Wyvaran

Another Advanced Race Guide monster already!  Wyvarans are a magical crossbreed (supposedly by dragons) between wyverns and kobolds—likely an attempt to breed out the brutishness of the former with the small size and resentful cowardice of the latter.  (No link to stats today—in what appears to be an oversight, I can find no stats for the wyvaran on the d20PFSRD.com or anywhere else.)

I’m glad, though, that the wyvaran is more than the sum of its parts.  I like that wyvarans are lawful neutral, loyal, and property-obsessed, for instance.  And the fact that the default wyvaran is an inquisitor of Air raises all sorts of my favorite kind of questions.  (What does that guy even look like?  Or believe?  What are the tenets of that faith?  Most air deities in published books tend toward chaotic—what does one within one step of lawful neutral represent?)

In fact, I want to go further—I want wyvarans in general to come out of left field.  Sure they can lead kobold tribes…but maybe they're astrology-obsessed like Golarion’s green dragons.  Or they have a fierce system of blood pacts and weregild.  Maybe they hate creatures of Earth or launch crusades against gargoyles.  Maybe they run a crude kind of Western Union, remaining stingy with their own gold but happy to fly letters of credit and contracts from place to place.  Who knows?  It's a brand new race—the cavern mouth of opportunity is wide open.

Wayvaran astrologers have claimed an ancient ruin on a strategically valuable mountain peak.  Whether adventurers are interested in exploring the ruin, claiming the height for their lord’s military, or taking star readings themselves, they will find the devout seers are more than ready to defend what they see as theirs with lightning arcs.

Wyvaran samurai come to the aid of an adventuring party against a tribe of keches.  On the one hand the samurai might demand the party pay for their assistance (even though no such thing was agreed to beforehand); on the other hand the battle takes place close enough to the wyvarans’ lair that the party may claim the right of hospitality and a night’s lodging.  One complication, though: Custom dictates the wyvarans kill all ninjas and confirmed thieves on sight.

A gold dragon is served by the retinue of wyvarans he created.  The wyvarans are loyal but concerned with rank and territory to an almost comical degree.  Taking advantage of this inbred trait, the gold uses the wyvarans as toll agents guarding the seven entrances (bridges, passes, and underground tunnels) into his domain.  Each is allowed to employ whatever aides and henchmen it needs, from other wyvarans and kobolds to air elementals, iron cobras, eidolons, goat-centaurs, and traps.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 4 281

Man, compared to wraiths you guys hate wyrwoods.  Or drag queens.  I guess my next set of adventure seeds shouldn’t include wyrwoods in drag.  #toolate)