Converting True Dragons

[Cleon]

Did the description get updated? I don't see it.

I updated the description by adding the following:

An azure dragon appears very much like a blue dragon. Like blue dragons, their scales range in color from bright turquoise to dark navy, though azure dragons tend towards the lighter hues. An expert eye can distinguish an azure dragon from a blue by a curious shimmering quality in the light reflecting from an azure's scales. A DC 20 Spot or Knowledge (arcana) check is required to notice the difference.

If you meant the "Description" that comes before it, that's pretty much a placeholder for any additional background info we might decide to add.

We don't normally have italicizes descriptions in true dragon entries.

I'd be fine just adding a line that Azure Dragons are not the same as Sapphire Dragons.

How's this:

Azure dragons are close relatives of blue dragons. They are benevolent creatures, very different in temperament to the voracious and arrogant blue dragons. These dragons are sometimes called sapphire dragons, but they are not the same as the psionic sapphire dragon.

An azure dragon appears very much like a blue dragon. Like blue dragons, their scales range in color from bright turquoise to dark navy, though azure dragons tend towards the lighter hues.

An expert eye can distinguish an azure dragon from a blue by a curious shimmering quality in the light reflecting from an azure's scales. A DC 20 Spot or Knowledge (arcana) check is required to notice the difference.

* * *

In Mystaran
The peoples of Mystara know the azure dragon as the sapphire dragon and consider it one of the "gemstone dragons", a family that also includes the Mystaran amber dragon, Mystaran crystalline dragon, Mystaran jade dragon, Mystaran onyx dragon and Mystaran ruby dragon. Despite being called "gemstone" dragons, this family of dragons is quite separate from the family of psionic-powered neutral "gem" dragons, many of whom are named after the same precious stones.

 

[Cleon]

In Mystaran
The peoples of Mystara know the azure dragon as the sapphire dragon and consider it one of the "gemstone dragons", a family that also includes the Mystaran amber dragon, Mystaran crystalline dragon, Mystaran jade dragon, Mystaran onyx dragon and Mystaran ruby dragon. Despite being called "gemstone" dragons, this family of dragons is quite separate from the family of psionic-powered neutral "gem" dragons, many of whom are named after the same precious stones.

Hmm, you know every other dragon in the "gemstones" family has a name in the format "Mystaran [gemstone] dragon", which strongly suggests we should rename this beastie the Mystaran sapphire dragon.

If we do that, apart from the obvious name changes in the entry, we'd change the description and In Mystara text to something like:

Mystaran sapphire dragons, or azure dragons as they are sometimes called, are close relatives of the blue dragon. They are benevolent creatures, very different in temperament to the voracious and arrogant blue dragons. These dragons are not the same as the psionic sapphire dragon.

A Mystaran sapphire dragon appears very much like a blue dragon. Like blue dragons, their scales range in color from bright turquoise to dark navy, though Mystaran sapphire dragons tend towards the lighter hues.

An expert eye can distinguish a Mystaran sapphire dragon from a blue by a curious shimmering quality in the light reflecting from an azure's scales. A DC 20 Spot or Knowledge (arcana) check is required to notice the difference.

* * *

In Mystaran
The peoples of Mystara consider this dragon one of the "gemstone dragons", a family that includes the Mystaran amber dragon, Mystaran crystalline dragon, Mystaran jade dragon, Mystaran onyx dragon, Mystaran ruby dragon and Mystaran sapphire dragon. Despite being called "gemstone" dragons, these dragons are quite separate from the family of psionic-powered neutral "gem" dragons, despite many of the latter being named after the same precious stones.

 

[freyar]

That'd be fine, but you need to change the underbar title to "In Mystara" rather than "In Mystaran."

I actually agree with your idea on the name, as infrequent as agreement sometimes seems. Did you want to change all the instances of "azure" to "Mystaran sapphire" in the flavor text? You missed one in the last paragraph.

 

[Cleon]

That'd be fine, but you need to change the underbar title to "In Mystara" rather than "In Mystaran."

Oh if I didn't leave in an error here or there you wouldn't feel useful.

I actually agree with your idea on the name, as infrequent as agreement sometimes seems. Did you want to change all the instances of "azure" to "Mystaran sapphire" in the flavor text? You missed one in the last paragraph.

I'm happy to leave in a few mentions of "Azure" being an alternative name for this dragon.

 

[freyar]

Very good then. With that updated, these look done!

 

[Cleon]

Very good then. With that updated, these look done!

Updating the Azure Mystaran Sapphire Dragon Working Draft.

 

[freyar]

These look great! What do you want to do next here?

 

[Cleon]

These look great! What do you want to do next here?

We did have a list somewhere, didn't we? I'll just backtrack through this thread a bit…

 

[Cleon]

We did have a list somewhere, didn't we? I'll just backtrack through this thread a bit…

Ah here we are, the post in question was Will The Dragons Rise Again? The "new dragons" were the Dune Dragon, BECMI Amber/Brown Dragon and BECMI Sapphire Dragon, which we've just finished.

After that, I posted some Dragon Update issues regarding the breath weapons of the Jade Dragon, Ruby Dragon, Faerûnian Yellow Dragon.

We've already "figured out" the potential updates for the Jade and Ruby Dragons' breath weapons when we did the Amber Dragon since the latter has both the Jade's disease breath and the Ruby's melting breath.

That leaves the Faerûnian Yellow's blinding breath plus its "sinkhole" attack. Do you fancy figuring that out? If you're not bothered about that, we appear to only have five unique dragons on our list - the four Mystaran Dragon Rulers plus Ahi the Steel Dragon.

Oh, and in the post following Will The Dragons Rise Again I questioned the naming of the "Tourmaline Dragon". We can't call it the "Prismatic Dragon" like it was originally called since that name's already claimed by the Epic Level Handbook, but I'm not sure it's that appropriate. I suggested Quartz Dragon, Rainbow Dragon or Spectral Dragon as possible alternatives. 'Course, we could mention a number of alternative names this dragon is known by, including Tourmaline, like we did with "Mystaran sapphire dragons, or azure dragons as they are sometimes called".

 

[freyar]

I'd like to keep Tourmaline as the name for that dragon, since Shade chose it, and it's sort of a gem dragon. Apparently there is also a different rainbow dragon, so I'd stay away from that. However, I don't mind listing quartz or spectral as other nicknames if you want to add that to the entry.

Let's deal with the Faerunian yellow next.