A newly hatched dragon has a full array of abilities. Although inferior to those of a young dragon, these abilities are sufficient for the wyrmling to take care of itself, at least against relatively weak threats and predators. Although an emerging wyrmling is sodden and somewhat awkward, it can run within hours of hatching and can fly within a day or two. A wyrmling’s senses are fully acute, and—due to the interweaving of a dragon’s centers of memory and instinct—it is born with a substantial amount of its parents’ knowledge imprinted in its mind.
Even so, a dragon is not born with the full memories of prior generations. Rather, a wyrmling has a grasp of the generalities of the world and of its own identity. It knows how to move, how to use its innate abilities, who and what its parents are, and—perhaps most important—how to view the world around it. This awareness is one reason that even the youngest dragons are capable of surviving to adulthood. It is also why a sense of superiority and arrogance is ubiquitous among chromatic dragons: They are born already knowing that they’re among the most powerful creatures in the world (or at least will be, after they mature).
Parents might accompany a wyrmling on its earliest hunts, to protect it and to make certain it knows how to hunt efficiently. Wyrmlings left to fend for themselves and wyrmlings that don’t have protective parents still must leave the nest within a few days of hatching to find food. By the third or fourth foray, even solicitous dragon parents let wyrmlings hunt on their own, lest the wyrmlings grow too dependent on parental assistance.
Wyrmlings spend a few years dwelling with one or both of their parents. Some parents welcome this time as an opportunity to teach their offspring lessons beyond its inherited knowledge: the best areas to hunt, what to look for in a lair, how to begin building a hoard, and other knowledge a growing dragon needs to gain. Other parents look on wyrmlings as necessary evils: competitors for resources and for space in the lair that must nevertheless be tolerated for a brief time. Only evil dragons that lack any parenting instinct—in dragonkind, a mild form of insanity—consider forcing a wyrmling to leave the nest early. This condition is most common in black dragons but rare even among them.
A wyrmling whose parents abandoned it before it hatched or could not care for it after it hatched takes longer to hone its abilities. It still has the advantage of its inherited instincts, but the lack of a teacher makes perfecting its abilities an arduous task. Some wyrmlings manage to do so on their own, through trial and error. Others seek out mentors of their own kind. Even an evil dragon might willingly take on a short-term apprentice if the younger dragon shows adequate respect, such as gifts of treasure scavenged or stolen from any source the young dragon can manage. These relationships rarely last more than a few months, because the older dragon inevitably begins to view the younger one as a rival. The younger dragon either departs or ends up on the menu.
Although wyrmlings are small and weak by dragon standards, a wyrmling is roughly the size of a large wolf or a full-grown human. Even at their youngest, dragons have few natural predators.
