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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 5097506" data-attributes="member: 58197">Yeah, I was about to say this. Dragons that spit acid--or, really, anything other than fire--are fairly rare outside D&D and its derivatives. I have a vague recollection of a fictional (non-D&D) dragon that spat hot, caustic liquid, but can't remember where it was from. (Edit: Looks like it's the Melnibonéan dragons in Michael Moorcock's Elric saga.)I think the real question here is, what do you regard as the essence of a black dragon? Is it that it spits acid? That it lives in a swamp? Or just that it has black scales?The first is very rare in non-D&D fiction, the second marginally less so. The third is quite common.  Clothing your dragon in black has much the same effect as doing it to your hero; it signals that this particular dragon is a Supreme Bad-Ass and not to be trifled with. Any time you want to make a dragon extra scary, just slap a sobriquet on it along the lines of "the Black" or "the Black <something>," and the audience knows that this is a dragon to fear... well, to fear more.Examples of bad-ass black dragons in fiction:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Maur, the Black Dragon, from "The Hero and the Crown." A dragon so utterly malevolent that even after it dies, its severed head can crush the spirit of an entire kingdom.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ancalagon the Black, from "The Silmarillion." The most feared and powerful dragon ever to walk Middle-Earth. His recorded career was quite short--a single battle--but that battle was Ancalagon leading his fellow dragons against the gods themselves.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Balerion, the Black Dread, in George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire." (See what I mean about the sobriquets?) Died three centuries before the events of the novels, but its skull is preserved in the bowels of the Red Keep and is described as "large enough to swallow an aurochs whole." Of Dany's three fledgeling dragons, the largest and fiercest is Drogon, the black one.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Kalessin the Eldest, from Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy. The oldest (though not the mightiest) of all dragons, described as "the color of iron." Presumably this indicates Kalessin is black. Other dragons are described as grey or grey-black. In a later book, it's suggested that Kalessin is in fact a manifestation of Segoy, the creator deity.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Black dragons in the strategy game "Heroes of Might and Magic." The black dragon is the most powerful unit in the game; incredibly tough, with a devastating area attack, highly mobile, and totally immune to magic. (The last item is not an entirely unalloyed good, since buff spells don't work on them either... but they don't generally need buffing.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Deathwing the Destroyer, leader of the evil Black Dragonflight in the Warcraft universe. I'll leave it to someone who knows more Warcraft lore than I do to flesh out the details.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Nicol Bolas from the CCG "Magic: The Gathering." The Legends set introduced the five Elder Dragon Legends, one for each color. They cost far too much mana for their mediocre abilities, and four of them faded into obscurity. The exception was the black-themed (though not actually black-scaled) <a href="http://magiccards.info/fvd/en/10.html" target="_blank">Nicol</a> <a href="http://magiccards.info/lg/en/286.html" target="_blank">Bolas</a>. Though still not tournament-grade material, Bolas was a much stronger card than the other four, and became a major villain in M:tG lore. He was reprinted no less than three times, and finally got promoted to planeswalker status, with a <a href="http://magiccards.info/cfx/en/120.html" target="_blank">new card to match</a>.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Hungarian Horntail, in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." When each champion is tasked with getting past a dragon, Harry gets the Horntail, which is stated to be the nastiest of the lot. Guess what color it is.</li> </ul></blockquote>

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