D&D General Eastern Dragons in 5e

[RoughCoronet0]

You know, for all my love for dragon mythology and media of all various forms and cultural influences…I’ve never really considered have a family of dragons based on eastern dragons in my homebrew world.

 

[cbwjm]

You know, for all my love for dragon mythology and media of all various forms and cultural influences…I’ve never really considered have a family of dragons based on eastern dragons in my homebrew world.

I don't even really bother with the standard dragons now either, I instead focus on the elements so a red or gold dragon is just a dragon of flame. Really cuts back on the number of dragon types running around (I think I only have 6 types I use and two, representing life and death, are only maybes).

 

[Yaarel]

I don't believe I have seen any of the traditional Asian-inspired D&D dragons in 5e24 yet. We have the gold dragon, but that is a different discussion. Where did you see these dragons?

It was more along the lines that depictions of Dragons from earlier editions are also "legal" in 5e.

 

[Yaarel]

So the "dragon forms" of note to me are:

Snake: true snake (various sizes).

Lion-Eagle Snake (Norse): always slithers, never walks.
Birth: (Tiny) looks like normal snake, the European Adder.
Wyrmling: (Small-Medium) leonine head with horns, breath weapon.
Young: (Medium-Large) after shedding, sprouts arms with eagle-claw hands, playable character.
Adult: (Large-Huge) sprouts eagle wings.
Ancient: (Gargantuan).

Wolf-Bat Snake (British): snake, 'greyhound' build (arms, chest, legs), long neck-tail, bat wings.

Dinosaur with Wings (American).

Fish-Camel-Plus Snake (Asian): lizard-like but serpentine, with amalgam of specific bodyparts.


Any Dragon species can be any of these forms, depending on individual and setting.

 

[dave2008]

It was more along the lines that depictions of Dragons from earlier editions are also "legal" in 5e.

Well that is always the case with an edition. However, when you posit your observation as "5e24" based one would assume your talking about art / images new to the 2024/2025 update as many monsters have had a design tweak, dragons in particular.

 

[Yaarel]

Well that is always the case with an edition. However, when you posit your observation as "5e24" based one would assume your talking about art / images new to the 2024/2025 update as many monsters have had a design tweak, dragons in particular.

Im under the impression that form variations are "official" in 5.24. I would need to find the book source, and I vaguely remember it from a video.

 

[dave2008]

Im under the impression that form variations are "official" in 5.24. I would need to find the book source, and I vaguely remember it from a video.

That is not the point, what is official or not is not relevant.

 

[Tonguez]

So the "dragon forms" of note to me are:


Fish-Camel-Plus Snake (Asian): lizard-like but serpentine, with amalgam of specific bodyparts.
Any Dragon species can be any of these forms, depending on individual and setting.

Camel, surely they are more Deer (especially the antlers) than Camel

 

[Corinnguard]

You know, for all my love for dragon mythology and media of all various forms and cultural influences…I’ve never really considered have a family of dragons based on eastern dragons in my homebrew world.

Can you imagine a D&D setting that used the dragons from the Dracopedia series of books? Several D&D Monsters such as the Hydra and Couatl would be retyped as Dragons.

 

[aco175]

I would first ask if Eastern anything is needed in 5e. Are eastern humans or elves any different? Could one just reskin regular MM dragons to fit? I would likely just take the easy/lazy way out and just take a 5e dragon and maybe add a cool power if I needed one.

If the reason is to make a cool monster book to sell, then sure. New monsters are always a good sell like magic items or spells. If there is excitement for a new Oriental Handbook then go ahead and come out with new classes and elements and everything.