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Skymetal and Metallic Dragons

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So, we all know the remaster axe'd the old chromatic and metallic dragons from the lore, and we've got some new Dragons in Monster Core that sorta serve as their replacement in terms of being found often but not directly as in "insert this when old dragon mentioned", with the exception of the Horned Dragon which is a replacement for the Green Dragon. Anyway, while it'll probably be a while until we see what sort of new look the rest of them will acquire (perhaps in some sort of hypothetical "big book of dragons" thingy), I'm wondering if the Skymetal/Starmetal Dragons might serve as the metallics' replacement. Probably not, as they'd have probably said so by now if that was the case, but I'm considering a possible world where all the old metallics are now skymetal and Adamantine is simply one that doesn't have an equivalent to the old metallics. Who knows, maybe Mengkare is an Inubrix Dragon or something such. Would you prefer that was the case or would you rather they create a different kind of dragon to take over the place of the metallics?
BookBird wrote:
So, we all know the remaster axe'd the old chromatic and metallic dragons from the lore, and we've got some new Dragons in Monster Core that sorta serve as their replacement in terms of being found often but not directly as in "insert this when old dragon mentioned", with the exception of the Horned Dragon which is a replacement for the Green Dragon. Anyway, while it'll probably be a while until we see what sort of new look the rest of them will acquire (perhaps in some sort of hypothetical "big book of dragons" thingy), I'm wondering if the Skymetal/Starmetal Dragons might serve as the metallics' replacement. Probably not, as they'd have probably said so by now if that was the case, but I'm considering a possible world where all the old metallics are now skymetal and Adamantine is simply one that doesn't have an equivalent to the old metallics. Who knows, maybe Mengkare is an Inubrix Dragon or something such. Would you prefer that was the case or would you rather they create a different kind of dragon to take over the place of the metallics?

It's an interesting idea. They could definitely do it, though I think that'd be a LOT of primal dragons (judging by how adamantine is primal) and that's the big limiting factor.

On the other hand Paizo mentioned they wanted to do Sovereign Dragons, which presumably don't fit into the four essences like every other type of remaster dragon. I assume those are coming in Tian Xia? So we'll have a chance to see soon what the window is there.

Rage of the Elements mentions forest, cloud, crystal, magma, and brine dragons. Brine and cloud dragons have equipment named after/made from them too. Since that's supposed to be a post remaster book, I imagine they're also canon dragons still, and outside the 4? Or else they're all primal, which along with skymetal dragons seems like the primal dragons would heavily outnumber every other type (if skymetal dragons are indeed primal.)
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Not to say that their spell-casting tradition from pre-remaster will dictate their post-remaster tradition, after all the arcane Green Dragon became the primal Horned Dragon, but most of the Imperial dragons were arcane casters, with the exception of the Primal Forest Dragon and the Occult Sovreign Dragon.

It would make some sense if the Imperial dragons remained mostly arcane since Eastern Dragons were, in a sense, more magical than the mostly bestial western dragons. Though it wouldn't surprise me if the imperial dragons were also rebranded as being divine since Eastern Dragons were closer to gods in Eastern Mythology.
Nintendogeek01 wrote:

Not to say that their spell-casting tradition from pre-remaster will dictate their post-remaster tradition, after all the arcane Green Dragon became the primal Horned Dragon, but most of the Imperial dragons were arcane casters, with the exception of the Primal Forest Dragon and the Occult Sovreign Dragon.

It would make some sense if the Imperial dragons remained mostly arcane since Eastern Dragons were, in a sense, more magical than the mostly bestial western dragons. Though it wouldn't surprise me if the imperial dragons were also rebranded as being divine since Eastern Dragons were closer to gods in Eastern Mythology.

I was going to say, it's not as though "primal", "occult", and "divine" aren't also traditions, of well, magic.

I'd honestly buy them being divine, assuming they're assigned a tradition at all.
Calliope5431 wrote:
BookBird wrote:
So, we all know the remaster axe'd the old chromatic and metallic dragons from the lore, and we've got some new Dragons in Monster Core that sorta serve as their replacement in terms of being found often but not directly as in "insert this when old dragon mentioned", with the exception of the Horned Dragon which is a replacement for the Green Dragon. Anyway, while it'll probably be a while until we see what sort of new look the rest of them will acquire (perhaps in some sort of hypothetical "big book of dragons" thingy), I'm wondering if the Skymetal/Starmetal Dragons might serve as the metallics' replacement. Probably not, as they'd have probably said so by now if that was the case, but I'm considering a possible world where all the old metallics are now skymetal and Adamantine is simply one that doesn't have an equivalent to the old metallics. Who knows, maybe Mengkare is an Inubrix Dragon or something such. Would you prefer that was the case or would you rather they create a different kind of dragon to take over the place of the metallics?

It's an interesting idea. They could definitely do it, though I think that'd be a LOT of primal dragons (judging by how adamantine is primal) and that's the big limiting factor.

On the other hand Paizo mentioned they wanted to do Sovereign Dragons, which presumably don't fit into the four essences like every other type of remaster dragon. I assume those are coming in Tian Xia? So we'll have a chance to see soon what the window is there.

It's entirely possible other sky metal dragons would be related to different traditions. We're one shy of having eight, so two dragons per tradition doesn't seem doable, but I think some of the other metals have vibes that could relate to other traditions of magic.

Abysium could be Occult, because of its links to the Dark Tapestry, or perhaps Divine since I believe it's also seen in areas with undead, who don't mind the radioactivity.
Djezet just screams Arcane to me. It's all about enhancing spell and magic item power.
Inubrix could be either Occult or Divine, given its moniker of "ghost iron."
Noqual feels like it could be Arcane, because of how it interacts with magic, or I could possibly see Divine? I'm not really sure why Divine feels doable, but it does.
Horacalcum is all about time stuff, and time magic is very much in Arcane or Occult's wheelhouses.
Siccatite also feels pretty Arcane, though I'd probably say this is the most overtly Primal feeling out of the bunch aside from adamantine.

It does appear that old categories can be of multiple different traditions and remain in the same family, so I imagine Imperials will continue to exist as a family, but members will individually be from different Tradition groups (e.g. Sky Dragons are Divine, Sovereign are Occult, the rest being Arcane)
Dark Archive
BookBird wrote:
Who knows, maybe Mengkare is an Inubrix Dragon or something such.

Inquiring Age of Ashes GMs want to know!

Pretty sure Mengkare is still a gold dragon, they just aren't going to publish stats for him or refer to him with a capital G. He is a golden dragon, not a Gold one. He is just going to be over there Golding it up in privacy unless somebody wants to dig up his Legacy stats and do some stuff, like Age of Ashes.

While I think it is safe to say a dragon like the Fortune Dragon isn't analogous to any of the chromatic or metallic dragons, I think we can easily say the diabolic and the empyrean dragons are replacements for red and gold dragons much as the horned is for the green dragon, and I don't think it would be a stretch to say the mirage dragon replaces the blue dragon. The rest I don't think match up very well to any of the old ogl dragons though
Liberty's Edge
AestheticDialectic wrote:
While I think it is safe to say a dragon like the Fortune Dragon isn't analogous to any of the chromatic or metallic dragons, I think we can easily say the diabolic and the empyrean dragons are replacements for red and gold dragons much as the horned is for the green dragon, and I don't think it would be a stretch to say the mirage dragon replaces the blue dragon. The rest I don't think match up very well to any of the old ogl dragons though

Which is for the best IMO.

AestheticDialectic wrote:
While I think it is safe to say a dragon like the Fortune Dragon isn't analogous to any of the chromatic or metallic dragons, I think we can easily say the diabolic and the empyrean dragons are replacements for red and gold dragons much as the horned is for the green dragon, and I don't think it would be a stretch to say the mirage dragon replaces the blue dragon. The rest I don't think match up very well to any of the old ogl dragons though

I wouldn't say so. Unless specifically stated, a dragon from monster core doesn't replace a dragon type from the old guard. So far that's only the Horned Dragon, which took over for Green. I'm hoping that eventually the rest of them will have similar comparisons, so that one can simply replace all x type dragons with y. Thus someone like Mengkare wouldn't just be a dragon who is gold, but whatever kind of dragon golds turn into. Maybe that will be the Empyrean dragon someday, or maybe something new.

BookBird wrote:
AestheticDialectic wrote:
While I think it is safe to say a dragon like the Fortune Dragon isn't analogous to any of the chromatic or metallic dragons, I think we can easily say the diabolic and the empyrean dragons are replacements for red and gold dragons much as the horned is for the green dragon, and I don't think it would be a stretch to say the mirage dragon replaces the blue dragon. The rest I don't think match up very well to any of the old ogl dragons though
I wouldn't say so. Unless specifically stated, a dragon from monster core doesn't replace a dragon type from the old guard. So far that's only the Horned Dragon, which took over for Green. I'm hoping that eventually the rest of them will have similar comparisons, so that one can simply replace all x type dragons with y. Thus someone like Mengkare wouldn't just be a dragon who is gold, but whatever kind of dragon golds turn into. Maybe that will be the Empyrean dragon someday, or maybe something new.

Much like spells I'm guessing they can't officially say what is replacing what. So it might be user discretion to figure out.

Personally I'm guessing he'd probably be empyreal.
Calliope5431 wrote:
BookBird wrote:
AestheticDialectic wrote:
While I think it is safe to say a dragon like the Fortune Dragon isn't analogous to any of the chromatic or metallic dragons, I think we can easily say the diabolic and the empyrean dragons are replacements for red and gold dragons much as the horned is for the green dragon, and I don't think it would be a stretch to say the mirage dragon replaces the blue dragon. The rest I don't think match up very well to any of the old ogl dragons though
I wouldn't say so. Unless specifically stated, a dragon from monster core doesn't replace a dragon type from the old guard. So far that's only the Horned Dragon, which took over for Green. I'm hoping that eventually the rest of them will have similar comparisons, so that one can simply replace all x type dragons with y. Thus someone like Mengkare wouldn't just be a dragon who is gold, but whatever kind of dragon golds turn into. Maybe that will be the Empyrean dragon someday, or maybe something new.

Much like spells I'm guessing they can't officially say what is replacing what. So it might be user discretion to figure out.

Personally I'm guessing he'd probably be empyreal.

Paizo has already gone on record as saying, as Stone Dog reiterated a few posts above, that the various named dragons on Golarion are still around and still have the same abilities they had before, but will not be referred to by their species name anymore.

Now will that change as Paizo comes up with new dragon kinds or rebrands old ones? We can only speculate.

When I say diabolic and empyrean dragons replace red and gold, I mean they fit the same monster space. Being the same levels with similar abilities. The horned dragon called attention to doing this for green, but it is clear to me at least that diabolic and empyrean do what horned did for green but for red and gold respectively. I am saying nothing of named dragons. If there were any named green dragons they'd not be retcon'd, at least not at this stage, to horned dragons either
AestheticDialectic wrote:
but it is clear to me at least that diabolic and empyrean do what horned did for green but for red and gold respectively.

Don't know about empyrean, but red and diabolic definitely aren't the same. Red is just evil tyrannical fire-breathing. Very generic, probably the most generic one. But diabolic? That's extremely specific, very narrow in concept creature. I don't even think you have much chance to find it outside Hell. Well, much less chance than to meet a dragon at all.

Errenor wrote:
AestheticDialectic wrote:
but it is clear to me at least that diabolic and empyrean do what horned did for green but for red and gold respectively.
Don't know about empyrean, but red and diabolic definitely aren't the same. Red is just evil tyrannical fire-breathing. Very generic, probably the most generic one. But diabolic? That's extremely specific, very narrow in concept creature. I don't even think you have much chance to find it outside Hell. Well, much less chance than to meet a dragon at all.

They fill the same niche, and yes all the chromatic and metallic dragons are more boring than the new ones including horned which is a more interesting dragon than green. Also, I believe diabolic dragons say on their page you can find them outside hell pretty frequently, at least in terms of finding dragons. They are thematically more interesting but serve the same role in the Bestiary as the red dragon, which is what they said about the horned dragon for green

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