_This large, unnerving drake’s glassy black scales have purple undertones. Its features are elongated and almost alien. Black, expressionless eyes stare ahead, and a barbed stinger sits at the end of a long tail._ **Friend to Ghouls.** The deep drake has made a niche for itself in subterranean realms, establishing trade with the darakhul and with other races of the underworld. The drakes’ poison ensures the ghouls have replacements when their population dwindles. In return, those underlings who fail their rulers become food for the drake. **Love Darkness.** Life underground has warped the drakes. Whereas most drakes attach themselves to humanoids, these creatures feel much more at home with aberrations and undead. They avoid sunlight and are strictly nocturnal when on the surface. **Few in Number.** A deep drake mates for life with another deep drake when two of these rare creatures meet. A hermaphroditic creature, the drake assumes a gender until it finds a mate, at which time it may change. Once every 10-20 years, the drakes reproduce, resulting in three or four three‑foot long, rubbery eggs. Occasionally, subterranean undead or aberrations take these eggs to their cities to train the young drakes. A “household drake” is a great status symbol in some deep places, and surface necromancers who have heard of them are often extremely eager to acquire one. Deep drakes are 12 feet long, plus a three-foot long tail, and weigh up to 1,500 pounds. Their coloration makes them ideal predators in the subterranean dark.