Dragons of Editions Past: Anyone ever use them?

[AFGNCAAP]

I've been curious about something.

Has anyone ever used any of the dragons published in old issues of Dragon magazine? For example, have you ever used any of these guys:

• The missing Chromatics: Yellow, Orange, & Purple
• Grey Dragon
• Cobra Dragon
• Rainbow Dragon
• The "other" Metallics: Tungsten, Iron, Nickel, etc.
• The ruler of the Gemstone dragons: the Ruby Dragon

What was your experience using these guys? Were they a waste of time? A nice change? A big surprise for the PCs?

And, just out of curiosity, have any of these dragons been updated to 3.0/3.5?

 

[Chris Durham]

When I was a kid I read "Revenge of the Rainbow Dragons" (I think that was the title), a Choose Your Own Adventure book. I always wanted to find stats for them, but never saw them in any book. Of course this was when I was around 10 so my resources were limited. what was the original source for them?

 

[Asmo]

Not that I know of, but our dm is a sneaky kind of guy so it might happen.
But I doubt that we are going to fight any dragon soon after our last failure.. That was a nice and clean TPK.

Asmo

 

[Kerrick]

Ahh, I remember those fondly. I have a copy of the article with the rainbow, gray, cobra, and obsidian (you forgot that one) dragons. Never used them, more's the pity; I might convert them just for S&G, but we don't really use dragons (we thought they didn't exist in our world, but we recently found out that they're all in a temporal-stasis-like slumber, and our party has been tasked with setting them all free).

 

[Krieg]

When I was a kid I read "Revenge of the Rainbow Dragons" (I think that was the title), a Choose Your Own Adventure book. I always wanted to find stats for them, but never saw them in any book. Of course this was when I was around 10 so my resources were limited. what was the original source for them?

The rainbow dragons statted out for 2E edition were very different from those portrayed in Revenge of the Rainbow Dragons, primarily in the fact that they are evil as statted (chromatic dragons are evil ergo a multicolored/rainbow chromatic dragon must also be evil).

Revenge of the Rainbow Dragons is the first place rainbow dragons are mentioned in a TSR product. The evil ones mentioned above were first statted out in Dragon Magazine (don't remember the issue off the top of my head, somewhere in the 100's).

 

[Alzrius]

Ahh, I remember those fondly. I have a copy of the article with the rainbow, gray, cobra, and obsidian (you forgot that one) dragons.

Just wanted to point out that there is a 3E version of the obsidian dragon.

 

[Psion]

I used the ferrous dragons, what you call the "other metallics." Mostly to keep the players on their toes.

 

[Alzrius]

Has anyone ever used any of the dragons published in old issues of Dragon magazine? For example, have you ever used any of these guys:

• The missing Chromatics: Yellow, Orange, & Purple
• Grey Dragon
• Cobra Dragon
• Rainbow Dragon
• The "other" Metallics: Tungsten, Iron, Nickel, etc.
• The ruler of the Gemstone dragons: the Ruby Dragon

For people who aren't familiar with these, here are the locations for where these could be found:

The Yellow, Orange, and Purple dragons (or, more correctly, the Salt, Sodium, and Energy dragons, respectively) were in Dragon #65 and updated to 2E in #248. (There were other versions of the Yellow and Orange dragons published in Dragon #38, with the Yellow dragon being updated in the 2E Monstrous Manual; I'm unsure about the Orange dragon though.)

The Gray, Cobra, and Rainbow dragons (along with the aforementioned Obsidian dragon) are from Dragon #146, and (the obsidian dragon notwithstanding) haven't been updated to 2E or 3E that I know of. (Note that the Grey dragon is Dragon #62 isn't the same as the aforementioned Gray dragon. The Grey dragon, Rahab, is a unique dragon, twin to the unique Steel dragon (again, different from generic Steel dragons) Ahi, featured in the same issue.)

The "other metallics" (Nickel, Tungsten, Cobalt, Chromium, and Iron) are from Dragon #170.

The Ruby Dragon referred to above is a specific dragon deity, named Sardior. He has also gotten an online update (ruby dragons as a generic type were found in Mystara, in Original D&D, and 2E's Mystara Monstrous Compendium Appendix).

The above dragons barely scratch the surface. There are still quite a few other dragons that have yet to be updated, such as the Albino Wyrm from Dragon #227.

 

[Cam Banks]

The Gray, Cobra, and Rainbow dragons (along with the aforementioned Obsidian dragon) are from Dragon #146, and (the obsidian dragon notwithstanding) haven't been updated to 2E or 3E that I know of.

The gray dragon is a Krynnish dragon, and I updated it for 3.5 in the Bestiary of Krynn from Sovereign Press. It gets a sidebar, since Krynn's gray dragons were further altered by Chaos during the events of the Chaos War and became frost dragons.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Alzrius]

The gray dragon is a Krynnish dragon, and I updated it for 3.5 in the Bestiary of Krynn from Sovereign Press. It gets a sidebar, since Krynn's gray dragons were further altered by Chaos during the events of the Chaos War and became frost dragon.

Woot! Gotta get me that book during GenCon! Thanks for the notice Cam!