D&D General Companion Thread to D&D Survivor: Wrack Dragons

RealAlHazred

Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)
So, just to get it out of the way, the wrack dragons are an edge case. Are they "true dragons?" Not exactly. But they're a cool addition to the arsenal of dragons, as they were machines of destruction created by the Titans for their war on the Gods. They're also the source of dragonborn (called wracklings) in the setting. And I need to put in an easy, short one as a palette-cleanser.

Few wrack dragons survived the war or the concerted cleansing operations the Gods staged immediately afterward. However, those that did survive are generally the craftiest of their breed, and many still lead the remnants of the forces they once commanded (or the descendents of those remnants, in the case of more short-lived and prolific races). All are formed from elemental wrack - natural elements exposed to harmful energies and imbued with a destructive spiritual resonance; this almost makes them alternative versions of the Catastrophic Dragons.
  • Firewrack Dragon: The dragon is a great assemblage of coal and charred wood, burnt bones, and scorched animals killed in forest blazes. It is constantly wreathed in a foul-smelling smoke, and glows with dark orange radiance. Firewrack dragons were the generals and elite warriors of the Titan armies. While not magically adept or as clever as their Woodwrack cousins, they are larger and more capable in combat. Firewrack dragons are scalding hot to the touch, so that anything coming into contact with their charcoal form is likely to catch fire, yet they are not surrounded by a billowing corona of flames, nor do their very footsteps melt metal and stone. Its breath weapon is a cone of billowing smoke and agonizing fire.
  • Fleshwrack Dragon: The vaguely draconic thing is fearsome and horrifying - a mass of random flesh covered in scales, with a single great gaping maw full of mismatched teeth. Its bulk shifts and convulses us it lumbers on small, spindly legs. Rolling masses of flesh and skin, Fleshwrack Dragons are the spawn of the titan Gaurak, birthed from the piles of corpses and wounded left to rot on the battlefields of the Divine War. During the latter stages of the war, these dragons assaulted enemy formations seeking to devour and absorb every living thing in their path. It has no breath weapon. (I used #f0cfbe for the Hex color for these disgusting creatures.)
  • Icewrack Dragon: Wind and ice swirl at the creature's approach. It resembles an enormous dragon crafted from pale pinkish ice, with tall, rost-rimed wings. Icewrack Dragons are monstrous conglomerations of ice, snow, frozen blood, and the despair brought on by the relentless cold of winter. Their eyes glow pale blue with an evil cunning, their great wings ripple like an ice floe, and their bodies glisten with the misty sheen of a deep frost. The Icewracks once served the titaness Lethene as siege troops, assaulting cities and disrupting supply lines throughout the north. During the Titanswar, Icewrack Dragons descended upon isolated towns under the cover of night, hid nearby, and simply waited for the townsfolk to flee or die as the temperatures dropped uncontrollably. Their breath weapon is a cone of frost.
  • Seawrack Dragon: The dragon has a large horn jutting from its snout and a dark frill along its neck and back. It smells of muck and rot, and its slick skin is pocked with rocky warts. The most common of the Wrack Dragon breeds, the Seawrack is a dangerous opponent, resistant to lesser magic and more than capable of vanquishing a large number of foes. These creatures were the officers of large units of regular troops, and most have an instinctual severe, direct approach to matters. Seawrack dragons are not sea creatures. Most prefer dank lakes, bayous and other inland waters rich with life. Their breath weapon is a cone of noxious fumes.
  • Woodwrack Dragon: The dragon’s face looks like an exposed skull with large teeth, hairy brows and two frills on either side of the head. It smells of dirt and pine loam, and its flesh looks like its covered in layers of old, unshed snake skin. Lightning fast and deadly, impossibly stealthy for creatures so huge, the Woodwrack Dragons were often used as the elite assassins of the Titan armies. They also sometimes acted as commanders of detached or guerrilla troops, and as advisors and roaming sorcerers in the service of their more combative Firewrack cousins. Their breath weapon is a line of lightning.
 

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RealAlHazred

Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)
what setting are these guys from?
The Scarred Lands was a setting created by White Wolf and sold under their Sword & Sorcery Studios imprint. It's basically a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting, where the world is still suffering under the aftereffects of the Titanswar where the Gods defeated and imprisoned the Titans.

In case you're feeling déjà vu, yes, this is indeed the same sort of real-world mythology mined by Wizards of the Coast a decade later for the 4th edition Nerath setting, with its Primordials (Titans) and Dawn War (Titanswar). The parallels are exact.

However, the Scarred Lands has some great bits to it, including the best city setting I ever picked up during the glut of 3E product: Hollowfaust: City of Necromancers, which is absolutely fantastic. There's also the Carnival of Shadows, a group of kind-of twisted shadow-faerie creatures created by the corruption of biological creatures wherever a Titan's blood fell, but not controlled by any Titan. They form into gangs based on themes (the Krewe of Bones, the Krewe of Plagues, etc.) and are led by a creature called the Laughing Man, or Momus, or the Jack of Tears; whatever his name, the King of the Carnival of Shadows rules from the heart of a region called the Blood Bayou, where Titans' blood fell in enormous quantities during the war.

It was updated for 4th edition by Fiery Dragon, and for 5th edition by Onyx Path; there's a bunch of stuff for it on DTRPG. Worth checking out, I really like how original many of the elements are, and have used them in my games no matter the setting. For example, my favorite beholder, the Ioun Beholder, came from Creature Collection II: Dark Menagerie for 3rd edition, and I used it in 4th edition, tying it to the goddess Ioun.
 
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RealAlHazred

Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)
The Scarred Lands (and S&S everything) was my favorite third party 3e books. Every now and then I do quick conversions of creatures from the creature collection books to 5e
I got the 5E Scarred Lands Creature Collection in some bundle or sale somewhere, and it's pretty good! They did a good job updating everything, but they also took the opportunity to make some changes, like changing Woodwrack Dragons to Stormwrack Dragons (a name change only, from a quick skim). They've released a few more 5E items in the Slarecian Vault on DTRPG, but I don't have most of them. On the other hand, if they ever Kickstart a deluxe version of Hollowfaust, I will be all-in!
 

RealAlHazred

Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)
The hard part of this one is I really have no favorites. It's not even as simple as, "those dragons look cooler than these other ones," or anything. The cool parts are pretty evenly distributed, even to the body-horror Fleshwrack Dragon, which makes a great encounter for if the PCs return to a town they'd previously rescued after ignoring some of your plot hooks to go back for several in-game months. Make sure there are recognizable faces in the bulk of the fleshy horror!
 

So what are the Wracklings like? Are they a PC race or villains in the Scarred Lands setting? I am more familiar with the 3e version of the setting than it's current 5e version.
 

Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow
Could hardly bring my self to vote again today (I did but reluctantly) and the more I encounter these guys the less enthusiasm I feel for them, they aren't a good alternative version of the far more engaging Catastrophic Dragons, nay Wrack are just wack!
 

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