Blood Dogs

Large undead, chaotic neutral

Armor Class 14 (smoky hide)

Hit Points 88 (11d10 + 22)

Speed 50 ft.

STR 18 (+4) · DEX 14 (+2) · CON 15 (+2) · INT 6 (−2) · WIS 14 (+2) · CHA 10 (+0)

Saving Throws Dex +4, Wis +4

Skills Perception +4, Stealth +4, Survival +4

Damage Vulnerabilities radiant

Damage Resistances necrotic; fire

Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 14

Languages understands Common and Sylvan but can’t speak

Challenge 4 (1,100 XP)

Traits

Blood Scent. The blood dog can smell spilled blood up to 300 feet away, and it has advantage on Wisdom (Perception or Survival) checks made to locate a creature that has taken piercing or slashing damage within the last hour.

Fog Blend. While in dim light, darkness, or lightly obscured areas such as smoke or mist, the blood dog has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks and can take the Hide action as a bonus action.

Trackless. The blood dog leaves no tracks and cannot be tracked by non-magical means.

Actions

Multiattack. The blood dog makes two attacks: one with its Bite and one with its Claw.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 12 (1d10 + 7) piercing damage plus 4 (1d6) necrotic damage.

Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) slashing damage.

Scorching Breath (Recharge 5–6). The blood dog exhales searing heat in a 15-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw, taking 22 (5d8) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. Vegetation and unattended flammable objects in the cone ignite.

Bonus Actions

Consume Fallen. The blood dog targets a corpse or patch of blood-soaked earth within 5 feet that has been spilled within the last 24 hours. It absorbs the bloody essence and regains 10 hit points. Once it uses this bonus action, the blood dog must finish a short or long rest before it can do so again.

Reactions

Mist Step. When the blood dog would take damage, it can move up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks. It must end this movement in an area of dim light, darkness, smoke, or fog.

Lore

Spectral hounds with blazing eyes that roam battlefields, lapping up pools of blood; their breath scorches the ground.

The Blood Dog, sometimes called the Scottish Hound, is neither a hunting dog nor a hellhound in the classical sense, but a distinct variety of zoomorphic vampire bound exclusively to sites of mass bloodshed. In the Anglo-Scottish borderlands the creature was regarded as a guardian of spilled blood and a symbol of sorrow.

The very name “Blood Dog” points to the creature’s direct dependence on the blood that has soaked into the earth after battles. British demonologists place it in an intermediate zone between the classic hellhound and the necrophagous vampire: from the former it inherits the look of a gigantic hound with blazing eyes; from the latter — its need to consume blood. Crucially, it drinks not the blood of the living but that of warriors slain in combat, which sets it apart from other vampires. Some sources add that the entity can appear in the more archaic form of a dog-headed man, tying it to ancient Greek and Celtic myths of the cynocephali.

From Vampire Bestiary 5E, p. 30 · Fern Flower Press