D&D 5E Do you like or dislike Song & Steeal Dragons being demoted to Folklore?

[Scribe]

Looking at what they are, doesn't it make sense they could be folk lore?

 

[el-remmen]

When I next run a thing that needs dragons, I'm apt to specifically discard the idea that the various types of dragons are species that breed true.

I did that in my old homebrew Aquerra - each dragon was unique and had a unique heritage and powers. The whole categorization of dragons by color thing was something sages had invented based on incomplete information and human beings' tendency towards apophenia - and passed down as established lore.

 

[Parmandur]

Oh no! I better tell the steel dragon in my homebrew setting that they're just a folktale!

Careful, James Wyatt is coming for your prep notes.

 

[Parmandur]

My guess from what I've been seeing is the Song and Steel Dragon side bar might the closest to universally disliked as something gets in 5e, but I'm curious how much of a consensus their erasure is disliked or hated really is.

So far, the results suggest that folks are overwhelmingly neutral on the topic.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I would rather have seen them statted up in the book than gem dragons, which I've never seen the appeal of, or the aberrant dragons which are fine but like...meh.

Steel dragons especially I feel like have a decent history in the game. Song dragons I'd never heard of and am not especially impressed by what I've now read about them.

I'm also a bit sad that the book doesn't have calamities and bestial dragon variants.

 

[Tonguez]

IMC The Grand Hierophant of the Celestial Hierarchy in Al-Qahira is a Song Dragon attended by Song dragons in human form. There are also Rainbow (Prismatic) Dragons in the Mountains of the Moon, home of the Rain Queen.

Personally I hate the color coding of the Dragons and tended to use Song and Celestial Dragons much more often than the lesser Metalics. I also merged Silvers/Golds with Radiant/Celestial dragons and gave them the form of Oriental dragons. Equally Gem dragons imc are unique creatures not 'races'

 

[Steampunkette]

Um, that is a language issue, not a lore issue.

You could easily run any dragon in the MM as a beast and no one would no. There is no Mayo there really.

Well, I mean...

Let us not pretend that old-hand players have no expectations and do not leap to conclusions - they totally do. We, as GMs, often have to do some work to be original and avoid or subvert those expectations.

^That.

You can scrape off the Mayo and pretend it's a Bloated Toad-Like dragon, but if it uses the same breath weapon, frightful presence, legendary resistances, and stuff it's gonna -taste- the same.

Yeah. Well, they have decades of precedent that you know they have to work with. Suddenly breaking from that wasn't going to happen.

Oh, sure. Make more Gem Dragons and maybe hint at Song and Steel Dragons... but what's stopping them from making some "Lesser" dragons. "Degenerate" dragons.

Or go the old Warcraft route and have Dragons be an evolved form of a more primitive "Proto Dragon" that can be brought out for use.

No reason not to say "Mayo Only" when butter exists.

 

[ECMO3]

Do you like or dislike Song & Steeal Dragons being demoted to Folklore

So are you telling me there are no more Song Dragons? I figured they would be featured in Fizban. Is this not the case?

 

[Parmandur]

So are you telling me there are no more Song Dragons? I figured they would be featured in Fizban. Is this not the case?

A sidebar mentions that some mortals have been confused by encounters with Copper Dragons or something.

 

[ECMO3]

A sidebar mentions that some mortals have been confused by encounters with Copper Dragons or something.

Has anyone told Karasendrieth that she is a copper dragon and not a song dragon?

Ok I am going to pretend I did not read that and I am never going to buy Fizban!