The cinder lizard is a large reptile native to the rocky badlands, resembling a stone alligator. When motionless, which it always is, it is almost indistinguishable from a long flat boulder due to the interlocking stone plates that line its back. Under the lizard's tongue is a deep bed of white-hot cinders that it uses to kill its prey and cook its food.

Cinder Lizard

Large beast, unaligned

Armor Class

16 (natural armor), or 12 (natural armor) if its underbelly is exposed.

Hit Points

60 (7d10 + 21)

Speed

30 ft.

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
17 (+3)	9 (-1)	16 (+3)	2 (-4)	8 (-1)	7 (-2)

Damage Immunities

fire

Senses

Stealth +1, passive Perception 9

Languages

—

Challenge

3 (700 XP)

Camouflage.

The cinder lizard has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks while in rocky terrain.

Fiery Maw.

Any creature grappled by the cinder lizard's bite takes 10 (3d6) fire damage on each of the lizard's turns, unless the lizard's fire has been extinguished. When its mouth is open, the lizard sheds dim light in a 20-ft. radius.

Soft Underbelly.

The cinder lizard's AC is reduced by 4 while it has a target in its mouth, or while it is grappled, incapacitated, or restrained, as it is unable to maneuver to prevent attacks against its vulnerable underbelly.

Actions

Bite.

Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6+3) bludgeoning damage and the target is grappled (escape DC 13) and affect by the lizard's fiery maw, taking 10 (3d6) additional fire damage. Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, and is affected by the fiery maw on each of the cinder lizard's following turns as long as it remains grappled. While a creature is grappled in this way, the lizard can't bite another target, and its soft underbelly is susceptible to attacks.

Tail.

Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target not grappled by the lizard. Hit: 8 (1d8+3) bludgeoning damage.

Combat and Tactics
In the wild, a cinder lizard is most likely found blending into a boulder field, seizing passing prey with a surprising burst of speed.

A cinder lizard will usually keep a grappled creature in its jaw until the creature dies, while fighting off other attackers with its tail. It is not intelligent enough to flee a losing fight and will often die with a creature still in its maw. Removing the trapped target in the minute following the lizard's death requires a DC 13 Strength check.

If a creature is trapped in the lizard's maw, use your favorite maiming rules to determine which limb is caught. The creature could escape if the limb were amputated: the lizard, satisfied with its meal, would not likely pursue or continue to fight unless threatened.

The lizard's fiery maw can be extinguished by any effect capable of extinguishing a forge fire, such as an oil of extinguishing (below), or at least twenty gallons of water. If this occurs, no fire damage is dealt to grappled targets, and the lizard behaves erratically, growing more aggressive until it starves to death, unable to understand what has happened. If a creature in this state can be subdued, its furnace could be reignited.

A cinder lizard can be fooled into biting a moving dummy (have it make a Wisdom check, DC 10 for something roughly creature-shaped, or a higher DC for a more convincing decoy), but will quickly release a decoy that does not have approximately the consistency of an animal.


Ecology and Lore
The cinder lizard, like its distant relatives, the dragons, eats only cooked meat. It is an ambush predator that lies in wait for prey to come too close. Some cinder lizards also scavenge the kills of other predators, who know not to contest the claim. Rumors also tell of cinder lizards who have formed a mutually-beneficial relationship where they cook food for other predators while claiming some for themselves. The lizard  can occasionally be seen consuming wood, brush and charcoal to sustain its furnace.

Cinder lizards are no good for eating: their flesh is far too tough, having developed to withstand their high internal temperatures. But a skilled leatherworker, with a good supply of strong acid, can turn the thick lining of their underbellies, if undamaged, into a strong flame-resistant leather valued especially by those looking to battle their larger draconic cousins. And like every strange beast of the badlands, their organs, thick gray blood, and serums are valued for a dozen folk remedies and rituals of questionable efficacy. The heavy heart of the creature has value to some, as well, for it can be used as a powerful pump in the construction of golems and the like.

Stories tell of villages of the indigenous crag halflings who have learned to tame and nurture cinder lizards to unusual sizes, and use them to prepare their food. Meat slowly smoked in the creature's propped-open maw acquires an incredible rich, savory flavor which no chef has learned to emulate. Rumors tell also of cinder lizards deep in the mountains that occasionally grow to monstrous sizes, whose jaws hold a basin of molten slag, used as a furnace for the forges of stone giants.


Oil of Extinguishing
Potion, uncommon.
This pale blue oil repels any and all flames and can extinguish fires of considerable size. If used to cover a Medium or smaller creature (and their equipment), that creature gains resistance to all fire damage and cannot be set on fire for 8 hours, and gains the ability to extinguish small flames with a touch, or larger ones by rolling over them. (The oil does not confer complete immunity to fire because it offers no protection against the effects of ambient heat, but could give immunity to some fire effects at the DM's discretion.) The oil can also be poured on the ground as an action, covering a 10-ft. square, or applied carefully over 10 minutes to cover a 30-ft square. When used in either of these ways, the affected area cannot catch fire in any way for 24 hours, and deals 2d8 damage each round to any fire-based creatures in the area.
If the oil of extinguishing is unstopped and thrown at a fire-based creature such as a fire elemental, it deals 6d8 damage to them on a successful hit.
An oil of extinguishing thrown into the maw of a cinder lizard with a successful ranged attack will extinguish its furnace permanently, causing it to starve.