Spikes cover the body of this vaguely reptilian creature. Its fearsome face features dagger-sharp teeth and glowing red eyes.

As stout as a bull with a reptile's scaly, spiked body, hodags are legendary forest predators that hunt along the edges of civilization in thick woods. Green, gray, and black scales cover the beasts, helping them blend in amid underbrush, and sharp spikes stand along their backs and run down their powerful, dangerous tails. Loggers share stories of being followed by hodags and seeing their glowing red eyes in the otherwise oppressive darkness of the deep forest. In the wintertime, when snow and ice blankets the region, hodags grow a foul-smelling coat of greasy, dark brown fur that sprouts in tufts from between their scales.

Many believe that hodags are not simply strong beasts but rather unique and specific terrors that have lived and hunted certain woodlands for ages. Others living near such wildernesses, however, consider hodags a myth, nothing more than the sort of tall tale that is typical of excitable rural folk. A male hodag measures 10 feet long and weighs 700 pounds.

Special Abilities

Spiked Tail (Ex) A hodag's tail spikes allow the creature's tail slap to deal both bludgeoning and piercing damage. A hodag's tail slap is a primary attack.

Toss (Ex) A hodag charging 20 feet or more that damages a foe with an attack can throw its foe with a special combat maneuver check. The opponent must be corporeal and at least one size category smaller than the hodag. If the combat maneuver check succeeds, the hodag's opponent is thrown 10 feet through the Air In a direction chosen by the hodag and falls prone. The hodag can only toss its opponent in a straight line. If an obstacle prevents the creature's movement, both the creature tossed and the object struck take 1d6 points of damage, and the creature falls prone in the space adjacent to the obstacle. A hodag can also toss an opponent 10 feet up into the Air . The victim lands in the same square it started in, falls prone, and takes 1d6 points of damage.

Trackless (Ex) A hodag sweeps its tail behind itself in a way that obscures its tracks. Attempts to track a hodag have their normal DC increased by +10.