The ichneumon is the enemy of the dragon. When it sees a dragon, the ichneuman covers itself with mud...

>The ichneumon is the enemy of the dragon. When it sees a dragon, the ichneuman covers itself with mud, and closing its nostrils with its tail, attacks and kills the dragon. Some say it is also the enemy of the crocodile and the asp, and attacks them in the same way. Just as the mongoose hunts the cobra, the ichneumon hunts the dragon.
What do dragons fear, Veeky Forums?

Nah.

Dragons fear humans.

They either end up shanked or get fucked into submission.

Interresting. What's the etymological link between this and the ichneumon wasp?

Elves.

In Eberron and Faerun, it's the Elves who destroy their empires or fight them to a stalemate.

Giant dragon murdering mongooses, apparently. I'm going to use those.

In some early bestiaries, dragon's blood was so hot they would overheat to death if they didn't drink elephant blood; elephants having the coldest blood of any animal obviously. The elephants would fall over while the dragons fed on them, crushing the dragons to death. So, dragons probably fear being fucking idiots.

Also Giants, in both cases. Dragon, Elves and Giants are the stock ancient civilizations.

Collapse of financial markets

Pray you'll never find out what dragons fear.

Bigger dragons.

>Ichneumon means "tracker" in Greek. Cockatrice, a name for another mythical beast, derives from calcatrix, a Latin translation of this. The Ichneumon was one of the few who can look at a cockatrice without turning to stone.

Ichneumon are clearly just OP mythical beasts.

Describe that as a bell curve and you got some hard science that can't be refuted other than on grounds of communist politics.

It kinda reminds me of Unsounded where you have no dragons but these big flying snake monsters with semihuman arms and faces like so...

...and most things can't really do anything to them but you do also get these big fuck-off giant raccoon/wolverines like pic related, and they kill the big flying snakes. I wonder if that was inspired by the ichneumon.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi just became 20 times more badass.

>When it sees a dragon, the ichneuman covers itself with mud, and closing its nostrils with its tail, attacks and kills the dragon
Would you let your players cover themselves in mud and close up their nostrils to take less damage from dragon breath Veeky Forums?

...

That's hilarious, because crocodiles have the strongest stomach acid among all living animals.

So what kind of stats would this thing have to have in order to actually be decent at killing dragons? Like, good enough to have this common knowledge of it getting speaken around the realm.

I imagine it'd be more like, a counter to dragons. Its mud would cause those with dragon sesnes to treat him as invisible, maybe act as protection from draogn breath, favored enemy:Dragon, and a whole bunch of other things.

+6 to dodge vs. dragons
+2 to attack rating vs. dragons
Booger Mud(Ex): The Ichneumon can mix mud with a chemical produced in a special gland to create a paste. When this paste is applied to the fur of the Ichneumon it reacts with chemicals in the fur, stopping the first (X) damage from (type based on location) dragon's breath weapon. (alternately, simple DR against that damage type)
Wyrmkiller Instinct: The Ichneumon knows dragons as well as any non-dragon can. They are never affected by any fear effect produced by a dragon. They can also identify dragons that are not in their natural form after 30 seconds of observation. This does not let the Ichneumon know anything about the dragon other than the fact that it IS a dragon. There is no chance of a false positive unless someone is specifically and perfectly acting like a dragon in their form.
A dragon can still escape detection if they perfectly act like a normal humanoid. (DC 28 to fool the Ichneumon either way, acting or knowledge: dragons)
Ichneumon are fairly obscure and most dragons simply don't put up the effort required to fool them when they so easily fool everything else, but EVERY dragon that was taught anything by its parents knows about Ichneumon and will attempt to pass as humanoid if they know one could possibly be around.
oh, and:
+8 to all saves or immunity to bullshit.

oh, shit, I forgot:
Being big, or able to change size (preferrably the latter)
Possibly,
Dracoadrenaline: When the Ichneumon enters combat with a dragon for the first time, its size changes to match that of the largest dragon it is in entering combat with. This new size is retained until it changes. This ability is inactive for one week after activation.