WHy weren't FRCS dragons wiped out by the spellplague?

[Sitara]

The latest article reinforces that "Dragons have magic flowing in their veins..." bit about dragons. So if Halruua was destroyed, mages went mad, turned to ash etc etc how come dragons, who basically are the stuff of magic still survive? We know they have ad their abilities changed (thankfully!) but thats all. No reports of dragons going mad, being plaguetouched, being turned to ash, etc.

Why weren't the FRCS dragons all wiped out by the spellplague?

 

[Simon Marks]

Because dragons never interacted with Magic via the Weave.

The weave is what went. Dragons went "That thing? never needed it in the first place - poor two-leggers"

 

[BlackSeed_Vash]

Because the game would have to change its name to "Dungeons"

 

[Nymrohd]

Why would they be? Some wizards died, some became plaguetouched, some adapted. Why would dragons simply die in every case? They have a far greater constitution than your average humanoid and their bodies are sculpted to be vessels of magic. They should be able to deal with the raging destabilization of the Weave that is the Spellplague quite better than your average spellcaster.

 

[Sol.Dragonheart]

There are numerous possible explanations, if the Dragons indeed survive, as to why that happened. In addition, we do not have the full Realms breakdown yet, and it is not known if the Dragons, did, in fact, survive the Spellplague untouched.

 

[Derren]

Who says the weren't affected? After all FR has to come up with a reason why dragons are now suddenly unaligned and why Brass&Bronzes get replaced.

While I don't know the fluff about this issue (if it even exists), by game rules dragons were indeed weave dependent (no weave -> no breath weapon). But the whole weave thing is very badly done anyway. Why are so many interlopers (elves&dragons for example) so attuned to a FR only construct?

 

[DandD]

It's said that the dragons will lose some of their spell-casting abilities, and rather become more melee-oriented. So they really might have been touched greatly by the spellplague.

 

[Nymrohd]

Also let's not forget that in the year 1373 the Tearfall happened in the realms once more. So when the Spellplague happened there was a massive number of wyrmlings far above standard draconic populations. It stands to reason that would give them an edge.

 

[wingsandsword]

The latest article reinforces that "Dragons have magic flowing in their veins..." bit about dragons. So if Halruua was destroyed, mages went mad, turned to ash etc etc how come dragons, who basically are the stuff of magic still survive? We know they have ad their abilities changed (thankfully!) but thats all. No reports of dragons going mad, being plaguetouched, being turned to ash, etc.

The spellplague was a big metagame reason to smash the Realms and remold them to fit 4e because 4e is so different in magic systems and setting/character presumptions that it would not fit well with pre-spellplague Realms, thus things that were in 4e would not be destroyed, just like how places that were popular weren't destroyed because it would hurt sales.

Dragons are an iconic part of D&D, right down to the name of the game, so they aren't going to completely go away. I'm pretty sure every official D&D setting has had Dragons at least to some degree (even Dark Sun, although Athasian Dragons were extremely rare and definitely not standard Monster Manual dragons)

As for the whole "never used the weave" thing, not exactly. All mortal beings used the Weave (or Shadow Weave) to access magic and without the Weave non-deities would have no ability to access any form of magic (like when Mystryl died stopping Karsus's Folly, shutting off the Weave for several minutes in the process and making the entire world a dead-magic zone), well, until the Spellplague retcon of what the Weave and Mystra's role was at least.

 

[Thaumaturge]

The Year of the Rogue Dragon culled the weak dragons in preparation for the coming magic apocalypse (magocalypse as it were).

Thaumaturge.