D&D 5E D&D Gem Dragons Are Officially Back

So if you're (not) like me and you don't have the time or patience to watch Spoilers & Swag, you may have missed this awesome reveal... Gem Dragons are back! And I don't just mean back in a third-party book like Matt Colville's Strongholds and Followers (great book, check it out), I mean back officially for D&D 5e.

In case you don't know, Gem Dragons are the third-wheel of dragonkind... they are not Good (Metallic) or Evil (Chromatic), they are Neutral. This makes them easily overlooked in the struggle of good vs. evil, but they've popped up here and there in previous editions.

But it looks like Gem Dragons have returned, first to promote the sale of a very expensive sapphire dice set. This little paper fold-out is included (screenshots below), complete with lore for gem dragons and a statblock for the Adult Sapphire Dragon specifically.

Of course, if you don't want to buy a pricey set of dice for a statblock... you're in luck, as Nathan Stewart reveals that everybody else will get access to it "early in 2020, where we [WotC] will have some fun ways to get that out there." So it looks like some product will be released including the Neutral Dragons, a new adventure or maybe a new monster book!

Feel free to speculate, here's the images;

 

[darjr]

Where did they first appear?

 

[Umbran]

Only if they're holograms.

I have this image of someone casting hypnotic pattern at a diamond dragon... and flattening a small town.

 

[Yaarel]

Does the stat block mention psionics?

 

[Dausuul]

You ever feel like Chromatic dragons got the short end of the stick because they don't have a solid secondary unifying theme like "Metallic" or "Gem"?

I mean I suppose there is a demand for "normal" dragons to fight, but the good and neutral ones just have much better aesthetics and are immediately identifiable as a D&D thing.

I feel like the unifying theme is a problem for both metallic and gem dragons. It makes them blur into each other. Each chromatic dragon has a very definitive individual theme. With a couple of exceptions*, you can look at a chromatic dragon and guess just by the color of its scales where it lives and what its breath weapon is. How many people can remember where, say, a copper dragon lairs or what it breathes? I sure can't.

*The exceptions, at least for me, are black dragon breath and blue dragon lairs. I would have expected blue dragons to lair near or in the ocean, and I would not have guessed acid damage for black dragon breath.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Where did they first appear?

For 1st edition, in an early issue of Dragon magazine. But they haven't been in an edition since 3rd I think.

 

[MNblockhead]

Have to say that I like the artwork in Strongholds & Followers for gem dragons better than the example of a WOTC gem dragon shown in the picture shared by the OP.

E.g.:

 

[Leatherhead]

Does the stat block mention psionics?

Yes.

 

[Yaarel]

Cool. It follows the Monster Manual format, to mention if the spells of ‘innate spellcasting’ are psionic.

But really, other magical features should also be able to be psionic.

For example, even a breath weapon can be psionic in source.

 

[Salthorae]

Yes.

Cool. It follows the Monster Manual format, to mention if the spells of ‘innate spellcasting’ are psionic.

But really, other magical features should also be able to be psionic.

I mean... ish?

1/day it can use scrying, telekinesis, and teleportaion circle as psionic innate spells. Not very Psionic to me.

It's legendary actions do include telekinetic fling, and teleport though.

OTOH, it has as many, if not many more, "spells" than most 5e dragons get in default rules now, so I guess that is something

 

[Celebrim]

I've never used any of the true dragons except the Chromatics. And at this point, I know I've had white, black, green, and blue, but I'm not sure that I've ever used the iconic red dragon in a combat. (I've fought one as a PC, but that's a different matter.)

I suspect that all the monsters I've ever actually used in a session in 30+ years of gaming would fit in at most a single monster manual, and all the monsters I've ever placed (but didn't use because the party went "left" instead of "right") would fill at most a second one. And a good portion of both books would be homebrew.

I say all of that as a preface to my question, "Am I really wierd?" I mean, do lots of DMs out there really feel the need for gem dragons? Do gem dragons show up a bunch in your games, and if so what are they doing? And do most DMs go through far more many different monsters than I do?