Dragons

No ear has escaped tales of the most fearsome beasts known as dragons. While many of these tales are old and these creatures are rare, dragons are quite real indeed.

Dragons appear in amazing variety, both in appearance and in temperament. Many are full of malice and greed while others are models of benevolent majesty and confident kindness. Reptile-like, most dragons are covered in scales of unusual toughness and savage beauty. Most grow ever larger as they age—in maturity reaching enormous size.

While dragons seem ready to rule all the lands, if they were so inclined, tales suggest that their ancient enmity with giants and humanoids keeps them in check. Even so, they often dominate the landscape surrounding their lairs.

Mind the Legends. Adventurers should familiarize themselves with the dangers of aggressive dragons they might encounter. While usually solitary, they are at their most defensive when guarding their lair, especially if there is a clutch of eggs. In addition to fearsome physical attacks, most dragons can use their breath as a weapon. You are advised to heed the local legends. It is best to know whether you are up against fire, lightning, icy cold, poison, acid, or some other danger.

True Dragons

While there are creatures, such as the wyvern, that are dragon-kin, a true dragon is the most majestic and formidable of beasts.

A true dragon is a reptilian creature with four legs and a pair of wings. They grow throughout their lives to enormous size and can defend themselves with a fiery, icy, poisonous, acidic or otherwise extraordinary breath weapon.

Chromatic Dragons

Chromatic dragons—vicious, greedy, and voracious—are the most feared of all dragons. They come in at least five color variants: black, blue, green, red, and white, each of which has its peculiar habitats and breath weapons.

Black Dragons

Black dragons are horrid, acidic, vomitous chromatic dragons that slog through dismal swamps and ruined structures.

A cadaverous visage. Black dragons have deeply sunken eye sockets and thin, scaly flesh stretched over bony skull features, giving them a skeletal appearance. Their drooling, caustic slime wears on the flesh of their faces as they age, giving them an ever more terrifying appearance. Wyrmlings of a black dragon are a glossy obsidian color, but their scales become duller and rougher as they grow, increasing their camouflage in the fetid swamps and crumbling ruins that they inhabit. Fully grown black dragons and their environs wreak of decaying vegetation and damaged flesh.

Cruelty for cruelty’s sake. Even more so than other chromatic dragons, black dragons take pleasure in the suffering of other creatures. They will give their victims hope of survival only to torture and consume them moments later. They despise other dragons, attacking the weaker and keeping clear of the stronger. Black dragons brutalize intelligent creatures such as lizardfolk and kobolds, requiring their fearful allegiance to serve as protection for their lair and territories.

Tragedy’s hoard. Drawn as they are to decay and ruin, a black dragon’s hoard is a testament of deposition, doom, and their cruel domination of the land.