Unique Dragons

[JoeGKushner]

Over on another thread about Gem Dragons, I butched it by talking about dragon rulers or unique dragons.

Gruaghlothor: Ferrous Dragons (Dragon 171)

Ahi and Rahab:Steel and Grey (uniques at the time) ?

Sardior, Gem Dragon, updated to 3.0 on WoTC website.

Undead Dragon from Greyhawk... Durgorath? Breath weapon that turned those it killed into skeletons serving him...

Anyway, have you created such dragons? I've made several unique ones using templates and level advancement, but they often feel like Ed Greenwood's Dragons of the North, interesting and unique, but not unique like those old boys.

 

[Shemeska]

Not sure if it was ever given stats anywhere, but there was Nidhogg the great Linnorm who was curled at the base of Yggdrasil's roots in the 2nd layer of the Gray Waste. (Planes of Conflict)

 

[Psion]

The creation myth I worked up for the world involves the two great primal elemental dragons, tau val and tau vre. The players had the opportunity to meet them once.

My memory is faint, but I'll see if I can dig the creation myth up.

 

[Talmun]

I toyed with the idea of making the current villain IMC a unique dragon, but decided to template up a chromatic; with all the templates out there, creating something new from the ground up isn’t really necessary unless you’re going for something truly bizarre.

Greyhawk also has the Earth Dragon (under the Pomarj I believe) and the Greyhawk Dragon (living in human form in the City, IIRC).

 

[Echohawk]

Not sure if it was ever given stats anywhere, but there was Nidhogg the great Linnorm who was curled at the base of Yggdrasil's roots in the 2nd layer of the Gray Waste. (Planes of Conflict)

Indeed it has been given stats: An AD&D entry for Nidhogg appears on page 18 of Dragon #110.

 

[diaglo]

The Eater of Men... a dragon so horrible that no one alive can describe him...

 

[Desdichado]

I like the unique dragons from Monsternomicon myself, although I haven't yet had an occasion to use them.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I like the unique dragons from Monsternomicon myself, although I haven't yet had an occasion to use them.

Same enjoyment of the monsters and same problem.

It's weird but in 1st and 2nd edition, even though the dragons were powerful, they weren't so powerful that I couldn't use them even against 10th-15th level characters. The unique ones now are like... "Ummm you guys aren't epic yet... we'll hold off on it."

 

[the Jester]

Dude, in 1/2e, 10th-15th level was epic.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Dude, in 1/2e, 10th-15th level was epic.

It took a looooooong time to get to but it wasn't epic. One of my longest running campaigns right before 3rd ed was a 2nd ed FR campaign mostly in the North (Waterdeep, Silverymoon, etc...) where the characters got up to 10th level! They were happy to do it too.

However... the big old however, 20th level was the standard back then too and there was an optional book to handle higher level advancement.

In the D&D ENcylopedia, it's another story at the default was 36th level.