D&D General Why do we color-code Dragons?

[Olgar Shiverstone]

That's... a nonsequitor. Dragons are different species, humans are just different phenotypes of the same species.

Are dragons different species? Are we sure? Maybe they've been selectively bred (or engineered) like domestic dogs, which begs the question by whom ... see also Pern.

 

[Corinnguard]

Inquiring minds also want to now know if different color dragons and have babies together? Would a red dragon and a blue dragon create a purple dragon, or just pick from one of the parents like 5.5e PCs?

Back in 3e, the Half-Dragon template could be applied to dragons. So, you could have a Half-Red Blue Dragon or a Half-Blue Red Dragon. As for Purple Dragons, that was another name for the Deep Dragons since 2e.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I remember reading something that the blue helped them blend in to the blue skies. No idea where I read that, if it was in an actual edition, or if it actually was in DnD. So many years of lore, hard to keep it all separate.

I always felt their wings should be reversed in coloration. Blue on the bottom to help them blend in with the sky when descending on prey, and yellow on top so they can partially burrow and hide part of their body under them to blend in with the sands.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Now I'm reminded of an article I read in the ancient days on the Wizards website, where a designer talked about their campaign where the PCs had learned about a white dragon and prepared to fight it with cold resistance spells and fire magic and such. Except, as they learned, it wasn't a white dragon – it was an undead wight-dragon.

There was a Dungeon side quest in issue 32 called Changeling where the party hears of a rampaging white dragon only for it to turn out to be an albino red dragon. I sprung that on my group as a kid and they were both amused and annoyed that their anti cold prep was worthless.

 

[LordBP]

Just do what they do in DCC and make it "The Dragon". No colors, types, etc.

Dragons have random abilities, breath weapons(maybe multiple), etc

 

[Voadam]

Are dragons different species? Are we sure? Maybe they've been selectively bred (or engineered) like domestic dogs, which begs the question by whom ... see also Pern.

They are the only monsters in the 1e MM with their Latin genus and species names spelled out.

It also talks about them specifically as species entries.

 

[Corinnguard]

They are the only monsters in the 1e MM with their Latin genus and species names spelled out.

View attachment 416654

It also talks about them specifically as species entries.

View attachment 416656

The Dungeons and Dragons: Book of Dragons also has their Latin genus and species names too.

 

[Willie the Duck]

White, green, and red seem fairly obvious and maybe black as well (dark fetid swamp water).

It is funny that the chromatic dragons have the same colors as MTG's color pie, but are close but not quite a match for the color pie thematically... Black Dragons, however, as swamp dwellers are an excellent match thematically to Black in MTG.

Both use the notion of swamps as places of death and fetidness. I wonder where that comes from.

Swamps (wetlands that support trees) are generally pretty neutral in pH, and full of life. Admittedly, some of it iconically poisonous (and Gary seemed to like Chlorine gas, but not regular poison, for dragons, so acid might be a stand-in). Peat bogs (another type of wetland) are acidic -- and fens alkaline. Both of them from the abundance of life (of specific varieties of plants that produce a pH differential).

I suppose only fiery volcanos and frozen tundra really intuitively work with any of the element types, with crackling thunder in desert winds being a less forced than than anything else. I could also have seen the forest dragons getting fire breath--in the notion of forest fires. It'd have been kinda funny if Gary had made fire-breathing forest dragons the natural enemies of werebears (with fondness for brimmed hats) or the like.

 

[Corinnguard]

It'd have been kinda funny if Gary had made fire-breathing forest dragons the natural enemies of werebears (with fondness for brimmed hats) or the like.

"Only you can put out fire-breathing forest dragons."

 

[Staffan]

Both use the notion of swamps as places of death and fetidness. I wonder where that comes from.

I think there are four sources.

One is that swamps are treacherous. It is, at least in stories, fairly common that a piece of solid-looking land turns out to be anything but, and instead turns out to be some kind of mud or quicksand that sucks you to your grave (yes, I know quicksand doesn't work like that IRL, but we're talking fantasy connotations here).

Another is that swamps are stagnant. Swamp water moves slowly, if at all. That means that things accumulate in it. That's usually life... but it's generally not life that's good for humans. You get dirt in the water, and stagnant pools that are great for breeding mosquitos and other insects that spread disease. Compare to running river water, which is generally considered clean unless polluted by a major city or something.

Related to that: an abundance of life means an abundance of things that die. And since swamp water is usually stagnant, it's usually under-oxygenated, which means things don't decompose as quickly, so you'll find more dead things in swamps. That, IIRC, is the reason most fossils are found in areas that were formerly swamps – dead things get buried in sediment and preserved until the sediment eventually replaces the organic tissues with stone.

And a fourth is that swamps are inaccessible. Even more than hills, it's hard to project force into a swamp. Mounts are unusable. Vision is limited. Hiding is easy. So for people who want to stay away from authority, swamps make good hideouts.