Although the hydra is a unique dragon that haunts the swamps of Lerna, its severed heads have given rise to the hydras that terrorize the world beyond its territory. Although their essential nature as a perpetually diluting bloodline remains constant, along the way the hydras have undergone various mutations such as the cryohydra, electrohydra, hydralisk, pyrohydra and schism hydra. One such mutation is the thessalhydra, which has itself given rise to the thessalmonsters.
The thessalhydra is a gigantic lizard with a mouth full of shark’s teeth, a tail ending in a pair of insectoid pincers, and a mane of hydra heads. All of its mouths drool with acid and its central maw may spit a stream of acid at its prey (naturally, the monster is immune to acid itself).
A more disturbing attribute of the thessalhydra is that severed heads which survive to molt will incorporate traits of the creatures previously devoured by their parent. This gave rise to an entire family of hybrid thessalmonsters which combine the traits of the thessalhydra with another monster like the basilisk, chimera, cockatrice, gorgon, naga, otyugh, and so forth. Thankfully they retain the hydra’s limitation that their strength and size becomes more diluted with distance from the original hydra, or else they could have destroyed the world long ago.
Thessalmonsters are hybrids of a thessalhydra and another monster. Thessalmonsters typically resemble their "father's" species, except with a mane of hydra heads, acid spit, and anterior forceps. Hybrids of smaller monsters, such as the thessaltrix (a hybrid of cockatrice), may resemble thessalhydras with their hydra heads replaced by that of their father.
Curiously, only half of the population of thessalmonsters grows tail pincers. There is no apparent correlation between the presence of pincers and a given hybrid's heritage. Furthermore, the primary head may vary between either the father's head or a central maw. The pincers and central maw have appeared in a variety of different configurations (see the attached images for details). The significance of this quirk, if there is any, is unknown. Makes sense for a beast of chaos, I suppose.
That said, this origin is not set in stone. As the article "Hack & Slash: On the Ecology of the Hydra" shows, you are free to come up with all sorts of weird explanations rather than being limited to a pseudo-naturalistic explanation.
It is entirely possible that the Lernaean Hydra was part of a clutch of immortal progenitor hydras and each had slightly different traits from its siblings. The Thessalian Hydra, then, is the progenitor of the thessalmonsters. Perhaps each variety of thessalmonster is a clone of a platonic progenitor: for example, maybe the first thessalhydra copulated with the first chimera to produce the first thessalchimera from which all thessalchimeras are cloned. Not everything needs to be a mad wizard's experiment, you know.
Maybe Thessaly, a region on the coast of the Aegean Sea, spawns the thessalmonsters from its own soil just like Gaia spawned the giants and autocthons (and, according to 13th Age, the orcs). Mother Nature is so unforgiving! (Speaking of which, does that mean the Hydra is actually part of Lerna rather than a mere monster living in the swamps? What terrible ramifications does that have for the swamps themselves?!)
The thessalmonster is similar to other creatures with manes of serpents, such as the kammadan, the dread eyebeast, and Cerberus from Greek mythology. Despite being really interesting, we rarely see monsters with features like that. Too bad...
According to the original D&D lore, the thessalhydra was actually a hybrid of the hydra and an original unseen thessalmonster (in D&D hydras are presented as a naturally occurring unnatural magical monstrosity because screw logic). Presumably, the original thessalmonster was a quadrupedal monster with a giant maw, acid drool and tail pincers. It was never crossbred with other monsters and seemingly vanished or died. The thessalhydra, however, readily hybridized with a variety of monsters (presumably by literal crossbreeding, but that doesn't explain the cockatrice hybrid since the size disparity recalls Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action; so d-infinity posited the cannibal hybrid thing). The Tome of Horrors series simplified this by omitting any mention of the original thessalmonster and explaining thessalmonsters as a hybrid of thessalhydra and another monster; the RAW unfortunately made cockatrice hybrids impossible so that was presumably why basilisk and gorgon hybrids were presented.
Which reminds me... While the typical thessalmonster is technically a thessalhydra hybrid, there's no reason that the original thessalmonster could not have produced similar crossbreeds with other monsters. For these variants, replace the hydra heads with an appropriate feature of the other parent.
Links
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thessalmonster
- https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?682161-Let-s-Read-AD-amp-D-2e-Monstrous-Compendium-Annual-Vol-III&p=16948659#post16948659
- https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/thessalmonster-cr-3-tohc/
- http://d-infinity.net/blog/derek-holland/dd-monster-week-thessalmonster
- http://sefotron.blogspot.com/2016/12/thessalhydra-huge-monstrosity-cr-20.html
- https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/52lcaj/basilisk_hydra_hydrilisk_or_basidra/
http://porphyra.wikidot.com/dread-eyebeast
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