D&D General why brass and bronze dragons?

[Ancalagon]

For people interested in other colors and metals, I highly recommend Coins and Scrolls' take on the issue:

OSR: Metallic Dragons

The eight Chromatic Dragons were split from one ur-dragon by a giant prism (or something similar) in the dim prehistory of Creation. The ...

coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com

OSR: Chromatic Dragons

This post is mostly an excuse to use the art of halycon450 . There are hundreds of "dragonomicons" out there. This one is mine. You might fi...

coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com

 

[LordEntrails]

What about the Administratium Dragons?

Somehow they are not necrotic, but they suck the life out of everything within line of sight. They are always surrounded by swarms of ass-ist-ants and morons. And though apparently impotent, they are created when a bold adventurer dons a suit of Administratium Scale Mail.

 

[dave2008]

They did try to rationalize this in 4E. Brass and bronze dragons were out, iron and adamantine dragons were in. Not only did this result in all metallic dragons being single elements (assuming adamantine is an element), but it made it possible to give them all a distinctive coloration.

I think it was an improvement, but evidently WotC felt it was not enough of an improvement to be exempted from the Great Lore Rollback of 5E.

The brass and bronze came back in the 4e draconomicon II. So they were not out for long.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Should note that Bronze and Brass are Metallic even if they are not outright Metals. Heck the definition states it.

Metallic
Relating to or resembling metal or metals.
"metallic alloys"

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

The reason is because those are the colours and metals that Gygax chose when creating them. Originally he created the 5 evil (at the time, chaotic) dragons and the gold. He later added the 4 other metallics to balance the evil dragons.

To begin with, it seems the chromatics were western dragons, while the gold was asiatic (wingless and sinewy with carp like whiskers). At some point, after the introduction of the other metallics, they started looking like all the other dragons.

 

[Charlaquin]

The 5 colors of chromatic dragons are the primary colors of light (red, green, blue), plus black and white for intensity. For metallic dragons, there was initially just gold, and the others were added later to parallel the chromatic dragons. Gold, silver, and bronze are commonly used together as a three-step quality grading - see the first, second, and third place Olympic medals, or the common trend of referring to eras of development for a particular craft or industry. Copper may have been chosen for the weakest variety of metallic dragon because it’s the lowest denomination of currency in D&D. Brass? You’ve got me there, not sure why that one was chosen.

Personally, I prefer my metallic dragons to use the seven alchemical metals: gold, mercury (or “quicksilver”), silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. For the chromatic dragons, I use albino, ebony, citrine (a sort of yellow-green), and ruby, associated with the four physical elements, the four humors, and the four stages of the Great Work (technically black should be derived from the Latin root, niger, but… yeah for reasons I should think are fairly obvious I’d prefer not to). There’s also a fifth category that’s blue in color and associated with the element of aether, a fifth humor which might best be described as ephemera or ectoplasm, and the metaphysical/spiritual component of the Great Work. But they’re almost unheard of in the material plane, being native instead to the aethereal plane.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

why do the metallic dragons have alloys amongst them is seems super odd as you think dragons would only be from pure metals?

am I just be odd or what?

also, what's with the lack of the other colours for chromatics?

and do not get me started on how odd the gem dragons are.

Bronze would make more sense if it were only it, gold, and iron, the three Ages of Greek legend.

You can add silver if you want to go by comic books.

 

[Alzrius]

The 5 colors of chromatic dragons are the primary colors of light (red, green, blue), plus black and white for intensity.

Wouldn't that have been red, yellow, blue, white, and black, then?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Wouldn't that have been red, yellow, blue, white, and black, then?

I think green and yellow are near interchangeable in that role.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Wouldn't that have been red, yellow, blue, white, and black, then?

For yellow, replace red and blue with cyan and magenta.