Environment any forest
Organization solitary, pair, or pack (4-9)
Treasure none

Cooshees are large, 200-pound, 4-foot tall hounds. They are known throughout the world as elven dogs, for their features resemble those of elves and they are often found in the employ of elves (who use them as guards). Though they only bark to warn their masters or other cooshees, the bark can be heard clearly up to one mile away. In combat, they bite to trip opponents to reduce the number of opponents that threaten their masters.

It is unclear, even to elves, whether the cooshee was a product of selective dog breeding, magical intervention, or divine gift. Regardless of their origin, the cooshee is an extraordinarily long-lived breed of dog with unquestion-ing loyalty to the elven races. They have been essential at detecting the infestation of goblins and their goblin dogs within elven-controlled forests. It is also said that a cooshee can always sense the vile evil of the dark elves regardless of what foul magics the drow use to disguise their true identity. Despite their unknown origin, it is widely spoken among the elves that cooshees house the spirits of good elves who fell in battle to their drow cousins. These spirits are thought to have made a conscious decision to return to the world as cooshees in order to redeem the perceived “failure” of falling to dark elf treachery.

Without doubt, one of the cooshee’s best assets is its preternatural speed. However, this is one of the creature’s weaknesses as well. Once it knows its elven master is alerted to a danger, the cooshee sprints to the attack with no thought beyond protecting that master. Enemies who know that cooshee are present will use this to their advantage and set an ambush for the elven dog(s) using some poor minion as bait. The cooshee’s howl, which alerts its companions, often serves to draw more creatures to poten-tial slaughter in such an ambush. But while these ambushes may prove effective against the cooshee, they only serve to incite their elven masters, who revere the cooshee’s dedication and friendship.