to succesful players upon returning to the quest-giver.

The Zmeu, as a form of mid tier boss monster, should prove a fair threat to any player who happens to end up fighting one. Mechanically I would say that the monster likely has multiple health bars/has several times the average players health value as well as various advantages over the player due to supernatural strength, flight (Draconic form) and complete invulnerability to spells that might force it to change its form such as a polymorph spell. The zmeu should also be researched by the player once they learn that this is indeed the nature of the creature that they are required to hunt down as, without the knowledge that a bestiery reviewal would reveal, the player would find themselves getting ambushed by the zmeu in a form that the player would not have been expecting.

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### Bestiary Entry

Below Shall be an example of what an ancient bestiary entry about the Zmeu would contain

#### The Zmeu

This foul creature, one of the greediest and most self serving of the draconic beasts can be found nearly anywhere within Transylvania and the surrounding lands. They appear to have a special attraction to rare wealths and beauties, as such setting a trap for a Zmeu might be as simple as setting out some rare pearls or foreign gemstones which are difficult to find in our land of Transylvania. However as these beasts grow older they most certainly grow wiser, often choosing to adopt whole personas within the general populace as to disguise themselves from hunters such as myself. This can often make them nearly impossible to discover without revealing your target. The best way to defeat these creatures once you enter a fight though? That much is rather simple as they are strong, can fly and can actively shapeshift to make use of openings. The answer is you avoid fighting as much as possible, rather pelt them with arrows tipped in silver, lay a trap to entangle and surprise the beast and finally a large sword or axe to behead the beast before it is able to rally a defence against you.

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### Quest Example

Player character will be contracted to retrieve stolen goods, or rescue a kidnapped person from an unknown assailent. The quest will then proceed to drop hints that the creature that has comitted this crime is a Zmeu, perhaps by a scale being left at the scene or rumours of a handsome man in town turning around corners and disappearing as if they flew away. Hints should lead player to look for a professionals advice, in which case they would learn the nature of the creature and would have more active knowledge on how to hunt the creature down. Otherwise if they fail to follow hints left through various points in the quest they will proceed to have to guess what to do when faced with the dangerous draconic monster in their way of saving the kidnapped person or retrieving rare artifact etc.