D&D General Redoing Dragons in D&D

[ichabod]

The Re-Loring thread made me think of the changes I am planning for dragons in my world. It also made me wonder if and how other people have redone dragons in D&D.

This is how I am redoing dragons: Dragons hatch out of eggs as generic "unformed" drakes. They go out and find a territory they like, and adapt to it. So you have grass drakes, forest drakes, swamp drakes, and so on. After about a century, a drake sheds its skin and emerges as one of the types of primal dragon: air, earth, fire, or water. The fire dragons are like traditional red dragons. The water dragons are more like sea serpents. The air dragons are more like Chinese dragons (lions head, snake body with small legs, flies without wings). The earth dragons have no wings, six legs, and can burrow like a purple worm. After a few more centuries a primal dragon can shed its skin and emerge as an elder wyrm. Elder wyrms are completely unique creatures with their own forms and special abilities.

If you have redone dragons in D&D, how have you done it?

 

[GMMichael]

For starters, they don't breathe fire. I mean come on - reptiles are (mostly) ectothermic!

 

[LordBP]

You might look at how DCC handles dragons (pretty much every dragon is unique due to multiple dice rolls to make one).

Makes things much more interesting when you don't know what abilities they will have before you encounter them.

 

[Charlaquin]

I keep the colors and metals because it’s a very particular D&D-ism that I think helps set it apart from other fantasy, but I changed the breakdown of metals and colors to associate them with alchemy. For metallic dragons I use the alchemical metals (lead, tin, copper, iron, silver, quicksilver, and gold), and for Chromatic dragons I do the four colors of the alchemical transmutation process (albino, citrine, ruby, and “ebon” since the adjectival form of “nigredo” would sound pretty inappropriate). The chromatic dragons are also associated with the four humors and by extension the four elements - melancholic (earth) for ebon, phlegmatic (water) for albino, choleric (fire) for citrine, and sanguine (air) for ruby. I also got rid of alignments tied to dragon type, although the chromatic are still generally of poorer temperament due to their imbalanced humors, which might lead to an in-universe association of chromatic dragons being “the evil ones.”

I back and forth on the idea of adding a fifth chromatic dragon, to get aether into the elemental mix, perhaps making up an ectoplasmic humor to associate it with.

 

[J.Quondam]

I was going to add this to the other thread, but I'll put it here since it's on topic.

In the beginning the Sky and the Earth separated from the oceanic chaos, to form the World. In competition with each other, the gods of the Sky and Earth began to shape the World to their own preferences in order to dominate. The Sky made the sun, stars, clouds, storms, and the like; while the Earth made mountains, forests, volcanoes, glaciers, and so forth.​

​

As their rivalry escalated, the gods created people to advance their causes. Thus the Children of Earth (or the Fists) and the Children of Sky (or the Claws) came into existence. These first people were at the time very small because the World itself was still very small: the Fists of the Earth were basically halflings, while the Claws of the Sky were basically flying kobolds.​

​

Over the aeons this war among the World Babies raged, growing more and more destructive as the gods slowly advanced their respective peoples' knowledge of warfare, magic, technology and so forth. The survivors of that primordial age - now swollen by time and power - continue their fight today: the Giants are the mythic heroes of the original Fists of Earth and the Dragons are the greatest of the ancient Claws of the Sky.​

I don't know why, but I adore the basic idea that Big Monsters are often just really big Little Monsters.

 

[Tonguez]

I was going to add this to the other thread, but I'll put it here since it's on topic.

In the beginning the Sky and the Earth separated from the oceanic chaos, to form the World. In competition with each other, the gods of the Sky and Earth began to shape the World to their own preferences in order to dominate. The Sky made the sun, stars, clouds, storms, and the like; while the Earth made mountains, forests, volcanoes, glaciers, and so forth.​

​

As their rivalry escalated, the gods created people to advance their causes. Thus the Children of Earth (or the Fists) and the Children of Sky (or the Claws) came into existence. These first people were at the time very small because the World itself was still very small: the Fists of the Earth were basically halflings, while the Claws of the Sky were basically flying kobolds.​

​

Over the aeons this war among the World Babies raged, growing more and more destructive as the gods slowly advanced their respective peoples' knowledge of warfare, magic, technology and so forth. The survivors of that primordial age - now swollen by time and power - continue their fight today: the Giants are the mythic heroes of the original Fists of Earth and the Dragons are the greatest of the ancient Claws of the Sky.​

I don't know why, but I adore the basic idea that Big Monsters are often just really big Little Monsters.

That's adorably awesome - I've disliked the decision to change kobold from chihuahuas to wannabe dragons but this use of urds as primordial baby dragons squabbling with baby hafling giants is inspired!

 

[bedir than]

Currently every species of dragon on my world hoard different things -- knowledge, spellcraft, anger, sadness, fellowship -- just about anything.

Also, the elder dragons are essentially gods that control magic and oppress humanoids

 

[Reynard]

I have used dragons that are literally natural forces made flesh. A particularly powerful thunderstorm becomes a blue dragon, etc.

 

[ezo]

If you have redone dragons in D&D, how have you done it?

Well, this isn't for "D&D", but for our game we're developing.

There is only "dragon". Not different types, not different alignments.

A dragon adapts to its environment, wherever that might be. Their breath weapons (if they have one) also adapt, either to match the environment or oppose it. Their alignment can be anything. So, you might encounter a "red-skinned" dragon in a desert that breaths fire, or cold, or a blast of sandy air, or lightning, or whatever. The same region might produce a dragon which is light brown (like the sand). It can be randomly determined, or picked by the DM.

Some dragons can fly, some burrow, some swim, again likely determined by the environment.

When a dragon lays eggs and those eggs hatch, the young are only tended by a parent until their first molting, usually about 2 years later. Dragons reach maturity around 10 years, but continue growing to fit the space they live in, the amount of food available, etc. By the time they are 50 years old, they often are the dominant predator in their domain.

Finally, dragons are immortal. At any point they can "pass on", leaving the realm, at which point their physical bodies eventually transform into that of their environment, forever becoming part of the lands. Their essence can return to the region whenever they want in a sort of "ghostly" form, but they rarely do so unless there is great need or they are summoned. Also, whenever new eggs are laid in that region, the dragon can be "reborn" by choosing one of the eggs.

 

[Clint_L]

My dragons don't have alignments and aren't all hoard-obsessed. But they're usually jerks because they're immensely powerful and long-lived, and see most other creatures as beneath them. Usually literally. Tiamat and Bahamat are both part of my setting, but it's a toss-up as to which one is worse, though in very different ways.

As far as colours and abilities go, I grab the miniature that I most want to use and home-brew anything I want to change. I don't care about WK's official art, such as all blue dragons having big horns on their nose and stuff like that.