Frankie1969
Adventurer
Warning: rambling discourse ahead. I've been pondering why the founding nerds picked those 5 colors and 6 metals for the core dragons.
First, we have damage types. OD&D initially recognized fire, cold, and lightning. Black dragons & trolls bring acid into play, but the word never appears in descriptions of corrosive oozes or other creatures. Dragons had a separate table noting resistances & vulnerabilities to the following 5 sources: water, fire, lightning, air, & earth. Cold seems to count as water type, but acid and poison don't count as any of them. Air & earth were only relevant to elementals.
Tiamat appears to be based on the seven-headed serpent Têmtum (aka Lotan in other myths). Why only five heads? I think it's because they couldn't dream up appropriate breath weapons for two more dragons. Chlorine Gas was already a terribly awkward leap.
It's clear that although Arneson, Gygax, and friends cared deeply about historically accurate arms & armor, they cared not at all about historically accurate chemistry. Chlorine and Platinum weren't known until the 1700s. In addition to king of the lawful dragons, Bahamut is king of D&D anachronisms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_chemical_element_discoveries
Someone in Lake Geneva was a huge fan of copper alloys. But it galls me that if bronze and brass are so important to deserve dragons, then why not Tin and Zinc?
Adding insult to injury, the expanded list of dragons (Dragon Magazine et al) picked bizarrely modern metals. Cobalt, Tungsten, Chromium? Three more 18th Century discoveries. At least Iron is appropriate, and one or two splatbooks rightly have a Mercury Dragon.
Lead, however, gets no respect. The 2nd oldest metal known to man, long before the Bronze Age, but it's never gotten an official dragon. Even though every single one of those other dragons were represented using miniatures made out of lead!
First, we have damage types. OD&D initially recognized fire, cold, and lightning. Black dragons & trolls bring acid into play, but the word never appears in descriptions of corrosive oozes or other creatures. Dragons had a separate table noting resistances & vulnerabilities to the following 5 sources: water, fire, lightning, air, & earth. Cold seems to count as water type, but acid and poison don't count as any of them. Air & earth were only relevant to elementals.
Tiamat appears to be based on the seven-headed serpent Têmtum (aka Lotan in other myths). Why only five heads? I think it's because they couldn't dream up appropriate breath weapons for two more dragons. Chlorine Gas was already a terribly awkward leap.
It's clear that although Arneson, Gygax, and friends cared deeply about historically accurate arms & armor, they cared not at all about historically accurate chemistry. Chlorine and Platinum weren't known until the 1700s. In addition to king of the lawful dragons, Bahamut is king of D&D anachronisms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_chemical_element_discoveries
Someone in Lake Geneva was a huge fan of copper alloys. But it galls me that if bronze and brass are so important to deserve dragons, then why not Tin and Zinc?
Adding insult to injury, the expanded list of dragons (Dragon Magazine et al) picked bizarrely modern metals. Cobalt, Tungsten, Chromium? Three more 18th Century discoveries. At least Iron is appropriate, and one or two splatbooks rightly have a Mercury Dragon.
Lead, however, gets no respect. The 2nd oldest metal known to man, long before the Bronze Age, but it's never gotten an official dragon. Even though every single one of those other dragons were represented using miniatures made out of lead!
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