Mess With the Dragon, Get the Horns!

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

Do not attempt to pick the owldrangeas while in bloom.

So for Primal dragons we now have the bestial Horned Dragons, and the rocky/metallic Adamantine Dragons previewed back in January. And if we look back at Bestiary 2 (or B4 for PF1e if you really want the origins) we have the Zomok (canonically a Dragon in PF2e), so truly we have Primal Dragons for all 3 starting options of 20 Questions: Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral.

Well thank you. Now I have Madam Mim in my head.

So, I'm curious how these new Primal Dragons relate to the classic Pathfinder Primal Dragons. Will they get a rename? Or will all the Primal Dragons be part of the same family, and Primal Dragons will be overrepresented for the time?

(Apologies if this has been answered before, but my search-fu is week).

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

Doesn't end need to be mashed up with something....

Just make a tall spindly quadrupedal barn-owl looking thing. Give it crazy good stealth ability (because owls are so quiet in flight it's unfair), some kind of grab ability, and let it snatch up shepherds or farmers who get to close to the edge of the forest....

Or just make a regular ol' giant owl and bask in the terror.

Chickarneys are good and creepy, but I think they've already been done.

Well thank you. Now I have Madam Mim in my head.

I thought Merlin was the one who shrunk himself down.

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

Well, if you're totally serial, then how about the dreaded PuppyMonkeyBaby.

Well thank you. Now I have Madam Mim in my head.

It might be better (?) than the Major-General from Pirates of Penzance... ("I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral.")

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.

lvl 5+ Kineticist can get it, through resist junction on Wood or Earth

At least for the moment, it's possible to get poison resists via being a kobold or Dragon Disciple Dedication as well.

It might be better (?) than the Major-General from Pirates of Penzance... ("I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral.")

Songs getting stuck in your head have consequences...

"Pathfinder has your dragons for adventure plot material
Primal dragons vegetable or animal or mineral
Fortune dragons using treasure as jewelry that is wearable
Conspirators shapeshifting in ways nearly unbelievable..."

If anyone wants to have a go with adding lines for mirage and diabolic dragons, feel free. I no longer have the song stuck in my head (thankfully).

I know it's just concept art, but I'd suggest making the neck shorter and thicker to better give the idea of an animal that charges with it's horns. A long neck would be terrible to ram with. No body support. Don't get me wrong, a short neck dragon would look terrible though! How about some large bull like horns or ram style horns depending on the environment? A highly territorial dragon that uses its horns to protect its territory and fend off mating challenges falls right into the primal feel.

I'm gonna respectfully disagree, actually! It would be terrible for ramming things as big as you, but if you're a dragon, you're probably mostly aiming for littler creatures, and your main problem is going to be aiming that big horn of yours. A long neck gives you more maneuverability.

I'm gonna respectfully disagree, actually! It would be terrible for ramming things as big as you, but if you're a dragon, you're probably mostly aiming for littler creatures, and your main problem is going to be aiming that big horn of yours. A long neck gives you more maneuverability.

Although, most creatures with horns don't use them for hunting. They use them for defense and fighting others of their kind for territory and mates.

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

I'm gonna respectfully disagree, actually! It would be terrible for ramming things as big as you, but if you're a dragon, you're probably mostly aiming for littler creatures, and your main problem is going to be aiming that big horn of yours. A long neck gives you more maneuverability.

Although, most creatures with horns don't use them for hunting. They use them for defense and fighting others of their kind for territory and mates.

TBF the same thing that makes it better for hunting smaller creatures also makes it ideal for self defense for a dragon. After all, a dragon's greatest natural predator is Adventurers, who tend to generally be size Medium. Lot more likely to need to fight a pack of those than another Horned Dragon.

Aristophanes wrote:

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

I'm gonna respectfully disagree, actually! It would be terrible for ramming things as big as you, but if you're a dragon, you're probably mostly aiming for littler creatures, and your main problem is going to be aiming that big horn of yours. A long neck gives you more maneuverability.

Although, most creatures with horns don't use them for hunting. They use them for defense and fighting others of their kind for territory and mates.

TBF the same thing that makes it better for hunting smaller creatures also makes it ideal for self defense for a dragon. After all, a dragon's greatest natural predator is Adventurers, who tend to generally be size Medium. Lot more likely to need to fight a pack of those than another Horned Dragon.

Any dragon that sees an adventurer as a predator is not worthy of dragonkind in my book.

Well, then, they're not predators, they're fun target practice. Either way, adventurers are a dragon's chief source of interesting combats.

An Adventurer? No. A single Adventurer isn't a problem for a dragon, usually. That said, you rarely encounter just a single Adventurer, they're pack hunters. And a full pack of Adventurers fell Dragons all the time.

An Adventurer? No. A single Adventurer isn't a problem for a dragon, usually. That said, you rarely encounter just a single Adventurer, they're pack hunters. And a full pack of Adventurers fell Dragons all the time.

I agree, but dragons are so isolated from each other and so prone to underestimating adventurers that they too rarely flee and so they die with no other aware of their plight. Which in turns makes other dragons even more likely to underestimate adventurers because they only hear about the parties defeated by their fellow dragons.

TBT I have NEVER seen a dragon scared of adventurers, even when they should really have been.

This reminds me fondly of that poor young Green dragon who asked us for a tribute because we were crossing the forest of which he declared himself the master. Alas for him, we needed to release our frustration after getting thoroughly beaten and humiliated by Black Magga.

He lasted less than 2 rounds. One more dragon who did not have the opportunity to warn his draconic fellows of the danger of adventurers.

I agree, but dragons are so isolated from each other and so prone to underestimating adventurers that they too rarely flee and so they die with no other aware of their plight. Which in turns makes other dragons even more likely to underestimate adventurers because they only hear about the parties defeated by their fellow dragons.

This also affects dragons' reproduction. There are so few of them and they are so scattered that I seriously considered to make them actually breeding with each other completely independently of their type. And the type of progeny depends on a chance or various circumstances. They are so magical this doesn't feel too far-fetched.

I mean, I'm pretty sure it's Canon (or at least used to be) that dragons can reproduce with anything, even better than humans can, I think because of their magical nature. Pretty sure that would easily extend to other variants of dragons.

Would even be a fun way to introduce an unexpected twist to an otherwise straightforward encounter if it pulled out a surprise ability from a different type of dragon.

Shinigami02 wrote:

An Adventurer? No. A single Adventurer isn't a problem for a dragon, usually. That said, you rarely encounter just a single Adventurer, they're pack hunters. And a full pack of Adventurers fell Dragons all the time.

I agree, but dragons are so isolated from each other and so prone to underestimating adventurers that they too rarely flee and so they die with no other aware of their plight. Which in turns makes other dragons even more likely to underestimate adventurers because they only hear about the parties defeated by their fellow dragons.

TBT I have NEVER seen a dragon scared of adventurers, even when they should really have been.

This reminds me fondly of that poor young Green dragon who asked us for a tribute because we were crossing the forest of which he declared himself the master. Alas for him, we needed to release our frustration after getting thoroughly beaten and humiliated by Black Magga.

He lasted less than 2 rounds. One more dragon who did not have the opportunity to warn his draconic fellows of the danger of adventurers.

This reminds me of AD&D 1st Edition days, when after adventurers got some levels, they would come to see Dragons as Tomes of Experience(*). Now a Vampire, on the other hand . . . RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY . . . .

(*)

Will there ever be an adventure where an old noble hires a group of adventurers to bring him the horns of a horned dragon before his marriage?

Will there ever be an adventure where an old noble hires a group of adventurers to bring him the horns of a horned dragon before his marriage?

I'm imagining that a conspirator dragon put that "remedy" in a book, solely to get rid of one particular horned dragon that was a nuisance to the conspirator dragon.