Fell dragon

The Fell dragon is a lizard-like creature able to change the colour of its scales to blend in and spin nets like a spider to capture prey.

Habitat
Fell dragons make their homes in the wilderness of the Fell Zone. Their scaly skin help them through active camouflage to blend into the many leaves blanketing the ground and they tend to attach themselves to the trunks of trees to better lie in wait for food.

Anatomy
Fell dragons are much smaller than normal dragons and bizarrely carry the characteristics of both chameleons and spiders. However, despite being smaller than dragons, the Fell dragon is still gigantic. It is reptilian, appearing to be lizardlike with scaly skin. It has four legs for limbs and is able to rear up on its hind legs and lung forward. The animal's feet have claws with which it can slash at opponents or prey. The Fell dragon has a fan of spines and skin on the back of its neck which it can raise up. Its jaws are filled sharp teeth with which it can bite prey or opponents. It can also produce hisses from its mouth. On all its fours it can leap ahead and hurtle after prey frighteningly fast. It is also able to turn around obstacles with great speed. The Fell dragon has great agility and strength, being able to swiftly climb tree trunks and cling to it for long periods of time.

Like chameleons, they can change the colour of their scales to match their surroundings, allowing them to ambush prey from out of the blue. This camouflage seems to always be active, as the first Fell dragon that confronts Rye and Sonia changes the shade of its feet to the leaves it steps on while they were previously brown from tree-bark. The camouflage is so convincing that a Fell dragon will usually only be visible if they are moving.

The animal seem to constantly drool a thick, foul-smelling, slime-like saliva from their mouths. This plays into their similarity to spiders- by using the many trees in the Fell Zone, the reptiles are able to build slimy webs of gleaming, sticky strands that run in between tree trunks for prey to blunder into and get stuck in, due to their stickiness. These webs, called "Fell dragon nets", are strong enough to restrain a human, but can be cut out of.

The animal also has a mottled tail, although this pattern may be the result of its camouflage.

Behaviour
Fell dragons display high aggression to anything that wanders into their territory. They hide themselves near their webs and reveal themselves when it is time to feed. Fell dragons seem to be solitary creatures, as each has its own net built a small distance from another. Their aggression also extends to each other, as they will fight over food if another dragon tries to take it. When preparing to strike prey, the Fell dragon may rear up on its hind legs and lunge forward towards it. When hunting prey, the Fell dragon will often climb high surfaces like trees and cling to it, made invisible by its camouflage, and when their prey gets near enough, spring on it.

When chasing after prey or fighting another Fell dragon over prey, the Fell dragon may hiss and snarl with its jaws. When two Fell dragons fight one another, they use their teeth for biting and claws for slashing, and they will most likely rear up on their hind legs at one point.

When excited or provoked, the Fell dragon has a fan of spines and skin on the back of its neck that raises up.

Diet
Fell dragons are carnivores and will eat whatever stumbles into their nets, humans included.

The Three Doors

 * The Golden Door
 * The Silver Door (the opening scene is a repeat of the last scene in The Golden Door, in which Rye, Sonia, Dirk and Faene narrowly escape a Fell dragon when going through the golden Door. Some more detail is however added to the scene, including ones about the Fell dragon's response to its prey getting away)
 * The Third Door

Trivia

 * In The Golden Door the Fell dragon's name was written as "fell-dragon" without an uppercase "fell" and with a hyphen between the words. In The Silver Door the creature's name was written as "fell dragon" with a lowercase "fell" and no hyphen. In The Third Door, the creature's name was written "Fell dragon" with an uppercase "Fell" and again no hyphen between the two words.