False Hydra

A false hydra is one of the most dangerous foes that a group of players can face. Its mind-altering song doesn't make it invisible, just simply erases itself from the mind from those who hear it. As the hydra feeds on the populace of a town, it gorws As it grows, its sphere of influnence expands; and the ability of those to throw it off within that range wanes.

Seedling

The false hydra enters a town through a humble enough method. Fattened on worms, it has been growing upwards these last few weeks, but has only now broken through the soil. It emerges in a basement, from behind the jars of fruit preserve. Or pushes its face up through a broken cobblestone. And then it begins to sing.

While it sings, it is ignored. It just creates gaps in your attention and then slips through them. It is subtler than invisibility, and more reliable.

At this point, the false hydra is only a torso (presumably about the same size as a man's) buried somewhere in the ground. The neck grows up, up until the head emerges from the ground. The head is only the size of a man's head at this point. It is hairless, and of a pale almost tranlucent white. The eyes are wet holes.

Growth

The hydra eats people, of course. To eat someone, it must stop singing, which endangers the hydra, since it can now be noticed. To make this task easier, the hydra usually drags the unfortunate victim a short distance underground, into a basement, sewer, or small chamber that it has excavated, and devours them there.

A man is walking along a deserted street. Suddenly he realizes that the silence is more profound, as if a loud noise had just ceased. There is a rattle as a sewer grate slides over rough stone. In that darkness, a fleshy face, leering with undisguised hunger. It lunges forward on a thick neck that slides out of the darkness like a sheath, one foot, three feet, six feet long. And then it bites him on the arm and drags him down that narrow gap, yanking and twisting to fit the man's body through that too-small space. And when the sounds of eating have ceased, the song resumes.

The man has family and friends who will notice his absence. But the song of the hydra massages their mind, smoothing the wrinkles on their brain. The hydra has eaten the man, who is now known to the hydra. The song erases the memories from their soft heads. They will not notice his absence, nor remember him.

And in this way, the hydra grows. It's neck stretches long. . . longer. And with it, its influence. Rapidly, more heads will sprout and grow; adding their voices to the song.

But of course, none of this is noticed. While it sings, the hydra exists in our blind spot

The false hydra's song hides the memories of the devoured victims in the same way that it hides the false hydra, but this is not a perfect system.

Wives will wonder why there are men's clothes in her closet. People will notice that no one has lit the street lanterns these last few nights. Churches suddenly find themselves without a bell ringer.

By and large, these gaps close themselves up. The wife will forget about the clothes as soon as she stops looking at them. Or she will conveniently remember how her brother left them there the last time he visited. Or she will, on some level, recognize the wrongness implicit in the clothes, and throw them away one moonless night. She will confabulate, powerfully and constantly.

But part of her mind is cognizant of the disturbance. That part of her mind is distrusted, and sealed away. But that primordial cluster of neurons still fires. A syphilitic madman who has been locked in the attic by his family, but whose mutters can sometimes be heard during the lulls in the dinner party downstairs.

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False Hydra

medium/large/huge monstrosity, chaotic evil

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• Saving Throws Dex -2, Con +6, Int +1, Wis +5, Cha +9
• Armor Class 17
• Hit Points 109 (10d12 + 40)
• Speed 40Ft., Burrow 40Ft.

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STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
16 (+3)	6 (-2)	18 (+4)	12 (+1)	16 (+3)	24 (+7)

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• Skills Athletics +5, Deception +10, Insight +5, Perception +5,
• Condition Immunities Sleep, Prone, Charmed, frightened.
• Senses Darkvision 120Ft., Deaf, Passive Perception 15,
• Languages Sylvan. Understands Common, Undercommon, Elven, Infernal, and Abyssal.
• Challenge Rating Varies

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This stat block represents all 3 sizes of the false hydra throughout it's lifetime. The main stat block represents a medium hydra. For each size category above medium:

• Increase it's maximum hitpoints by 50.

• Increase its Con, Wis, and Cha saving throws by +1.

• Increase its listed skills and passive perception by +1.

• Increase the to-hit bonus of the bite attack by +1; the bite attack deals an additional 1d6 damage per size category.

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Multiple Heads. The false hydra has three heads when it is a medium creature, five heads when it is a large creature, and seven heads when it is a huge creature. Because it has more than one head, the hydra has advantage on saving throws against being blinded, stunned, and knocked unconscious.

Reactive Heads. For each head the false hydra has beyond one, it gets an extra reaction that can be used only for opportunity attacks.

Wakeful. While the false hydra sleeps, at least one of its heads is awake.

Siren Song. The false hydra is always singing while it is not feeding. Any creature within 1000 feet of the hydra who can hear its song cannot notice the hydra, and anything concerning the hydra they rationalize away.

Beings that are consumed by the hydra are forgotten about. Loved ones do not even remember that they existed, and rationalize the gaps of memory in their past.

See the full article on False Hydras for a more complete description of ways that this song can manifest itself.

A character with a passive perception of 20 will notice the brief absense of some unknown sound when the hydra stops singing for a moment for all of the heads to feed on a freshly killed creature.

While the False Hydra is engaged in combat, and has at least 50 hit points remaining, one of its heads is always continuing the Siren Song to prevent nearby townsfolk from seeing the false hydra or otherwise lending aid to the characters.

Legendary Resistance (1/Day). If the hydra fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.

Actions

Multiattack. The hydra makes as many bite attacks as it has heads.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 30Ft., one target. Hit: (1d6 + 3) piercing damage

Grapple. The hydra makes one bite attack against a target of equal or smaller size to it. On a hit, the target takes no damage and is grappled as the neck of one of the heads wraps around the it. Bite attacks against a grappled character are made with advantage. The false hydra can grapple a number of creatures simultaneously equal to its number of heads -1.

Enthrall 2/Day The false hydra bellows out a reality splitting sound. One creature within 60 feet of the hydra that is not already charmed must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom Saving throw or be charmed by the false hydra. A creature charmed in this way is treated as if they are under the effects of the Dominate Person spell. The creature can repeat this saving throw at the end of each of its turns, and whenever it takes damage. It makes this saving throw with advantage if the creature that damaged it was the hydra. A huge false hydra can use this ability 3/day.

Legendary Actions

The false hydra can take 2 Legendary Actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action can be used at a time, and only at the end of another creature's turn. Spent legendary Actions are regained at the start of each turn.

Grapple. The hydra makes one grapple attack against a target within range.

Bite. The false hydra makes one bite attack with one of its heads.

Enthrall. (Costs 2 Actions) The false hydra makes an enthrall attack against one character within range.

Adventure Hooks

An acquaintance might send the characters an innocuous letter that somehow contains the phrase "help me for the
love of god help me help". The rest of the letter sounds
perfectly normal, before and after the cry for help;
talking about his brother, and the recent harvest.
When they get arrive in town, the acquaintance
has no memory of writing it, but looks nervous
(and a little bit insane) while claiming that it's
probably just some wizard's prank, he could claim
he has always been an only child. When the
players produce the letter, they no longer see
the phrase where their acquaintance begged for help.

Maybe the young woman running the local tavern
and barely keeping it afloat claims to have never
married or had any children. But just the week,
before when the players passed through this
town, she was nursing her newborn and listening
to a bard perform in the tavernhall, while her
husband tended bar and swapped fishing stories
with the local riff-raff.

Perhaps one of the players staying at a local
inn has a nightmare where they heard a scream
in the middle of the night from inside their own
room. They dream of a blood trail dragged from
the other bed, down the hall, and out a second floor
window. When they wake up in the morning, they
find no blood, no broken window, and the second
bed in their room is left unslept in. But maybe
they find a backpackthat they dont recognize. The
adventuring pack that had belonged to their
companion who was devoured the night before,
and they rationalized that occurance as a dream,
and have since forgotten that person had ever
existed. All because the hydra's the song has
resumed. The dream was a real moment where
the song had stopped for the hydra to feed on
their friend.

Hooks like these can get your characters
invested in the region and storyline, potentially
without the promise of treasure.

Plan to tie a false hydra into their motivations as
adventurers.