The Immortal Naturalist's Guide to Cryptic Creatures: Scondalius Firebringer

This post is part of the Immortal Naturalist's Guide series. The explanation for that series can be found in this post.

    It has always been considered common knowledge that the tales from the Ashmount Range of Scondalius Firebringer are mere explanations for the random nature of volcanic events in the area. As it turns out, there really is a bright red lizard the size of a hippopotamus that is able to eat rock and regurgitate it as a gout of lava. Scondalius Firebringer seems to eat rocks only to produce lava, however, and needs to maintain a diverse, omnivorous diet to fuel his body. Acting as a bit of a scavenger, Scondalius is able to fit just about anything in his massive jaws and crush it up, a fact he is able to use should his lava spitting fail to ward off an opponent.

    Despite being mostly mouth, the most impressive thing about Scondalius Firebringer is his stomach, which can not only digest just about any organic material, but melt rock into lava. This magical process of melting rock seems to also be why Scondalius is able to eat anything, a convenient side effect. Scondalius Firebringer also seems to be entirely immune to the effects of heat. The creature is able to wade through lava and walk through blazing fires without issue, paying the hazards no mind. As a result of this heat resistance, however, Scondalius cannot handle any temperature cold enough to freeze water. To avoid the cold of winter, Scondalius Firebringer will spend months at a time wallowing in lava pools, apparently unharmed by this behavior.

    Despite getting no nutrition from it, Scondalius Firebringer seems to be able to pass the rocks he eats but does not spit out as lava through his digestive system. This does not appear to be a pleasant experience for the beast, but the one time I saw it happen, the rocks he ate left his body as a massive ruby the size of my head. Something about the magic that melts rock in his stomach seems to also convert rocks into gems when fully passed through. While I certainly collected the massive ruby, I believe the experience was quite uncomfortable for Scondalius and I doubt it would be humane to try to force this result.