Codrille

 


The codrille was a medieval dragon from France. Its overall appearances was a mix of cockatrice and wyvern, and was between them in size as well. The codrille also had the notable addition of a glowing crystal horn jutting out from its forehead like a demented unicorn horn. While it would be easy to write off the codrille as just a hybrid of two other monsters, there's far more to its legend than just that.

First off, it's name is derived from crocodile. Travellers brought back tales of crocodiles from Egypt, with their name and description being mangled and combined with cockatrice into the codrille, which is also sometimes known as the cocodrille.

The codrille has an interesting life cycle for a dragon. It starts out born from a yolk-less egg. The legend varies on whether this egg is laid by a chicken or another codrille, but there are specific nesting sites where the eggs can be found. The egg is left out to incubate in the heat of the sun.

The codrille then hatches out as a limbless snake like creature. Already it is extremely venomous and can kill any creature with a single glance. However the baby codrille is also very weak itself, especially to holy powers, and can be killed by the glance of any practising Christian who spots it first. Because of this the baby codrille hides away where it won't be seen, such as at the bottom of wells and in abandoned buildings. Just by existing in an area the codrille can blight the whole community with bad luck and pestilence. A codrille's presence can be known by an eerie whistling sound it makes at night.

The tiny codrille snake grows in size for seven years. After this time it metamorphoses into its dragon form. Now the codrille becomes even more toxic, spreading plagues, clouds of miasma and raining venom. It flies off towards the tower of Babylon, spreading poison and disease along its route.

With the codrille being so vile, people sought out ways to prevent it from surviving to its adult stage. If one of the nesting sites was found the codrille could be prevented from laying an egg there by planing a ash tree. Keeping roosters around also help, as they were the one creature that could eat the baby codrille snake and not succumb to its toxins. However once the codrille reached its adult form no ordinary man could kill it. It could only be defeated by the efforts of a valiant knight or the intervention of a saint.



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