Looking at the Besitary, an artist pointed out to me that the dragon's wing look feathered, now the image is from Dragon's Revisted so I went and looked there and both images there have three dragon's that look like they have feathered wings, but in the physical description there is no mention of the dragons wings. The Wayne Reynolds Image of the White Dragon from the PRPG Beta you can't see the wing.
So is it feathered or am I just crazy?
Looking at the images, I can see why they look kind of feathered. I'm not sure they are though - to my eyes the wings look almost layered with structures of membrane. Though the detail is limited enough that feathers is also a fair interpretation of what we can see.
Layers rather than feathers makes sense to me, one because these are dragons not birds, and two because the layers ought to insulate each other with airspace, and that would allow more bloodflow through the wing membranes without it being exposed to sub-zero temperatures for the entire process. They'd give it time to warm up between periods of exposure to the cold.
White dragons are cold-subtype creatures. I'd expect the feathered look is frost -- take a look at your freezer and you'll see something similar.
Despite any artistic license taken with images, I don't think the standard D&D dragons have ever had feathers in any version of the game. They are always scaled and leathery and not like those odd-looking feathered dinosaurs from our own pre-history.
