This page is about the big scaly winged beast. For the character role of the main villain's right hand man (or beat stick), see The Dragon.
Basic Information
A dragon is a legendary creature with serpentine or otherwise reptilian traits that features in the myths of many cultures. They often have wings, and a Breath Weapon, although Chinese dragons are generally wingless and travel through the air "like a lizard on a wall". Unless a dragon slayer intervenes, dragons are generally thought to be either extremely long lived and/or immortal … however they are also often shown to spend most of their lives asleep in between destructive rampages1.
Depending on the source, they may be depicted as clever and intelligent, or just ravenously hungry beasts. They are generally depicted as highly accquisitive, hoarding gold and other valuables, more out of avarice than any use for wealth. Many of the intelligent versions (especially amongst the Chinese) are also skilled users of magic, philosophers or other kinds of scholar and/or extremely knowledgeable due to their immense age. If properly approached - usually with eye-watering bribes and/or by pandering to their colossal egos such a dragon may be a useful source of knowledge.
The other use for a dragon is traditionally to kill it and break it down for parts - the Chinese consider the dragon to have a magical pearl in its brain that can grant powers to any human who holds it, and they are not alone in looking for magical stones in the brains of dragons. Dragon hide is often considered a good source of armour and their teeth and claws sometimes get used as weapons. Other bodily parts may be used as material components in magic and/or the brewing of potions and other alchemy. Dragon's blood was considered extremely potent - giving immunity from weapons, the ability to understand the speech of birds and/or animals and other esoteric powers - but was also frequently thought to be poisonous. Both may turn out to be true.
Subtypes
Notable Dragons
Notable Dragon-slayers
Sources
Game and Story Use
- Big and scary, with instant name recognition. If you introduce a dragon to your setting or story, the players will take note.
- Almost as good is to not introduce them but include them in backstory - sooner or later the PCs may end up going looking for them and can be distracted for ages chasing rumours. Why they aren't around should probably be decided in advance.
- An example - dragons are not native to this world and must be summoned with powerful magic. Either the spell itself, or the subsequent spell to control the dragon that you've summoned has been lost, thus dragons no longer appear (assuming that everyone who knows the spell follows the Charles Dexter Ward Principle. Hilarity - and campaign development - may ensue when a caster breaks ranks.
- "Certain RPG Systems" are prone to the "big lizard" approach to dragons, making them a bit too mundane and easy to kill - feel free to avert this and use dragons only as epic challenges.
- Make sure your players are aware of the type of dragons you like to run - big lizards work in some settings and not others and PCs used to one are likely to suffer when exposed to the other.
- Why are dragons so interested in virgins? I came up with the following: All dragons are really alchemists. This is the reason why they have so much gold, and also why they can breathe fire… alchemist's fire. Quite possibly they were once mortal men who perfected their alchemy so much that they can internalize it in their bodies, necessitating their transformation into dragons. And virgins are alchemically powerful. Controlling them represents the alchemical marriage between the White Queen (the virgin/mercury) to the Red King (the dragon/sulphur). Thus, it is all in the name of improving their alchemy.
- That's actually a really good idea. Almost certainly better than the likely answer: that in a society which commoditises women a virgin of good family is very valuable property and appeals to a dragon's instinct to collect expensive things.
