Zmey Gorynych is the great fire-breathing dragon of East Slavic folklore, most often shown with three heads, who terrorizes the land, carries off maidens, and is slain only by the bravest heroes. He is the tradition's arch-monster: the shadow with three hungers that the champions of the old tales were made to face.
MORANA: The Open Grave is a free Slavic folk-horror card game you can play in your browser right now, no download and no signup.
Zmey means "serpent" or "dragon," and Gorynych is usually read from gora, "mountain," marking him as a creature of the mountains, or from the root for burning, marking him as a thing of fire. He belongs above all to the Russian byliny, the heroic epic songs, where he is the monstrous foe of warrior-heroes.
Zmey Gorynych breathes fire and flies, and his heads are his signature terror: in many tellings, a head struck off simply grows back, so that killing him is a labor few can finish. He lairs in the mountains or across a river, guards or hoards, and descends to seize people, especially young women, holding them until a hero comes. He is power without mercy, three appetites on one long neck.
His most famous foe is the bogatyr Dobrynya Nikitich, whose battle with the dragon is one of the best-known of all the byliny. Across the tales he stands for the chaos that the hero must beat back, the monstrous outside pressing on the ordered world. He is among the most recognizable figures in all Slavic myth, a dragon as vivid and enduring as any in world folklore.
In MORANA: The Open Grave, he is Zmey Gorynych, a Legendary neutral Spirit and one of the mightiest bodies in the First Turning, at cost 7 and a towering Power of 14. His rules read "Omen: only if you control no Sites, Clash 4 at all three Sites. Reborn: Clash 3 here," a devastating comeback that rewards the player pushed to the brink, then strikes again when he rises from the Open Grave, the heads that will not stay severed. His flavour keeps him whole: "Three heads, three hungers, one long shadow."
See Zmey Gorynych in the Grimoire.
Zmey Gorynych is MORANA's dragon, the top-end legend the whole set builds toward, and he is the perfect fit for a game where the dead return: a monster whose defining trait in folklore is that cutting him down is never quite enough. He is the card that turns a losing board into a held breath.
Sources: General references on Zmey Gorynych (for example the Wikipedia entry "Zmei Gorynych") and the Russian byliny, especially the tale of Dobrynya Nikitich and the dragon. This page retells public-domain folklore in our own words for background; folk tales vary by region and teller. The card described is part of the planned First Turning set. This page describes MORANA only and does not reference any other product.