Hercules invests a feat in Dual Wielding, equips his sickle and a torch, and slashs and burns his way through hydra heads until the thing is dead. Iolaus suggests using a firebrand – in this case, a burning piece of wood, not a magical sword – to cauterize the neck stumps before they can grow new heads. In the director’s cut, Hercules visit’s his nephew, Iolaus for help. Because there’s a theatrical release and a director’s cut to this particular myth.

Armed with a sickle, he tried to cut off the heads quicker than they could grow back, but to no avail. As you can imagine, when Heracles (who you might know by his Roman name, Hercules) was sent to kill the Hydra, he was not exactly hopeful. And every time you cut off one of its heads, two more grew back in its place. The big problem was that the Hydra could not be killed so long as it possessed at least one head. The Hydra was a horrible, multiheaded beast with poisonous breath and blood. It was the child of Typhon and Echidna who were literally famous for being the father and mother of various monsters.

Once upon a time, there was this horrible monster called the Lernaean Hydra. And I’ll give you a giant octosquid and a manticore your PCs can dismember for your trouble, all right? Good! Now s$&% the f$&% up and listen to Uncle Angry’s mythology corner. But we’re… okay, look, if I try to explain today’s little journey, it will take forever. And technically we’re not even doing boss monsters. Though we’re not quite DOING the hydra yet today. I know what you’re thinking “what is this bulls$&%? Another Word of the Week? Come on, I came for boss monsters!” Well, shut up! The hydra is a boss monster.

Dungeons and dragons manticore