D&D General cooler dragon themes?

dave2008

Legend
Now, I am curious how to stat a Stellar Dragon in 5e? Particularly a 3,000,000 foot long Great Wyrm Stellar Dragon!

Dragon, Stellar​





Dragon, Stellar

CLIMATE/TERRAIN:Wildspace/phlogiston
FREQUENCY:Very rare
ORGANIZATION:Solitary/tribal
ACTIVITY CYCLE:Any
DIET:Special
INTELLIGENCE:Godlike (21+)
TREASURE:See below
ALIGNMENT:Neutral
NO. APPEARING:1
ARMOR CLASS:-2
MOVEMENT:12, Fl 48 (A)
HIT DICE:50
THAC0:5
NO. OF ATTACKS:Special
DAMAGE/ATTACK:Variable
SPECIAL ATTACKS:Special
SPECIAL DEFENSES:Variable
MAGIC RESISTANCE:Variable
SIZE:G (1,200' base)
MORALE:Fearless (19-20)
XP VALUE:54,000

Big, peaceful, and highly intelligent, these enormous philosophers of the phlogiston wander the flow seeking discourse with the keepers of the crystal spheres.

The scales of stellar dragons are iridescent deep purple, with a chrome drop at the tip of each scale. Gems of myriad colors and sizes adorn the scales in random patterns, giving the stellar dragon its name. Two main fins, like the fins of a lionfish, adorn either side of the central torso, and four enormous lace-like wings provide guidance and stability. Numerous other fins of various sizes cover the rest of the dragon's body. They have no visible arms or legs.

Stellar dragons, unlike their smaller kin, the radiants, are neutral. They consider stooping to meddle in the affairs of smaller beings to be loutish and in bad taste. When they encounter humanoids, stellar dragons prefer to watch rather than involve themselves. Only rarely do they speak with lesser beings.

However, if one has information previously unknown to the dragon, this may gain its interest and even useful knowledge in trade. Information is the stellar dragon's food and drink, if anything is, and it is willing to trade in kind. (One rumor has it that the Greyhawk wizard Bigby learned his interposing hand and grasping hand spells from a stellar dragon in exchange for a juicy tidbit of information.)

Stellar dragons literally consume their knowledge, transforming it into clear or milky gems of varying size. These gems of wisdom and pearls of knowledge push their way outward to rest embedded in the dragon's scales. The number of gems and pearls studding its scales mark its status among other dragons. The encrustation also roughly indicates its age; younger dragons have few gems, whereas venerable stellars are literally covered in jewels. The chief, or mikado, is another case entirely (see below).

Combat: Though not normally aggressive, the stellar dragon can easily defend itself. Its unique “breath weapon” is gravitic: rather than emitting breath, it draws things into the dragon's internally generated sphere of annihilation. The mouth, a focus for the sphere, confines its gravitic attraction to a cone 1,200 yards long, 50' wide at the dragon's mouth and 600' wide at the base. A successful save vs. breath weapon negates the effect.

The stellar dragon has three other innate attacks. First, it can randomly teleport an attacker 500-6000 yards (1d12 hexes) in any direction.

Second, its titanic intellect lets it use any wizard's spell in the Player's Handbook without error. It can also modify or create spells to suit its needs; for example, it could merge darkness, 50' radius and fireball to create a shadow flare spell. It can repeat spells as often as needed.

Third, it can summon one denizen of another plane once per round for up to seven rounds (DM's choice of any monster up to half the dragon's own HD in strength). Summoned individuals serve the dragon slavishly, remaining for 2d6 rounds before they “snap” back to their home continuum.

Habitat/Society: The stellar dragons' range covers the entire cosmos, so their exact numbers are unknown; parties encounter them only rarely. However, once every 500 years, the stellar dragons convene for their mating ceremony. In this ceremony, the most worthy stellar dragons are selected by their tribal head, called the mikado. There is only one mikado at any time. The mikado is distinguished by the single crystal horn on his forehead.

Those dragons that the mikado selects as mates each produce a single offspring. This dragon, born fully sentient, leaves to make its own way among the stars.
Stellar dragon territories are vast, extending into other planes and dimensions. Individuals negotiate boundaries to prevent intrusion on each other's space. However, they haggle endlessly to obtain dynamic civilizations to monitor.

The dragons deal with attackers handily. However, if a party approaches the dragon with respect and choice information, chances are even that the dragon deigns to talk. Chances are equally good that the dragon is thinking (that is, digesting) and dismisses the interlopers.

The stellar dragon's ultimate goal is truth. It abhors dishonesty and misinformation. Though its information may be cryptic, it is never false. A lesser being's misinterpretation is that being's own fault. Misinformation causes a stellar dragon severe, painful indigestion. And as with its smaller kin, a dragon in pain is dangerous.

Ecology: The stellar dragon understands the underpinnings of the multiverse. These primeval watchers have seen the rise and fall of many civilizations. Such is the power of this knowledge that according to some texts, the power of artifacts and relics comes from the gems that encrust them, The crystallized everlasting knowledge of thousands of beings, say these legends, provides the power that runs these wonderful objects. How these gems were wrested from the stellar dragons remains unsaid.

Gems of wisdom and pearls of knowledge are valuable almost beyond calculation. The information they contain can be liberated and used to gain enormous profit. Sages and wizards do nearly anything to gain one.

AGEBODY LGT. (')TAIL LGT. (')ACSPELLS WMRTREAS. TYPE
1 Hatchling10-10020-1002NilNilAny
2 Very young101-200101-2001110%Any
3 Young201-600201-6000220%Any
4 Juvenile601-1,200601-1,400-12 130%Any
5 Young adult1,201-2,0001,400-2,200-23 235%Any
6 Adult2,001-3,0002,200-3,200-34 2 140%Any
7 Mature adult3,001-4,0003,201-4,300-44 2 245%Any
8 Old4,001-5,0004,301-5,300-54 3 2 150%Any
9 Very old5,001-6,0005,301-6,300-64 3 3 155%Any
10 Venerable6,001-8,0006,301-8,400-74 3 3 260%Any
11 Wyrm8,001-10,0008,401-11,000-84 3 3 365%Any
12 Great Wyrm10,001-1 million11,001-2 million-94 4 3 3 170%Any
 

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Bitbrain

Lost in Dark Sun
Can’t speak for anyone else, but my biggest issue with D&D dragons is that I personally perceive “true dragons” more as animalistic apex predators with the powers of a natural disaster, rather than winged reptiles you can have a conversation with. More Beowulf’s dragon, less Smaug.

In my home games, if a true dragon wants something, it’s just going to try and take said thing by violence and force. They aren’t going to bother coming up with elaborate plans for how to ruin someone else’s life, they’ll simply jump right to discharging their breath weapon at you and if you are still alive after that, follow it up by tearing your face off with teeth and claws.

Okay, my dragons also lack wings and can’t fly without the use of magic spells, but that’s simply a visual aesthetic. As far as breath weapons, favored environment, and elemental associations go, I’ve been sticking to the more traditional D&D depiction lately, with certain exceptions:
  1. Brown dragons are the most powerful chromatic dragon species (being a future evolution of the red dragon), breathe fire, favor desert and volcanic environments, and are associated with both Elemental Earth and Elemental Fire.
  2. Green dragons breath a cone of electrified mist, not poison.
  3. Brass dragons are not true dragons, being clock/steamwork constructs whose breath weapon is a cone of thunder.
  4. Mercury dragons are likewise not true dragons, being alchemical oozes whose breath weapon is a cone of poison.
 





Blue Orange

Gone to Texas
I actually liked the default dragons; you can tweak them a bit to be elemental embodiments (as 3e did, and Pathfinder with the Chinese elements and imperial dragons). But since you had the question...

Lots of good ideas mentioned. The only one I haven't seen is alignment dragons: dragons represent the alignments and thus are philosophically motivated. Dragons of chaotic good, lawful evil, chaotic evil, etc. (Or freedom, slaughter, conquest, etc. if you're feeling so inclined.)

If you really want to bring back the glory days of Planescape you can have dragons that represent utilitarianism, ethical altruism, virtue ethics, etc. Dragons are powerful enough to actually survive trying to live by abstract ethical codes and you could imagine trying to convince a utilitarian dragon it would serve the greater good to let you go. (There are rumors of an effective altruism dragon that took a hoard of platinum from a trickster god which turned out to be a pile of transmuted lead and disappeared in embarassment...)
 

Tales and Chronicles

Jewel of the North, formerly know as vincegetorix
oh! I know!

What if dragons were instead based on character classes.
Like, the pinnacle of each class, the apex, is dragonism. They embody what it is the ultimate rogue, or cleric, or artificer!

Reaver Dragon, Sacred Dragon, Dragon Muses, Greenwarder Dragon, War Dragons, Shadow Dragons, Arcane Dragon, Lore Dragon, Artefact Dragon, Avenging Dragon, Dragon Warden, Mystic Dragon etc
 

Alzrius

The EN World kitten
I've seen so many different themes of dragons across a wide swath of third-party products that it can be hard to remember them all at times. Off the top of my head:
  • Dragons themed around the eight schools of magic
  • Dragons themed around the seven deadly sins
  • Dragons themed around different modes of psionics (not just gemstones)
  • Dragons themed around various planes of existence
  • Dragons themed around how many heads they had (always more or less than one, specific to each type)
  • Dragons themed around humorous takes on existing themes (such plaid, pyrite, and striped dragons)
And I'm sure there are a lot of others out there. At this point, it's more a matter of finding them than anything else.
 

Shadowdweller00

Adventurer
Rather than inventing new and exotic dragon types, you might alternately consider brainstorming things a creature could do or craft with a renewable breath weapon and immunity to a particular element. For example:

Red dragons: Are superb craft-dragons, capable of melting stone, metal, or glass and shaping it directly with their talons. They can heat sections of rock until they start to melt, then use the resulting lava to heat various places - like pools of water since molten rock takes a long time to cool (high specific heat). Can create massive doors and enclosures that are far too heavy for tiny humanoids to open.

Blue dragons: Masters of magnetism. Excellent metalworkers though not as skilled as red dragons since they can't directly shape molten metal. Many develop a variety of electrically-powered gizmos over the course of their long lives unknown to the meager science of short-lived humanoid races.

Green Dragons: Draconic gardeners that can cultivate a variety of poisonous and venomous flora and fauna to protect their lairs; from which can be brewed a host of exotic toxins and poisons to drug or debilitate weaker races. To exert control of some through addiction and dependence. Or render other drugged specimens subject to suggestion...
 

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