Since a raging butt-ton of dragon lore is inaccessible to Paizo for use, AKA EVERYTHING, they get the ability to take off in new directions, similar to Eberron, if they like.
Note: I am passingly appreciative of Eberron, but not an active fan. However, I loved the loosened alignments of dragons in it. While I advocate looser dragon alignment, and this thread in general, I really want to put this following idea forward.
There is an old issue of Dragon Magazine, specifically 260 (2nd edition material), with an article on designing different dragons via dracoforms, which were basically early templates. Some of the various choices were: avian, classic, behemoth, and serpent. It basically presented the idea that dragons could appear radically different but statistically similar. While illustrations already show that Paizo has pinned down their appearances, this article got me thinking.
What if the genetic mutability of dragons (as expressed by their ability to breed with just about anything, often with divergent results: tails or wings present or not, etc) expressed itself in their own progeny. What if any egg laid by a dragon had a chance to be something other than another dragon of that specific physiology?
What if wyverns, pseudodragons, and dragon turtles could hatch from any red or gold dragon's egg?
What if even red or gold dragons could hatch from any silver or blue dragons egg?
The possiblilties for a rich and interesting, yet inherently fractured, social dynamic amongst the draconic races is vast in this idea. True dragons might destroy or abndoned "impure" offspring, but lesser dragons might pamper and elevate a "noble hatching". Imagine a flock of wyverns attended by the silver dragon that hatched from them so many years ago, which stayed with its family and had children of its own, resulting in several half-silver wyverns. A clan of particularily malicious psuedodragons who serve as stealthy eyes and ears for their red dragon clutch-mate.
A lot of ideas sit there, I think, but I'm guessing the Paizo crew is a bit too far along to steal them without massive retooling of what they've already designed. Then again, maybe not.
My favorid was always to tailor the dragons alignement to his his scaling, but not the metallic = good, chromatic = evil stuff.
I like the idea of the more evil the dragon the darker the scales (good = lighter scales)
Maybe it should be chromatic = chaotic, metallic = lawful.
So a lawful Eeeevil dragon would look like obsidian, while a chaotic good one would be bright white.
LG = Silver/Gold/Platinum
LE = Obsidian
CG = White
CE = Oily black/purple
"Always" alignments are only for outsiders, constructs, undead and animals, with exceptions for some elementals and aberrations, because they are all "made that way". But I don't see a reason why dragons should have alignments of always.
But unless there will be a Pathfinder monster compendium that includes clasic monsters, I don't really see why to do something about that. Just don't use the always alignments in adventures, that's all.
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See, I think "Dragons, colour coded for your convenience" is one of the staples of D&D. For the Chromatics though, I see them more as certain roles that their alignments fit, rather than their alignments dictate the roles they take. Here’s how dragons fit in my worlds.
In order of least to most important:
Whites: Chaotic Evil, simple hunters and predators, prone to blast first, eat second and catch a nap, questions aren't important.
Variants: A neutral evil dragon may see itself as the ultimate predator, enjoying the simplicity of the hunt more than the actual kill. Think of a car sized flying housecat.
A chaotic neutral white dragon may see itself as a prankster, though its 'jokes' may not be appreciated by everyone. a prankster white may find it a great joke to blast a lone guard with his breath weapon, freezing him solid so a pack of winter wolves can sneak in undetected. He might then amuse himself encasing the guard in a block of ice, knowing that it will make a great mystery for the next band to come across him.
Blacks: Chaotic Evil, defilers, corruptors, more likely to subtly poison a foe, weakening him before going in breath weapon melting. Such dragons often like lairing in abandoned cities in marshy areas, if they cause the abandoning, so much the better.
Variants: A chaotic neutral black dragon may be a druid, working to expand the natural decay of the swamp to surrounding areas. such dragons would believe that decay and rebirth are all part of the cycle. Once the world is reduced to a swampy marsh, then it may be reborn anew.
Neutral evil black dragons can be preservers. Not in the environmental sense, or even the stasis sense. Rather a preserver black dragon is likely to take an abandoned town and fill it with various undead, programmed to go about their previous routines so that the dragon may study 'his' town, like a watchmaker.
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Green: Lawful Evil, territorial preservers. Green dragons often claim a section of natural woodland as their domain and expect tribute from any who use it, or pass through. All the resources in that area are theirs to use, including the sentient beings. After all, to a dragon with an intelligence of 18, just how sentient is a human with an intelligence of 10?
Variants: A neutral evil green dragon is more likely to be xenophobic, having few reservations about turning the land to his use, even if it destroys the land. After all, the green dragon can fly elsewhere, and to such a long lived creature so what if it takes 20, 30, 100 years for the land to recover? Such a dragon is more likely to have awakened plants or plant enlightened animals (see Eldrich Sorcery) as allies, since they do not compete for the same resources.
A lawful neutral dragon is often more controlling of 'their' land than even their lawful evil brethren. What separates them is that the guardian green dragon will be more likely to negotiate, and be more fair in his judgments. Fair does not always equal kind. Someone who kills one of 'his' deer may be sentenced to be polymorphed into a deer, to replace that which he took. For short lived races (humans, orcs, halflings) a guardian green may become something of a forest deity or spirit, to be honoured, worshiped and placated. More than one self proclaimed 'dragon slayer' has wound up bound and gagged at the dragon's feet, courtesy of a meal given by the town he came to 'liberate'.
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Red: Chaotic Evil, red dragons are commonly seen as similar to whites in outlook, hunters and destroyers. The reasoning though is completely different. While Whites often rely on feral cunning, a red dragon’s disregard for others comes from their superiority and contempt of lesser beings. While they are more likely to be found in their lairs, counting their gold or sleeping, when active a red dragon is a raw force of nature, a living storm of fire guided by a genius intellect. Subtlety is not a common trait, a red dragon will have no qualms about razing a caravan to seize a religious artifact, or burning a town to acquire a rare book.
Variants: The chaotic neutral red dragon is a rare breed, often being eliminated not only by ‘heroes’ but by their own kind as a threat. Red dragon drifters will move through territory, stealth or destruction as their whim suits them. Ironically it is the chaotic neutral red that gives rise to the ‘rescue the maiden from the fire breathing monster’ archetype. Drifting reds will sometimes capture a humanoid or two for a variety of reasons. Rescuing heroes may find the damsel has already been made into dinner, or she’s chained to a rock “because of tradition” or playing chess with the dragon. One recorded account states that the red dragon kidnapped the farmer’s daughter because he had an itch he couldn’t scratch!
Neutral evil red dragons are, if possible, more terrifying than their chaotic evil brethren. While still a storm of destruction, neutral evil reds are warlords, having a trait that the majority lacks, patience. Warlord reds scheme, often breeding their own half dragon and draconic kin to do their bidding, so they don’t reveal themselves. The red dragon in Margaret Weis’ ‘The Best’ is an example of this kind of dragon.
Blue:* Blues are more familial than most dragons. Their ‘Me against my brother, us against our cousin, we three against the world’ mentality leads them to place a high value on oaths and loyalty. Blue dragons may carve out swaths of terrain as their own domains, and fight hard against other dragons to keep them out, but more than one adventurer has died not at the claws of the dragon he killed, but rather the call of the dragons coming to aid their brother. Blues are also more likely to keep ‘pets’ than other dragons and taking (or just plain hiring) lesser creatures for their skills. Many a bard tells a tale of being set free after giving a dragon a masterful performance, those tales based in fact often have blue dragons to credit. As organized, structured creatures, blue dragons are another breed willing to take a ‘long view’ often extracting generational promises. Like some greens, blue dragons can have followers and even towns built around them. While the green dragon relies on onerous laws to give it ways to get ‘out’ of their promises, blues lay down simple laws and punish violators as simply.
Variants: The neutral evil blue is rare, often having been driven from his clan. Retaining the plotting nature and desire for order of his more traditional brethren, the vengeful blue is likely to lead warbands from the rear, sacrificing his pawns for short term positioning, with a long term goal. Lacking kinship, everything, from his followers to his own family is an expendable resource.
Lawful neutral blues are often judges or scholars. A judge will treat her domain harshly but fairly, often using her own resources to benefit ‘her’ community. Such a dragon may breed her own enforcers of her law, or use mercenaries. She may even be a patron to an adventuring party; overtly or covertly hiring them to go retrieve a lawbreaker or a stolen item. One such blue is feared for his ‘court of glass’ an open plaza in a ruined city where the judged are transformed into glass statues and displayed. Scholarly blues often are convinced that the shorter lived races will have insights that the longer lived dragons may overlook, and can be found collecting human libraries, and sometimes human sages as well. If the blue acquires magic to take human form, he may actually be an active member of the community, funding and helping with research. One such blue was known for asking for a ‘tribute’ of a maiden a year. The rescuing hero was surprised to learn, in the brief final moments of his life, that he was taking the ‘unwanted’ women and using them as librarians, going so far as to send them to distant lands to collect lore.
*Yes, Blue dragons are more important than Reds, you have a problem with that?
DracoDruid, thats an interesting idea! I may snag that for my "food for thought" section of my brain. I could see a world where perhaps on the material, what you have in your heart shows in your flesh? Althought it may work for dragons, but PCs will start asking some very not PC questions fast, if you know what I mean.
Maybe define the races of man as being cursed/blessed by the gods in that their flesh doesn't betray their alleigance. Since elves/dwarves/halflings don't exactly seem to have heavily distinct ethnic groups.
Maybe you have to be strongly associated with your alignment to have it physically show, so a mean human doesn't change but a truly vile, cruel, wretch of a human gets black pupils and gums, or the like. Could work well for the drow. Maybe a nature/nurture effect, where a creature of an evil race could "purify" its appearance through good deeds over time? Hmmmm....
Like I said, food for thought.
Director of Brand Strategy
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One of the things I would like to see in Pathfinder RPG: removal of the convenient 'colour coding by alignment' for Dragons. Make them striped for camouflage like tigers, like the Dragons in the novel Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly, which was the best novelisation of Dragons I have read, ever.
Unofortunately, the dragons of Pathfinder have already been covered in Pathfinder 4, by the Dragon Lord himself, Mike McArtor. While it sticks true to a lot of traditional D&D dragon lore, there are quite a few new twists added, such as dragon clans and interbreeding. But like other posters have pointed out, how you use this or any other dragon information in your campaigns is completely up to you. There's no Paizo Police to ensure that everyone follows established canon in their home games.
I "my world" the elves (quite different to the D&D elves) have the same characteristics.
Dragons and Elves (they were their pupils for a long time) reflect their inner feelings and "alignements" on their skin.
Usually dragons care for themselves and adopt to their environment (green dragons in forests, yellow dragons in the desert, Blue dragons of the sea, etc.), but those who follow a course adopt to the nature of this course:
"Altruistic teaching dragons" go silver/platinum/gold, while those who hunt down human(oid)s for fun or hate (why ever) grow darker and darker.
While the elves forgot about this fact, the dragons are quite aware of it.
DracoDruid, if you have any text files or otherwise digital media regarding your homebrew dragons, I would give a few personal appendages to get a copy of them send to "shinryouga at hotmail dot com".
Your system is beautiful, and is what I've been searching for regarding my personal d20 Modern campaign setting / fantasy novel that I've been working on for years.
Contributor
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See, I think "Dragons, colour coded for your convenience" is one of the staples of D&D.
I obviously agree. If you don't want color-coded dragons in your campaign, don't use them. It's pretty much that simple. The default assumption in D&D and Pathfinder, though, is that for at least the ten most common dragon breeds, color-coding helps identify (or stereotype) the most likely behavior to expect from that dragon.
And honestly, real-life isn't all that different. Brightly colored insects and snakes are usually poisonous, or maybe it's that poisonous insects and snakes are often brightly colored. Whichever. That's nature's way of saying "stay the f%+$ away!"
Unofortunately, the dragons of Pathfinder have already been covered in Pathfinder 4, by the Dragon Lord himself, Mike McArtor.
[mock offended]What do you mean by "unfortunately?"[/mock offended]
While it sticks true to a lot of traditional D&D dragon lore, there are quite a few new twists added, such as dragon clans and interbreeding.
And I also tried to throw out ideas to GMs for ways PCs can fight against good dragons without it being an evil act. For example, lawful good or not, if you insult a gold dragon and push him too far, he'll eat you. ;)
But like other posters have pointed out, how you use this or any other dragon information in your campaigns is completely up to you. There's no Paizo Police to ensure that everyone follows established canon in their home games.
This is something we've been saying for years, but it seems like we're yelling into a hurricane or something.
You don't have to use things as written. It's okay to change things. It's okay to mix and match ideas from different campaign settings and to create your own. Really. Honest. We mean it. :)
Sorry Black Bard, but most of my ideas are still stucking in my head.
I am trying to do my own D&D3.75 which will be less combat orientated and will have it's own fantasy world/setting to play in.
But I will try to stick to most acknowledged fantasy basics (no weird names, races, etc.)
While any help would be HIGHLY appreciated, my problem is that I am a kind of control-freak and wouldn't want to give away some control over what will make it into the final version.
Except this person has as nearly as possible the same ideas than me.
Guess, there aren't that many people wanting to work under this condition (except for good payment, but I can't give any :( )
One idea I have toyed with is that the Metallic/Chromatic/Gem Dragons are the draconic version of Aasimar and Tieflings. They are "enlightened" or "evolved" dragons, "planetouched" creatures whose physical form reflects their draconic soul.
Regular dragons should be more like the McFarlane Dragons. More monster than typical D&D dragon, and easier to use in a lower level adventure. Plus in AD&D, you could "tame" a dragon,
I can see this happeneing with these lesser dragon, not so much with the true dragons.
BTW, on the McFarlane site above, check out Legend of the Bladehunters/ King Draco.
Bahamut lives!
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Regular dragons should be more like the McFarlane Dragons. More monster than typical D&D dragon, and easier to use in a lower level adventure. Plus in AD&D, you could "tame" a dragon,
There's a template in the advanced beastery that takes a 'standard' dragon and makes it more of a whirling engine of death.
Gee, sad my rambling didn't make an impression.
Gee, sad my rambling didn't make an impression.
it did with me, and i really like a fair amount of your ideas, and may borrow/adapt some to my homebrew which will be all dragon focused.
Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved has a really good dragon creation mechanic that pretty much makes all AE dragons individually unique while using more or less the same base progression. Just change magister caster levels with sorcerer (or wizard or warlock or psion or whatever) and you're all set.
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I radically cut down the number and types of dragons known in the game-world for my setting.
There's one known Red Dragon, who rules a mountain kingdom of Fire Giants, Kobolds and enslaved Hobgoblin 'mamelukes.' His court 'vizier' is an Efreeti who travels with an entourage of Azer artisans, and the entire society is rigidly structured with ranks and heirarchies based on amount of dragon-blood, sorcerous ability and / or divine spellcasting ability (Adepts only, the dragon doesn't allow priests of dieties in his presence). At the time of the campaign, the kingdom has spent the last few decades quelling internal unrest fomented by free Hobgoblins and their Goblin and Bugbear brethren, so that the neighboring human kingdoms have all-but-forgotten their neighbors in the mountains. This could prove a tragic mistake, once the dragon gets all his ducks in a row, since he's quite interested in expanding his territory, once he's got these 'free-range' Goblinoids taken care of.
Similarly, the Black Dragon is just a legend, and skulks in a swampy area (that used to be a great kingdom), surrounded by undead and corrupted Lizardfolk (standard, Blackscale and Poison Dusk), the White Dragon has an icy 'fortress' maintained by Frost Giants (he thinks of them as worshippers, they think of him as a large and particularly dangerous 'pet'), etc.
There's a Green Dragon, too, but nobody knows about her, since she's the ruler of a small kingdom in another form...
The existence of dragons as a *species* is unknown. Each known dragon is a single powerful individual, and thought to be unique. None are known to be of good alignment, 'cause my game world has no need for good dragons.
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The dragons can be of any alignment rule is one thing that I love about Eberron and actually, in any games I'd run that rule would be extended to lycanthropes as well (threadjacking, apologies) but that's my idea of it that they should be able to choose any alignment they like and start as inherently true neutral, much like most humanoids. A red dragon paladin (of honour, if someone is going to try throwing out the UA paladin variants) or werewolf paladin (of honour) are perfectly acceptable to my way of thinking. TETO, though
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For what it's worth, I like color-coded dragons in the context of the game they're part of. That is, in D&D and D&D-inspired games, color-coded dragons makes sense and it part of the traditional lore. Changing it would be a blow to the base game.
With that said, for my homebrew campaigns, I prefer dragons to be big, fire-belching, ravenous monsters of cunning animal intelligence. No spellcasting, no weird magical abilities (besides the simple fact that something that big can fly, let alone survive), no talking, just giant beasts of the earth and sky. I realize I'm in the minority on that one, though. XD
Jeremy Puckett