D&D 5E How many dragons do we need?

[Mind of tempest]

I think we need something that can do the same job as dragons but are not dragons to get some real possibilities for other things going.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think we need something that can do the same job as dragons but are not dragons to get some real possibilities for other things going.

The main problem here is, there's very little which has the nearly-universal appeal of dragons. I wasn't kidding when I said that something dragon-like exists in basically every human culture ever. Moreover, the one through line for all of them is "powerful and important and at least kind of reptilian," making the category broad but consistently Kind Of A Big Deal.

The only other types of being which come close to the universality of dragons are Giants, Fey, Undead, and Demons/Devils. Almost all cultures have myths about those last two in some sense, the "unquiet dead" and "malign spirits" being incredibly broad categories, but Giants and Fey are a lot harder to call universal, even with intentionally broad definitions. Fey and Undead aren't the best fit because a lot of them are specifically very weak/minor, and Demons/Devils are highly variable. Plus, these categories often blend together; the Japanese word "youkai" is often translated as "demon," but the word encompasses everything from fairy-like spirit beings to souls of the restless dead to powerful malign beings, essentially a blender of Fey, Undead, and Demon/Devil all rolled into one.

In other words...there really isn't anything else that quite hits that mix of Universal, Powerful, and Important like Dragons do. Not in mythology at least. That makes any effort at creating an alternative at least somewhat fraught.

With my aforementioned cosmology, the four fundamental classes of supernatural beings are Dragons (overall LG, unless fallen), Fey (CG, unless fallen), Giants (overall LE, unless redeemed), and Demons (CE; a redeemed demon becomes something that isn't a demon anymore.) Even then, one must be careful to avoid letting dragons take too wide a place, simply because of how mythically resonant they are.

They are archaic words for respectively tungsten and neodymium.

While I did know this about wolfram (it's why the elemental symbol of tungsten is W), I had no idea this was an archaic name for neodymium! I just invented it as a term for an implicitly purple metal (on the notion of "tyrian" purple.) In my semi-fantastical interpretation, wolfram would be green metal in the way gold is yellow and copper is red, and tyrium would be purple. Iron is of course the "black" metal, cobalt is blue, and silver is white.

 

[Scribe]

I think we need something that can do the same job as dragons but are not dragons to get some real possibilities for other things going.

Giants, and Elementals.

 

[SkidAce]

All of them.

Because D&D is a toolkit.

May not use them all at once or all in one campaign, but options are great.

 

[pointofyou]

While I did know this about wolfram (it's why the elemental symbol of tungsten is W), I had no idea this was an archaic name for neodymium! I just invented it as a term for an implicitly purple metal (on the notion of "tyrian" purple.) In my semi-fantastical interpretation, wolfram would be green metal in the way gold is yellow and copper is red, and tyrium would be purple. Iron is of course the "black" metal, cobalt is blue, and silver is white.

I apologize. I misinterpreted the information I was finding. I should have taken more time and paid more attention. Tyrium seems to be an incorrect name for neodymium unless I am misunderstanding the Wikipedia redirect page. Many of its oxides are apparently vividly purple which would explain why someone might misname it tyrium.

 

[Mecheon]

I apologize. I misinterpreted the information I was finding. I should have taken more time and paid more attention. Tyrium seems to be an incorrect name for neodymium unless I am misunderstanding the Wikipedia redirect page. Many of its oxides are apparently vividly purple which would explain why someone might misname it tyrium.

Y'know, as a dork who loves way too many dragons in my game (Seriously, I dug through random 3E Dragonlance stuff just to find the references to canon Lead dragons, which, of course as Lead dragons, should be anti-magic and either poison or bullet breath), I decided to dig into this

So it seems there was a paper that suggested this (Alongside some other alternate names for elements), but even later papers by the same authors don't keep to it. Technically, a legitimate name, albeit INCREDIBLY obscure and only ever used by one person in one spot. It is a dang cool name though, and naturally a Tyrium dragon would have magnetism powers as neodymium is used in the strongest magnets

 

[Blue Orange]

Like Umbran said, it's Dungeons and Dragons, not Bandits and Basilisks, Mazes and Minotaurs, or Witches and Wyverns (to name a few homebrew OSR versions). We ought to have a reasonably large number of dragons.

If we're doing the whole periodic table you could have fun finding obscure metals to create osmium dragons that have power over gravity but are too heavy to fly, palladium dragons that look like Bahamut but are much less powerful, tin dragons that are the lost precursors of the bronze....not to mention the interbreeding of the chromatics to produce magenta, chartreuse, and so on...

 

[Mecheon]

tin dragons that are the lost precursors of the bronze

Technically canon! There's a Dragonlance Dwarvish myth that the Chromatics were originally metallics that got corrupted. Just a myth, right? Tin became white.

.... Except in one of the 3E Dragonlance campaigns, you can remove some corruption from a repentant black dragon dying of poison and, not only does it handle the poison, it also turns the dragon into a lead dragon. So theoretically tin dragons did exist

(if folks with more stat orientated minds want to contribute, I have too many dumb ideas. Including the Radiant Metalics with. Questional powers)

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Dragons are one of the supreme predators in the most of D&D ecosystems. If you add too many dragons then there is not enough preys to be hunted.

Planar dragons have got enough space to live in the planes.

Cobra dragon could be the leader of a yuan-ti cult, and linnords to create their own Lovecraftian cults.

My trick to allow enough space for all the dragons from old editions is a demiplane within the elemental limbo, the islands of Io's blood, something working in the same way the dark domains of Ravenloft or the domains of delight in Witchlight. This space would be the updated version of "Councyl of Wyrms" and drinking a lot of Chris Perkins' homemade setting "Iomandra".

And Hasbro could be interested in all types of D&D dragons because these are their trademark. If Hasbro sell dinosaur toys other companies can do it also, because prehistoric beasts are "public domain", but if WotC designs a new spider-dragon (it was in "Wild Elves", a sourcebook of Dragonlance) then only Hasbro can sell the spider dragon with that design.

 

[Maxperson]

Are we diluting the specialness of the dragon by having so many types?

No and here's why. They aren't all having brunch together at the local diner. The variety just gives you choices to pick from when you have that rare dragon encounter or adventure.