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;

 

[Parmandur]

here is hoping that a psionics book will be released i mean the class has been up for a while and with eberron and maybe a dark sun thing happening at some point "hope against hope"

The Unearthed Arcana Mystic crashed hard, and they are not moving forward with it. We might see another Psion someday in the not distant future, but it looks like this Gem Dragon has Psionics similar to the Mindflayets or Gith.

 

[Tallifer]

Next: Cloud Dragons and Sandsculpture Dragons

 

[Nebulous]

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?

No, it's total overkill. The D&D biosphere could barely support even a FEW gigantic cattle/man-eating flying horrors, much less dozens and dozens them in every niche of the globe. I think most people do ignore all the dragon types, but I don't mind seeing them there. I don't use most monsters from the manuals either, but I sure like reading about them.

I did use a rainbow dragon once. That was pretty cool.

 

[Nebulous]

If it is a dragon book, I hope they bring back Stellar dragons. I didn't play spelljamer so I completely missed this in 2e. Check our the size of Great Wyrm - up to 3,000,000 feet long!
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Does anyone else miss having Climate/Terrain, Frequency, Organization, Activity Cycle, Diet, Number Appearing and Morale in the stat block? Maybe it took too much space away from the combat numbers, but I sure liked having that info there.

 

[the Jester]

Next: Cloud Dragons and Sandsculpture Dragons

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Dude, I loooove cloud dragons. Although to be perfectly honest, I haven't used one since 3e.

 

[the Jester]

No, it's total overkill. The D&D biosphere could barely support even a FEW gigantic cattle/man-eating flying horrors, much less dozens and dozens them in every niche of the globe.

I think a D&D setting has a significant advantage over real world ecosystems in terms of fecundity, speed of evolution, and recovery times from various ecosystem-damaging disasters. It seems like it has to for the game's assumptions about monsters to work.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

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.

I don't think they're so beholden to the exact style we see in Volo's and Mordenkainen's not to consider deviating from it. Especially not for the game's marquee monster. Or you can think of it this way: just as Mordenkainen's has separate chapters for fiends, gith, elves, and dwarves, a "So-and-So's Guide to Dragons" would probably have separate chapters for metallic, chromatic, gem, and planar dragons. Io knows there's enough material for it. The 3E Draconomicon was one of that edition's densest and most informative books -- and in many ways presaged the 5E splatbook format by offering a themed combo platter of lore, player options, DM material, and monsters.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I think a D&D setting has a significant advantage over real world ecosystems in terms of fecundity, speed of evolution, and recovery times from various ecosystem-damaging disasters. It seems like it has to for the game's assumptions about monsters to work.

I just assume the different dragon species have different ranges. IMC the part of the world where the PCs live is inhabited mostly by green and black dragons, with bronzes in the sea and silvers in the mountains. Reds and greys can sometimes wander into the region, but the party would have to travel a long, long way (and they have) to see a gold or blue.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't think they're so beholden to the exact style we see in Volo's and Mordenkainen's not to consider deviating from it. Especially not for the game's marquee monster. Or you can think of it this way: just as Mordenkainen's has separate chapters for fiends, gith, elves, and dwarves, a "So-and-So's Guide to Dragons" would probably have separate chapters for metallic, chromatic, gem, and planar dragons. Io knows there's enough material for it. The 3E Draconomicon was one of that edition's densest and most informative books -- and in many ways presaged the 5E splatbook format by offering a themed combo platter of lore, player options, DM material, and monsters.

A chapter on Dragonborn would also be appropriate. They could offer Dragon Pact Warlocks, new Spells, etc.

Diversity can be achieved in many ways.

 

[David Howery]

D&D has always struggled a bit with neutral dragons... the gem dragons, the oriental dragons from the FF, the 'vapor' dragons from the MM2... none of them ever really caught on...