Concerning Dragons

 
D&D stands for Dungeons and Dragons, so naturally dragons are an important part of the D&D game. So it sucks when I really do not like how D&D portraits dragons. Different color dragons, each with different powers, sounds less like an epic fantasy setting and more like a children's show. Maybe it is just me? But I think it's very cheesy.

However... dragons are AWESOME! They are by far one of my favorite monsters in any game, story, or film. Dragons are why if someone asked me whether I liked The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings better I would never be able to answer them. So when I create a world in which to set my players, you can bet there are going to be dragons. Even if I were to create a world devoid of any magic or magical creatures, it would still have dragons in it. Still, I do not want to use D&D dragons.

So I changed them to fit my tastes. Here is the dragon lore for my D&D world:

Dragons are born from eggs about the size of a dinner plate. The dragon will usually lay many hundreds of eggs, but few young ones will ever survive long enough to hatch. Of those that do, very few survive their time in the nest. When born a dragon's scales are green, much like any other lizard. He will have small, boney bumps on his back: extensions of his shoulder blade which will become his wings. The young dragon grows at an extraordinary rate over a two week period. At the end of this two week period the young dragon will be about the size of a small elephant. At this point two things happen. One,  the dragon's wings will have matured to a point at which the dragon can now fly with them. Two, the growing process for the dragon will come nearly to a stand still. From this point on, the young dragon will grow very slowly, but continue growing the rest of his life. Once a dragon reaches adulthood his scales will change color very quickly. They will go from green to yellow (for a very short while) and then from yellow to red. His scales will remain red until he is much older, at which point they will begin to darken until finally, when he is very old, his scales will become black. Dragons only breath fire, although once they attain their black scales, the fire reaches a new fierceness and gains acidic like properties.

 

If you have dragon lore which differs from the D&D manual then please share! If anyone would like to use this lore for their own games then by all means go ahead.

 

Cheers.