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;

 

[gyor]

I honestly can see a Bestiary the size of Mordenkein's or Volo's just covering the various Dragons and similar creatures, if all of these guys get MM like write-ups. And then add in chapters diving deep into the iconic ten from the MM, with random charts, lairs and other fun...solid book potential.

Heck, throw on some Council if Worms Shenanigans for the heck of it...

There is more then enough material for a book just on Dragons, but we book know that is not WotCs style anymore, it will be one chapter on Dragons at most and maybe a few types of Dragons in the Beastairy.

 

[Cleon]

Where did they first appear?

The Gem dragons under discussion first appeared in Dragon Magazine #37 (“That’s not in the Monster Manual! - Neutral Dragons” by Arthur W. Collins, May 1980).

But that's not all! There are two other types of Gem Dragon in D&D besides the Psionic Gem Dragons.

Firstly, there are Gem Dragons in the Basic/Expert/Companion/Master/Immortal D&D rule series, also called "Gemstone Dragons" (like the Ruby Dragon), which debuted in the D&D Master Set (1985).

Secondly, there are additional dragons named after precious stones (like the Amber, Jacinth, Jade, Moonstone, Pearl) in various 2E AD&D sources. The earliest of these are the Jacinth Dragon, Jade Dragon and Pearl Dragon, which debuted in Dragon Magazine #158 (“That’s Not in the Monstrous Compendium! - More Neutral Dragons” by Aaron McGruder, June 1990) as additions to the gem dragon "family" with optional psionics. However, their Monstrous Compendium versions are indexed as "Dragon, Neutral" not "Dragon, Gem" and have lost the psionic powers, so stopped being true Gem Dragons. The Moonstone and Pearl Dragons first appeared in Monstrous Compendia as Neutral Dragons without psionic abilities.

Just to make it more confusing, some of these "gem" dragons share the same name while being different monsters - the BECMI system's "Gemstone" Sapphire Dragon is pretty much a powered-up lawful aligned palette-swap of a Blue Dragon, not the psychically adept "Gem" Sapphire Dragon.

There are quite a few dragons in D&D…

EDIT: Thought of something else worth mentioning. There are also Unique Dragons with gem names, most notable Sardior the Ruby Dragon, the Psionic Gem Dragon equivalent of Bahamut and Tiamat. He also debuted in Collins' Dragon Magazine #37 AD&D article and has official 3E stats in a WotC website article.

There are also D&D dragons with personal names that happen to be those of gemstones, but they're not called "A [Gem] Dragon", such as three aligned BECMI Dragon Rulers Diamond, Opal and Pearl. i.e. Pearl is the "the Moon Dragon" who rules Chaos-aligned dragons in that version of D&D. Naturally there is a Ruby Mystaran Gemstone Dragon and a Pearl Psionic Gem Dragon to further confuse the taxonomy. As far as I know there aren't Diamond Dragon and Opal Dragon types of Dragon. (At least so far…)

 

[Arnwolf666]

Evidence for a manual of the planes style book keeps on piling up.

I need quasi elemental planes and alternate material planes.

 

[Nebulous]

That's what I was thinking. Rather than a setting with all dragons, sometimes a setting is defined by what is NOT there. I would like to develop a mini-setting where the gem dragons are 'the' dragons of the setting. Dark Sun was perfect for that and I did use psionic dragons in that setting.

I think that would be best, to introduce them as "THE" dragons, and all their quirks and uniqueness would come to the forefront, rather than having to clash with all the nuances of ten other dragon dragon species.

 

[Celebrim]

On the subject of all the dragons ever printed, I believe that the 'Pink' caustic soap bubble breathing dragon from one of the Dragon April Fool's issues has been forgotten.

As far as creating dragons just to create them, I seem to remember that every anniversary issue of Dragon would introduce new dragons, so they really were creating dragons just to create them.

But then, I'm the guy who has only ever used 4 true dragons (white, black, green, and blue) and condensed all elves down to single species with two subspecies. So I see all of this diversity of dragons as a negative that works against a setting and ignore it anyway. Is there really anyone that needs 50 different species of dragon?

 

[jasper]

The gem dragons better include cubic zirconia dragon, or it is not worth the paste being used in the binders.

 

[generic]

On the subject of all the dragons ever printed, I believe that the 'Pink' caustic soap bubble breathing dragon from one of the Dragon April Fool's issues has been forgotten.

As far as creating dragons just to create them, I seem to remember that every anniversary issue of Dragon would introduce new dragons, so they really were creating dragons just to create them.

But then, I'm the guy who has only ever used 4 true dragons (white, black, green, and blue) and condensed all elves down to single species with two subspecies. So I see all of this diversity of dragons as a negative that works against a setting and ignore it anyway. Is there really anyone that needs 50 different species of dragon?

As long as you use a homebrew setting, I don't see how it matters, but, I do tend to agree.

I don't need an endless array of dragons to appease me. Because my homebrew worlds are usually (with certain exceptions) more 'organic' anyway, the idea of 100 or so different types of dragons running amok and somehow still not utterly dominating every region seems unlikely.

Chromatic dragons are fine for me, thanks, and I can modify them myself if I must.

That being said, if others like having more dragons, I don't see what could be harmful about such a release as the one they are discussing.

 

[NotAYakk]

As long as you use a homebrew setting, I don't see how it matters, but, I do tend to agree.

I don't need an endless array of dragons to appease me. Because my homebrew worlds are usually (with certain exceptions) more 'organic' anyway, the idea of 100 or so different types of dragons running amok and somehow still not utterly dominating every region seems unlikely.

Chromatic dragons are fine for me, thanks, and I can modify them myself if I must.

That being said, if others like having more dragons, I don't see what could be harmful about such a release as the one they are discussing.

Don't consider it an endless array, consider it an endless menu.

Instead of dragons being big and red and breathing fire, dragons being elemental monsters of destruction is pretty flavourful. A world with 100s of kinds of dragons is a bit much, but 100s of different worlds each with a half-dozen kinds of dragons is great.

 

[generic]

Don't consider it an endless array, consider it an endless menu.

Instead of dragons being big and red and breathing fire, dragons being elemental monsters of destruction is pretty flavourful. A world with 100s of kinds of dragons is a bit much, but 100s of different worlds each with a half-dozen kinds of dragons is great.

I like this.

 

[generic]

Gem Dragons, should, I feel, not be the end. We need Ore Dragons as well.

Simply consider how beautiful a Chalcopyrite dragon would be, and then tell me that this is a bad idea.