Mess With the Dragon, Get the Horns!

Luis I am loving these previews of Dragons.
They are so much more unique and vibrant.
Their design is truly draconic. Smaug would be intimated by his new brethern.

Why does the concept art mention fire breath?

Aesthetically the sketch reminds me of D&D Blue Dragons a bit, but the vibes are nice.

"horned dragon" feels unevocative though, is that the final name? Feels kinda... vague.

"I SAW A HORNED DRAGON ON THE MOUNTAINTOPS"
"John, all dragons have horns."
"NO IT WAS A HORNED DRAGON, NOT A DRAGON WITH HORNS!"
"What's the difference?"

I think being unshackled from the OGL is only a good thing. Just seeing all the different designs of dragons is amazing, they're all so much more unique and vibrant, and now that you don't need to worry about chromatic/metallic, there's much more room to design new true dragons without going to other planes.

Why does the concept art mention fire breath?

In part because Kent was working with the general idea of a dragon for the concept art. He didn't know the full statistics of the horned dragon and likely made some assumptions about what a dragon can do. There are lots of little details like this that vary from the concept stage to the final presentation in published material. This is one of those neat little behind-the-scenes things that you get to see when we share concepts like this.

In the end, the statistics for the horned dragon use the original poison breath, so there's no need to worry about the damage type suddenly changing.

"Unfortunately, in some cases, a variety of reasons makes leaving behind strigiform-ursine hybrids or cuboid gels the best option for us."

Life is pain, but I understand. :(

I really like how much a primal dragon is "just" a big, scary lizard compared to the other types. The designs are very identifiable and you can largely tell what a dragon's deal is by looking at it.

Perfect! I was hoping for something like this, where instead of being written out completely the old chromatic/metallic dragons are changed into something new for the remaster. If I understand correctly this is that for the Green Dragon. Definitely looks like an improvement, and I can simply place those over green dragons in the lore when necessary. Love it!

I know the brush ken is using, and I like it a lot. Looking awesome!! so hyped for the new dragons

DWAGGIN DWAGGIN DWAGGIN

Huzzah!

"Unfortunately, in some cases, a variety of reasons makes leaving behind strigiform-ursine hybrids or cuboid gels the best option for us."

Life is pain, but I understand. :(

I built BEAR-RACHNIDS for my home campaign.

"Unfortunately, in some cases, a variety of reasons makes leaving behind strigiform-ursine hybrids or cuboid gels the best option for us."

Life is pain, but I understand. :(

Time to bring in Gelatinous Bears and Owl Cubes!

It seems like many things are too small to *impale* on said horn. I guess the horned dragon doesn't eat those things.

Yay! Nice nature dragon you can use in almost any environment! It's great. I'm really glad there's now one to use when 'just a dragon' is enough and you don't need 'extra special fantastic' one. Calmer design is very valuable too.

I would like to flavor the poison breath as "spitting poison" like a spitting cobra, rather than "poison gas" which seems more arcane than primal to me.

It seems like many things are too small to *impale* on said horn. I guess the horned dragon doesn't eat those things.

Well if the dragon is large it could easily impale a medium sized creature on its horn. Eventually it might need to move to other targets though. But with enough force could still get a stew-ish meal.

That is a handsome horn.

Ooh, this'll be handy for updating the Dragon's Demand to the most current stuff!

That poison breath attack got me looking for something that reduces poison damage. Other than two things that show up in an AP, all you get are things that give you a bonus on saves vs. poison.

That poison breath attack got me looking for something that reduces poison damage. Other than two things that show up in an AP, all you get are things that give you a bonus on saves vs. poison.

Reflective Scales (R4 spell) can give you resistance on a short term basis. Blessing of Defiance (R5) on an even shorter term basis.

Aesthetically the sketch reminds me of D&D Blue Dragons a bit, but the vibes are nice.

"horned dragon" feels unevocative though, is that the final name? Feels kinda... vague.

"I SAW A HORNED DRAGON ON THE MOUNTAINTOPS"
"John, all dragons have horns."
"NO IT WAS A HORNED DRAGON, NOT A DRAGON WITH HORNS!"
"What's the difference?"

Given what they are an updated version of?

"BECAUSE...[shapeshift] We are quite proud of them, and that is what we wish to be called due to it. Now, I heard you have a lovely library I wish to relocate for safekeeping."

Oh there we go. A awesome sight to see the iconic Green Dragons of Paizo remain in the game. Makes me ponder what other of their brethren made the base roster of the dragons. At the moment Diabolical Dragons takes up the role of evil red dragon, not sure if they're the same due to planar elements. Conspirator Dragons take up the old role of the scheming Brass and Blue dragons, but with the hyper focus on just that....I imagine the Empyrean might be similar to the golds of before

It seems like many things are too small to *impale* on said horn. I guess the horned dragon doesn't eat those things.

Nah, that stuff's just finger food. Put a bunch of them in a bucket and snack on them during a movie.

NGL I was kinda hoping for an antlered nature god of a dragon, but I am still very glad to see the classics return.

I'm thinking back to all the people who speculated over the last 13 months that Paizo should Remaster the Green Dragon by renaming it to Swamp or Forest Dragon. I guess they were right in ways they didn't know yet. I wonder if that was agony for any dev to hold that nugget back when they saw that.

Pretty delighted by this design all the same. I had wondered what would make such a descriptor as 'horned dragon' sell as a primal theme and now we know. That said, jokes aside it doesn't seem hard to me to distinguish from horned dragons and dragons that merely have horns. If it's got a giant rhinocerous horn and it runs you down to impale you, it would be fair to declare that dragon uniquely horny--and not because of its proclivities with shapeshifting.

I shouldn't wonder if somehow the primal magic affinity didn't somehow infuse the horn of such a dragon, reinforcing it with the primal power of horned-ness. Horns, after all, have often been magically and mythologically significant structures.

Strigiform-ursine hybrids and cuboid gels? The former seems owlbears but what are cuboid gels?

Anyway, sigh. Does it mean the chance for Paizo remastering all the true dragons with different names is very slim? I really wish Paizo to do that, like:

Red: fire dragon or flame dragon
Blue: storm dragon (I think making them amphibious creatures instead of desert-dwelling creatures would help differentiating them from their D&D counterparts)
Black: skull dragon or swamp dragon
Green: forest dragon
White: snow dragon or ice dragon

I cannot think of suitable alternate names for metallic dragons though. Well, I don't like them that much anyway. :)

Strigiform-ursine hybrids and cuboid gels? The former seems owlbears but what are cuboid gels?

Gelatinous Cubes.

I think being unshackled from the OGL is only a good thing. Just seeing all the different designs of dragons is amazing, they're all so much more unique and vibrant, and now that you don't need to worry about chromatic/metallic, there's much more room to design new true dragons without going to other planes.

I think it is a good thing as well, but I still get very strong "messy divorce" energy at this point.

Not saying it won't be great once everything settles. But we are at the "I have to move to a new city, get a new job, and form a new social circle" phase of that experience.

Anyway, sigh. Does it mean the chance for Paizo remastering all the true dragons with different names is very slim?

Generally, filing the serial numbers off is a poor defense for infringing on someone else's copyright, but the example of the horned dragon is elucidating. Things like "a dragon" and "a dragon that is green" and "a dragon that is green and lives in the forest" and "a dragon that is green, lives in the forest, and spits poison" are all pretty generic. But to make that your own you need to take that and figure out something that's specific to your setting.

If you open up the Pathfinder wiki and search "green dragon" the second line under "appearance" is "Their horns can grow so large that they actually create a blind-spot in the dragon's vision and each dragon's horn is unique in its shape." So you choose to emphasize the thing that was always specific about your take on the dragon. But I think just doing it to do it is unnecessary. The role of "antagonistic dragons" and "friendly dragons" is pretty different, so I don't know if I"m ever going to need like "a silver dragon" as an NPC when I could use like a Sky Dragon or a Cloud Dragon instead.

Does it mean the chance for Paizo remastering all the true dragons with different names is very slim?

Not slim at all. You need look no further than scrolling up to the blog this comment is on for proof.

can these guys fill in for the less intelligent white dragon that is now gone also would love to see art for different regional horned dragons with the horn shape changing slightly not just the color, also love the concept of older horn dragons having thicker gnarlier looking horns with various things lodged in them or they even start to look like they have barnacles growing on them if they are a deep blue horn dragon and then moss with a green horn dragon.

At first, I felt much less enthusiasm for this Remastered version of an existing dragon than for those who are brand new.

The comments above and the notes on the drawing made me appreciate it more thankfully.

Hooray! My favorite of the dragons.

Oh this is cool. I'm looking forward to hearing about other dragons collapsed down into new forms later on, as well! The desert-dwelling dragons, various swamp and aquatic-dwelling ones, or mountainous dragons being focused around particular other features they might share is a neat design space.

I'm interested in seeing what aspects of nature the horned dragon embodies. If they still breathe poison gas, what's the flavor for that as dragons of Primal magic? Do they have tree powers? Are their horns like wood, meaning we might run into horned dragons who cause their bones to sprout into giant tree-like antlers and spears? Okay, probably not that.

can these guys fill in for the less intelligent white dragon that is now gone

If you are a GM, everything is possible. These horned guys could be it. Or you can use old white ones. Or you could create completely your own with the rules from GMs book. Or we'd just get new dragons with the theme of cold, snow and ice. Which is very probable I think.

Aenigma wrote:

Does it mean the chance for Paizo remastering all the true dragons with different names is very slim?

Not slim at all. You need look no further than scrolling up to the blog this comment is on for proof.

Well, this particular blog post only proposed the creation of an entirely new dragon that bears some resemblance to green dragons, which differs entirely from my hope of the return of true dragons with different names.

First of all, I don't think we could call it "remastering" if all it amounted to was a carbon copy with a different name. The cool thing about this remaster is it decouples Paizo from the obligation to do the exact same thing as WotC. If you want the exact same thing, just keep using the old books. Reprinting the same monster almost feels like a waste of space.

Second of all, though, I actually am a little genuinely confused at how these horned dragons' personalities will be "relatively the same" as those of green dragons. Does the blog mean, like, visual personality?

Green dragons are the most contemplative of the chromatic dragons as well as the most approachable. The key to understanding green dragons is to understand their obsession with knowledge and self-discipline. Any careful approach that takes advantage of a green dragon’s fixations may end in a diplomatic outcome, but any misstep or slight can provoke a savage attack. Like most chromatic dragons, green dragons do not suffer fools—and the threshold for what they consider foolish is very low.

Like other primal dragons, horned dragons are powerful and more bestial than other dragons.

This sort of makes horned dragons sound like they're going to behave less intelligently, and a lot of people are speculating that they'll sort of occupy the niche white dragons did of the "dumb" dragon type.

Now, that's inferring a lot from one blog post quote, and I absolutely don't want to press anyone to reveal more than they meant to! I just want to be sure I understand what's being conveyed here. Are horned dragons arrogant librarians, or growling forest predators? Or both?

I respect the artist or writer who saw the cool art of the green Dragon and said "oh, no, we are keeping *this* one." The Pathfinder version of the green dragon looks so cool and distinct with it's rhino horn, I'm glad it's staying in some form. I like it better than the D&D one covered in back fins.

I'm all for the cool new dragons with new powers, but if there was one old dragon subspecies I was going to miss, it would have been the green one. The model and art makes them too handsome. And if they are staying similar in personality, a good chatty librarian NPC or magic item merchant who suffers no thieving adventurers.

Strigiform-ursine hybrids

So Owlbears are out, as we all expected. May I bring up my alternative once more, the Crowboar? A porcine terror that is half corvid, half wild boar. Has a bonus to prying open locked doors and containers with it's iron beak. Like real feral hogs, farmers hate them for destroying crops, and they are know to break into root cellars and barns using their crowbar powers to feast.

I'm sorry, I like this stupid pun too much.

Paizo wrote:

Strigiform-ursine hybrids

So Owlbears are out, as we all expected. May I bring up my alternative once more, the Crowboar? A porcine terror that is half corvid, half wild boar. Has a bonus to prying open locked doors and containers with it's iron beak. Like real feral hogs, farmers hate them for destroying crops, and they are know to break into root cellars and barns using their crowbar powers to feast.

I'm sorry, I like this stupid pun too much.

30-50 Corvid Hogs

Now, that's inferring a lot from one blog post quote, and I absolutely don't want to press anyone to reveal more than they meant to! I just want to be sure I understand what's being conveyed here. Are horned dragons arrogant librarians, or growling forest predators? Or both?

Bestial in this case is referring to more animalistic physical features, say a particularly prominent horn. I think a more accurate term to use would have been "naturalistic" as the adamantine dragon has features reminiscent of stones and the horned dragon's scales have a leaf-like pattern as noted in the concept art, while the term can also account for animalistic features. The intelligence and mental capabilities of the horned dragon remain the same as they were with the green dragon version. I literally used the green dragon stat block as a starting point and changed things only by adding brand new material or updating terms to remaster language. Their entry still notes them as contemplative, open to communicating with outsiders, and keeping vast amounts of knowledge in the form of scrolls and tomes among their hoards.

Gotcha! Sorry to have misunderstood, and thank you for the clarification! I really like this whole idea. Love the leafy design, and super excited to see this lady in particular in full forest colors!

I wonder if some horned dragons are autumnal-colored (or dead-leaf colored, to let them hide on the forest floor), or even if their "foliage" naturally changes color with the seasons. I wonder if horned dragons in coniferous forests have finer/patterned/serrated scales, to help resemble pine needles instead of leaves.

Dragon speculation is fun!

It's nice to have dragons where you can mix and match things like "aesthetics" instead of "well, a dragon like this of has to be [specific color]."

In the wise words of Your Dinosaurs are Wrong: "Talk dumb, get the thumb."

dirkdragonslayer wrote:

Paizo wrote:

Strigiform-ursine hybrids

So Owlbears are out, as we all expected. May I bring up my alternative once more, the Crowboar? A porcine terror that is half corvid, half wild boar. Has a bonus to prying open locked doors and containers with it's iron beak. Like real feral hogs, farmers hate them for destroying crops, and they are know to break into root cellars and barns using their crowbar powers to feast.

I'm sorry, I like this stupid pun too much.

30-50 Corvid Hogs

They could lean into the classic gryphon niche for an apex predator of lower level forest kind of vibe.

But that tends to imply flight, in which case it might edge into a harder fight. So:

Chicken-gryphs.

As you would expect, they can't really fly (although they can glide. Fierce, highly territorial, and some nobles pay good money for live ones for use in live combat arenas.

Personally, I think we just need a new owl-themed predator monster. Owls are really underrated scary animals.

{. . .} We also took these opportunities to update monsters in interesting ways where we could, thus the shift from the dragon’s color to their horn and the addition of their impaling charge. The change in focus allows us to make the dragon more of our own and even opens them for future possibilities. While the horned dragon in Monster Core is green and lives in forests, there’s a decent chance you could see a blue horned dragon that lives in a lake or a tan horned dragon that lives in a desert sometime in the future!

Better yet (especially since these are supposed to be long-lived creatures), have them be able to shift colors like chameleons.

DWAGGIN DWAGGIN DWAGGIN

Now you've got me thinking of Elmer Fudd in a Viking outfit hunting Dwagons because he couldn't catch a Wabbit . . . .

Gotcha! Sorry to have misunderstood, and thank you for the clarification! I really like this whole idea. Love the leafy design, and super excited to see this lady in particular in full forest colors!

I wonder if some horned dragons are autumnal-colored (or dead-leaf colored, to let them hide on the forest floor), or even if their "foliage" naturally changes color with the seasons. I wonder if horned dragons in coniferous forests have finer/patterned/serrated scales, to help resemble pine needles instead of leaves.

Dragon speculation is fun!

That's where the above idea of chameleon-like color change comes in especially handy.

Kittyburger wrote:

dirkdragonslayer wrote:

Paizo wrote:

Strigiform-ursine hybrids

So Owlbears are out, as we all expected. May I bring up my alternative once more, the Crowboar? A porcine terror that is half corvid, half wild boar. Has a bonus to prying open locked doors and containers with it's iron beak. Like real feral hogs, farmers hate them for destroying crops, and they are know to break into root cellars and barns using their crowbar powers to feast.

I'm sorry, I like this stupid pun too much.

30-50 Corvid Hogs

They could lean into the classic gryphon niche for an apex predator of lower level forest kind of vibe.

But that tends to imply flight, in which case it might edge into a harder fight. So:

Chicken-gryphs.

As you would expect, they can't really fly (although they can glide. Fierce, highly territorial, and some nobles pay good money for live ones for use in live combat arenas.

Ooo! Ooo! Time for . . . the ManBearPig!

Editor's Note: "it is not and has never been time for the ManBearPig."

Kittyburger wrote:

DWAGGIN DWAGGIN DWAGGIN

Now you've got me thinking of Elmer Fudd in a Viking outfit hunting Dwagons because he couldn't catch a Wabbit . . . .

I'll just leave this here...

("Kill the dwaggin! Kill the dwaggin! Kill the dwaggin!")