Monster of the Week: The Dragon (Part 1)

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

This week’s monster is a doozy… such a doozy that we’re going to make this a multi-part series! What monster would warrant such an honor you ask? Well you should have read the title, but it’s the iconic and legendary Dragon!

Dragon lore and legends can be found throughout history. From stories about knights saving princesses and the Mother of dragons herself you can find them all over modern entertainment as well. Heck, even my grandma knows what dragons are! Although the source material is endless, for this series we will be sticking to the Dragons of the Forgotten Realms.

The Facts

Dragons are an ancient race, with many creatures tracing their lineage back to them. They are inherently magical, and although they resemble reptiles, they are a classification all their own. In fact, as posture and movement go, they are more feline in nature… and they’re warm-blooded! Dragons are omnivorous, preferring meat but eating just about anything, including the occasional magical item. They are born from eggs, a mother dragon will lay between 1-10 eggs, depending on its species.

There are various subraces of Dragon: True Dragons, which are what we picture when we think of dragons. These are the ones that become more powerful as they age. There’s also Lesser Dragons, which don’t become more powerful as they age, such as Dragon Turtles and Drakes and miscellaneous Dragons which are still super cool but don’t really fit into a category. Prismatic and Mist dragons are 2 that fall into this category.

Abilities

Dragon senses can vary depending on the species, and we’ll be getting into those specifics in part 2 of this series, but they all boast acute senses that can improve as they age. They have excellent vision (day and night) and can use their sensitive nose and forked tongue to pick up scents much like a snake. Even young dragons have strong scales, the one’s you’ll find in the monster manual have an AC of 18.

All dragons have certain resistances and some innate magical ability. If they are a True Dragon, this gets more powerful (and terrifying) as they age. Many you will encounter in games like D&D will speak Common and Draconic; they are clever and extremely intelligent.

The versatility and broad range of abilities you have with Dragons is one of many reasons why they’re an obvious choice to TPK… I mean interact with your players. What’s your favorite Dragon ability?

Thanks for hanging out with us this week, next week we’ll go into detail about the abilities of more common dragons like Chromatic and Metallic as well as some tips for including them in your campaign! See you then!

Check out last week’s Monster of the Week the Kobold!