from March’s Creatures Beyond the Walle

A monstrous yet fortunately rare magical creature, chimeras are a three-headed hybrid with a ravening lion in front, a fire-breathing goat in the middle, and a venomous snake in the rear. Fearsome even when calm, chimeras are easily upset and can erupt at the slightest offense. Once enraged or frightened, they become crazed, leaving behind a trail of destruction and disaster in their wake. They will raze any nearby buildings, devour any flocks or herds they can smell, and spark uncontrollable wildfires that burn with a blind fury matching theirs. A chimera crazed by his injuries during the catastrophic Stone Wars razed the Goddess’s Great Temple in Oress, a stunning and splendorous tribute to the Goddess that has never been matched in the millennia since.

Most creatures avoid chimeras as much as possible to not provoke their crazed, destructive rage that once roused, is often only ended with their death or an incredibly powerful sleep spell. Killing chimeras is both deadly and difficult because their fire prevents attackers from getting near and only enchanted weapons can pierce their steely hide with scales beneath their fur. The most effective tactic has been attacking from the air (usually atop a flying magical creature like a pegasus) then driving an enchanted lead-tipped lance into the crazed chimera’s flaming throat, choking it on molten metal. (In essence, turning the crazed chimera’s destructive rage on itself.)

Living around five or six decades unless killed, chimeras are solitary creatures because even they seek to avoid their fellows’ rage. Females will go into heat every decade or so during the late summer (making them even more unpredictable and irascible than usual) and will hunt for males to mate with, and the female’s scent will attract all the males within a week’s distance, leading to vicious battles between those males and unrestrained orgies until the female is impregnated. Then the chimeras calm and go their separate ways once more, and the female gives birth a year later and raises their sole offspring for another year before their bellicose natures drive them apart.