You know what receives the LEAST attention?
GEM DRAGONS.
Yes, those beloved psionic dragons. I sure would like to see more articles pertaining to them. I hate how they get the shaft all the time (like Draconomicon and other material) like they barely exist. I think I've had enough of metallics and chromatics, time for the gems to make a stand!
What is a GEM DRAGONS
The gem dragons are very glad they get so little coverage. If they had their way, they would have stopped you from posting this thread! :D
The gem dragons are indeed cool. The only adventure I've seen using them was Of Sound Mind, by Kevin Kulp... and it had been dead for 50 years by the time the adventure even begins. Even dead, the psionic dragon posed an credible threat to the region.
Of Sound Mind quickly became one of my favorite adventures of all time. I've run it three times, for three completely different groups, and it is uncanny how those dream handouts fit to so many characters.
It is unfortunate that Kevin never got to publish Of Sound Mind 2, which was scheduled for release by Fiery Dragon.
As for what the gem dragons are, they are the "neutrally aligned" psionic-empowered dragons. The chromatic dragons (evil) and the metallic dragons (good) have always represented the opposition of all things, and the gem dragons were meant to represent the balance in between the two.
They are in the Monster Manual II, but strangely absent from the 3.5 books like the Draconomicon and the Expanded Psionics Handbook. However, before the MMII came out, the gem dragons were published on Wizards.com/dnd, part of The Mind's Eye section.
Hopefully Scott Brocius, Mark Jindra, or Bruce Cordell will be able to update them to 3.5 and have them online as well.
Hmmm. Maybe I should e-mail the three of them and see if it's in the works.
In total there were 5 main ones, 2 outside that spectrum. The main 5 were Amethyst, Crystal, Emerald, Sapphire, and Topaz dragons along with the other 2 published by WotC's The Mind's Eye as the Obsidian dragon. The last was the Ectoplasmic dragon, not a gem dragon, but a psionic draogn in nature.
Sounds cool!
I just did some searches on the Wizards.com website, and I've discovered that the Gem Dragons were updated to 3.5 in the Monster Manual II update booklet (though in a fairly minimalistic way), along with all the monsters in the Monster Manual II.
They have not been updated to the 3.5 psionics rules, as per the Expanded Psionics Handbook, but there are several threads on the Wizards.com messageboards where people have put out their current home-version.
You can find all of the D&D 3.5 update booklets in the downloads section of the Wizards.com website.
I am currently running a campaign in which gem dragons played a large role, of course in the distant past, but one of the PCs has become a half-amethyst dragon after tampering with the psionic legacy of the dragons. If the party last long enough they will eventually get to meet some real gem dragons...
I'm converting the psionic dragons' spell-like abilities into psi-like abilities as per the psionics 3.5 rules in the SRD. I discussed this in a Wizards thread at http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=216042. I've also converted all the Legends of Sardior articles and have a draft ready. I'll upload my updates to my website post the links next.
I have the 3.5 conversion of gem dragons psionics done! I've uploaded them on my website, and you can read them at http://www.geocities.com/originalravinray/dnd/psionics/main.html
Yea, the monster manual 2 conversion booklet isn't perfect. For example, the death knight template's only revision was "change sunder to improved sunder". This mentioned nothing of the DR 15/+1, which is incompatable with 3.5. When my roommate pulled a Death Knight Mini, the stat card listed his DR as 10/magic.