Multicolored Dragons

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I was designing 'the God' for a nation of kobolds - An aged and eccentric Green dragon... I figured she'd have a consort - and the first thing that crossed my mind was a Red Dragon.

Being wary of upsetting the grandmother:

Is there any good reason why 2 different coloured dragons couldn't mate?
Is there any good reason why they did?
What would their offspring look like?
Is anything published something about this?
Anyone got any ideas?

Am I weird for wondering about things like this?

 

[Wippit Guud]

Weeeellll.....

“Half-dragon” is an inherited template that can be added to any living, corporeal creature (referred to hereafter as the base creature)."

So... make a half-dragon dragon? For convenience sake, the more powerful color would take dominance, so it'd be a half-green dragon red dragon?

The ickiness! The uberness!

 

[tauton_ikhnos]

Strictly by rules, no problem at all. As Wippit said: 1/2-dragon dragon perfectly fine.

Or, drop rules, just go with flavor text: 1/2-dragon template shows, dragon can mate with anything. Why not each other?

 

[diaglo]

iirc, one of the 2000ed Dungeon adventures had a black/red dragon in it.

 

[Gez]

Weeeellll.....

“Half-dragon” is an inherited template that can be added to any living, corporeal creature (referred to hereafter as the base creature)."

So... make a half-dragon dragon? For convenience sake, the more powerful color would take dominance, so it'd be a half-green dragon red dragon?

But that's somewhat nonsensical, since the half-dragon template gives more than the color, it also give the dragon part. The half-dragon dragon should get only the benefits of the template that depends on color (immunity and breath weapon). To compensate, he should be able to use the breath weapon like a real dragon (once every 1d4 round, not once per day).

 

[Richards]

I'm pretty sure this issue was covered (by Gary Gygax, no less) in The Slayer's Guide to Dragons (Mongoose Publishing). I think he came up with a bunch of half-and-half chromatic dragons; I don't recall what his answer for the red-and-green dragon was (and I'm at work, so I can't check), but I'm pretty sure it was in there.

Johnathan

Edit: "hlaf-and-half?" Bad typing, fingers!

 

[Wippit Guud]

There's no mention of this in the Dracowhatsiscron?

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Or, drop rules, just go with flavor text: 1/2-dragon template shows, dragon can mate with anything. Why not each other?

That's always a good option - just describe it... But I can't resist things with Kewl (tm) powerz

I do think it can be interesting if theres something different about such a beast - even if it's 'just' a couple of breath weapons. Simply because I've got players who've seen and done a lot of things - I do like to dig up something new.

But that's somewhat nonsensical, since the half-dragon template gives more than the color, it also give the dragon part. The half-dragon dragon should get only the benefits of the template that depends on color (immunity and breath weapon). To compensate, he should be able to use the breath weapon like a real dragon (once every 1d4 round, not once per day).

I quite agree about the half dragon template - most of the bonuses are already factored in... I don't think the others are either 'worth' a +2CR or add much to the beastie.

That breath weapon one would certainly make for a nasty fix... Poison. Fire. Poison. Fire. Etc

To further confuse things, the beast could use Alter Self/Cone of Cold and pretend to be a white dragon. Unfortunately I've already used that one on a group of PCs.

 

[Woas]

The only thing I could find in the Draconomicon about multicolored dreagons is this little paragraph,

"Crossbreeds between dragon species are not unknown, but very rare. A hybrid dragon of this sort is usually left to fend for itself, but on occasion both parents (if they are on good terms with each other) might watch over it until it reaches adulthood."

..which doesn't help that much.

To be creative, I would get a piece of paper and pen, and write down the identifiers, descriptions, etc of each dragon type (red and green) in to seperate columns, matching up each one. Something like:

Red......................Green
frilled head/back.....frilled ears
red scales.............green scales
lava eyes..............emrald eyes
short neck.............long neck
long wingspand.......shorter wingspan
chaotic evil............lawful evil
fire breath.............acid breath
fire subtype...........air subtype
30 ft cone*...........20 ft cone*


*Those are based off wyrmling age. Red dragons breathe weapon are better an are 10ft longer than greens... but that range goes up 10ft per 3 age level..

So anyway, once I had the two columns down with what I wanted, I would get a coin and go down the list and flip the coin for each thing. Red will be heads, green tails... kinda like seeing which DNA strand is dominate.

Hope that helps.

 

[the Jester]

Savage Species mentions half-dragon dragons as crossbreeds.

My advice is to use the base stats of the weaker dragon since otherwise the crossbreed will be stronger than either of the parents.

I did something similar with a blue/shadow dragon and my players freaked out. Watch out for the insurrection and "cheater!" cries you'll face.