Howdy! Luis Loza here! We’re wrapping up our look at dragons featured in Pathfinder Monster Core 2 and Pathfinder Lost Omens Draconic Codex with the mightiest dragons of all: the archdragons!
One thing that sets great dragons apart from the rest of dragon kin is the fact that they grow in strength and capabilities as they age. While all dragons begin as hatchlings and eventually come into their own in adulthood, only great dragons continue to improve past that stage. We categorize our great dragons as hatchlings, young, adult, old, ancient, and archdragon.
Many dragons grow to the old and ancient status, but only the most powerful become archdragons. An archdragon has become fully in tune with the magic that flows through their body regardless of tradition, and this prowess affords the dragon greater abilities and ferocity. As part of this growth, an archdragon takes on more dramatic or even brand-new physical features representative of their status.
When we were deciding just what an archdragon was and what it could be capable of, we worked with our concept artist, Kent Hamilton, to generate the look for archdragons. We can see his take on the cinder archdragon here.
With its appearance set, it was time to determine what kinds of abilities an archdragon should have. Our dragons tend to gain a new ability with every age category, and we wanted to continue that pattern by giving each archdragon a unique ability to represent their unique might. The cinder archdragon has Blazing Wind, which allows it to fly and then blow out a superheated gale in a 200-foot line that deals fire damage, can set things on fire, and can even collapse structures. We wanted archdragons to feel exceptionally dangerous, which is difficult considering dragons are already some of our deadliest monsters. I think adding abilities like Sky Below Stone to adamantine archdragons, a Forgetfulness Aura to conspirator archdragons, and Treasure Tsunami to fortune archdragons helped us meet this goal!
Draconic Codex features archdragon stat blocks for all dragons found in Monster Core and Monster Core 2. We also made sure to include archdragon entries for all other dragons featured in the book, so anyone who wants to use a brine archdragon or vorpal archdragon in their game will be very happy. In a way, Draconic Codex is like our own personal treasure hoard of incredible dragons and dangers for heroes to face!
With that, we end our look at all things dragons… at least for now. Dragons are such a pivotal part of the game that I think it would be silly to close the book on them here, and I feel we still have lots of space to work with in the realm of great dragons, so don’t be surprised if you see more of them in the future. While you wait for us to spin up some new ones, make sure to check out Pathfinder Lost Omens Draconic Codex!
Luis Loza (he/him)
Creative Director (Rules & Lore)