-Name: Aethelreda
-Gender: Female
-Type: Salamander/Cave Dragon
-Appearance: In the presence of humans Aethelreda will normally take a humanoid form. She has very pale and slightly spongy skin that is always damp and a little slick to the touch. Her pale hair is always damp, but it is still normally styled ornately. She can wear any human clothing but has expressed distaste for either uncomfortable clothes or anything made of wool, apparently it itches and dries her skin out.Trickles of smoke sometimes waft from her mouth and nostril when she is annoyed or amused. Aethelreda spends a lot of time in water even in human form. She keeps any injuries when she changes forms, and she has a bad scar in the lower left of her ribcage on the front and back. If the picture is not okay I will change it, but she is wearing clothing.
When she is not in the presence of humans or she is incensed Aethelreda spends most of her time in her real shape. She is a giant amphibious creature akin to a giant salamander writ large. She is 30 feet long from her snout to the tip of her tail and she weighs several tons. Her skin is not scaly, instead being slimy and smooth like other amphibians and it is a pinkish white in color.. Her mouth has multiple rows of long and sharp teeth inside of it and smoke trickles from it constantly.
-Age: 30s, 606
-Powers/Traits: Aethelreda is a cave dragon, though the title of dragon is a misnomer because her kind are not reptilian at all. As a cave dragon she can breath fire from either her nose or her mouth in human form and she is very resistant to fire due to the slime her body secretes. Her slime can become poisonous if she wants it to be, but it normally is not when she is in human form. Because she isn't human she is stronger than a human even in human form but she isn't any faster than an above average human.
In her real form she contaminates things that her slime touches if she turns it on. A single drop of her slime is enough to pollute a well for weeks and make everyone who drinks from it get sick. But they would not get very sick because a single drop would be very diluted. She can breath fire and is almost impervious to fire when in her real form. Her skin is also thicker than her human skin and highly resilient but still much thinner and weaker than a true dragon's scales. As a dragon she is also highly resistant to magic.
In either form she has to be very careful not to allow her body to dry out. If she dries out too much she will start to sicken and eventually die painfully from dehydration.
-Background:
Cave Dragons were never like their larger cousins. There was no great struggle between humankind and the amphibious salamander-dragons of the water logged caves beneath the Balkans of southern Europe. But there have always been exceptions. As a wyrmling Aethelreda was dragged up to the surface when the cave system that she and her mother dwelt in was flooded after a great rainstorm. When the flood had passed she was alone on the surface in a world she was not prepared to face yet.
Already the size of a large crocodile Aethelreda began to hunt to survive. She lived and grew for almost fifty years before her lack of knowledge led to a confrontation. A traveling band of humans moved into the swamp she had claimed for her own and she did not know to avoid them. She saw them as just another kind of food to eat. Aethelreda attacked and killed most of the band but a few escaped and spread tales of a dragon in the swamps. The rumors spread like wildfire, because it had been a long time since a dragon had last been seen.
In time the hunters came, the last knights seeking glory in the death of a dragon and early hunters with guns seeking to kill the beast before it could kill them. Aethelreda was not ready and while she killed many men one of the knights left her with a wound that still marks her to this day when he thrust a lance clear through her chest cavity. She killed him after that and fled into the heart of the swamp to lick her wounds. But she wasn't healing. It was luck that she did not die, early agents from the Bain & Hoyle Company had heard the reports of a dragon too and come to investigate.
They came expecting a rogue ancient who had to be put down, not a half grown cave dragon from the depths and they showed mercy, healing her instead of striking her down. She was removed from the swamp, though it remains rancid to this day from her years of life there, and brought under the protection of the company. In time she was educated and in time she would actually join them. Aethelreda is one of the oldest members now and she is no longer a 'guest' but is housed in a special mansion constructed for her purposes and provided for by the staff of the company. She holds not special rank within the company but she is treated with respect and well known by almost all people in positions of authority due to her long service and the sheer power of a dragon.