Keen Hearing and Smell. The hound has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on hearing or smell.
Pack Tactics. The hound has advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of the hound's allies is within 5 feet of the creature and the ally isn't incapacitated.
Woodwork Scent. The hound can pinpoint, by scent, the location of crafted or worked wooden objects within 30 feet of it.
Beak. Melee Weapon Attack: +3 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d8 + 1) slashing damage.
Bite Woodwork. The hound consumes a nonmagical worked wooden object it can see within 5 feet of it. If the object isn't being worn or carried, the hound destroys a 1-foot cube of it. If the object is being worn or carried by a creature, the creature can make a DC 11 Dexterity saving throw to avoid the hound's bite.
If the object touched is a wooden shield being carried, it takes a permanent and cumulative −1 penalty to the AC it offers. A shield that drops to a +0 bonus is destroyed. If the object touched is a held weapon with a wooden component (such as an axe, club, crossbow, or polearm), the weapon takes a permanent and cumulative −1 penalty to damage rolls. If its penalty drops to −5, the weapon is destroyed.
Teleport (Recharge 4–6). The hound magically teleports, along with any equipment it is wearing or carrying, up to 40 feet to an unoccupied space it can see. Before or after teleporting, the hound can make one beak attack.
Consume Woodwork. If the hound is hit by a nonmagical melee or thrown weapon that has a wooden component, after taking damage the hound may consume part of the weapon. The weapon takes a penalty as in the hound's Bite Woodwork action, except the wielder does not get to make a saving throw. The hound can also use this action to immediately destroy any wooden ammunition that hits it after the hound takes damage.
Description
From the neck down, this creature looks just like a lanky hound, but its muzzle ends in a distinctive beak that closely resembles an axe head. The Axehandle Hound can use this beak and its powerful neck muscles to slash through wood and bone alike, but the creature is truly feared for its ravenous appetite: the hound's diet consists of dead wood, and it has a particular taste for wooden objects worked by human hands, from furniture to wooden walls to the axe-handles that it is named for.
Fey Vengeance. Lumberjacks in the deep forest often tell stories of these creatures in hushed tones over the campfire, sometimes to scare young recruits, often as a dire warning. Few of them suspect the truth, that Axehandle Hounds were created specifically to drive them out of the forest. The Seelie Court bred them in ages past from loyal Blink Dogs as a weapon against mortals who encroached too near to their realms. The hounds proved to be more free spirited than their cousins, and many escaped their masters to roam the world freely in small packs. The Court still keeps some of these hounds ready to loose against the mortal world.
Pack Hunters. Axehandle Hounds can speak with their Blink Dog cousins, but the two breeds usually keep their distance. Blink Dogs find the hounds to be too unpredictable, while Axehandle Hounds consider Blink Dogs to be domineering. Still, the two creatures will gladly team up against their most hated enemies, such as Displacer Beasts.
Although Axehandle Hounds resent being ordered about, they are cunning creatures and work well with others in their pack. Those Eladrin who are able to keep them under the Court's supervision usually do so by first bonding with the hounds so they are considered a part of the pack. A favorite tactic of the hounds is to lure away melee fighters before teleporting behind a party's archers, with their delicious bows and crossbows.
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