Chameleon Man
Climate/Terrain: Nonarctic woods, plains, or caverns
Frequency: Rare
Organization: Clan
Activity Cycle: Any
Diet: Omnivore
Intelligence: Average (8-10)
Treasure: E (Q,S)
Alignment: Neutral
No. Appearing: 2d4
Armor Class: 10
Movement: 12
Hit Dice: 2
THAC0: 19
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage/Attack: By weapon
Special Attacks: Dimension door
Special Defenses: Nil
Magic Resistance: Nil
Size: M (7’ tall)
Morale: Average (10)
XP Value: 120
Bodyguard: 175
Leader: 420
The lizard-kin of Mystara share an ancient lineage. The chameleon men are the oldest of these races; some believe that caymen, gator men, sis’thik, and standard lizard men all descend from a common ancestor related to chameleon men. Relations between lizard men and the four lizard-kin races, however, range from indifferent at best to hostile at worst.
Chameleon Man
The reclusive chameleon men possess a bit of dragon ancestry. In their homes far from human and demihuman civilizations, they generally can avoid contact with strangers.
Chameleon men stand 7 feet tall, and their spindly arms and legs make them look quite thin. They move with a stride that other races find gangling and awkward. Chameleon men have multicolored, somewhat scaly skin with stripes of many colors: red, blue, green, yellow, brown, orange, black, and white (though few chameleon men have every possible hue). The colors seem to shift and swirl when the creatures walk (a trick of the light as it plays off their scales).
Combat: Chameleon men usually arm themselves with light weapons: daggers, spears, or dubs. They never wear armor, as it interferes with their natural abilities; they would rather blend in with the scenery than fight openly.
By far the most useful feature of the chameleon men remains their vanishing ability, which they use to avoid combat or to surround opponents. Each round, a chameleon man can vanish and reappear up to 120 feet away. This ability essentially mirrors the wizard spell dimension door, with a 120-foot range limitation. The creatures wield such precise control over this ability that they never reappear in midair or inside solid objects. Of course, a chameleon man cannot appear in the exact spot as someone or something else. These lizard-kin cannot attack in the round that they use this ability.
Chameleon man leaders – or Lords of Shade and Hue – have 4 Hit Dice and 1d20+10 constant bodyguards with 3 Hit Dice. Leaders can blend in with any natural background and have a 90% chance to remain undetected while unmoving. Lords and their bodyguards have a morale of Average (9).
Habitat/Society: All chameleon man settlements feature a magical site called a tookoo. The tookoo of a cave-dwelling clan might be a special grotto that glistens with arcane crystals. Forest dwellers might revere an ancient tree of strong magic. These sites always radiate magic and enable chameleon men to fight at a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls. When fighting for their tookoos or homes, their morale rises to Fearless (20).
Once a year chameleon men shed their skin, much as a lizard does. They save the skin for a vital purpose: reproduction. As this race has no female gender, chameleon men reproduce by placing their old skins in their clan’s tookoo. The offering has a 60% chance of magically transforming into a young chameleon man, which grows to maturity in just eight weeks.
Ecology: Chameleon men enjoy watching over old woods and caverns, maintaining the harmony of nature. They are sometimes hunted by lizard men, who fear their ability to vanish. These lizard-kin subsist on crops they cultivate and fish. Less scrupulous wizards prize a chameleon man’s skin as a component for making robes of blending.
Originally appeared in B8 - Journey to the Rock (1984). This is the Mystara Monstrous Compendium Appendix version.