Gray Dragon
by RobinGray Dragon / Ancestral Dragon (Draco primus Subilimaticus) Radiance Dragon (Homo Draconis Radiensis)
Physical Characteristics
Their body plates were a mottled gray and brown, their wings were small but muscled, and their eyes tended to be glittering red or orange (other hues were known). Gray Dragons’ heads were adorned with many small horns or spikes.Gray Dragons were greedy, rapacious, and cunning creatures. Their bodies were armored with bony plates that rose into projecting spurs at limb joints and ended in long, forked tails tipped with a pair of scythelike bone blades. Stony spikes studded gray Dragons’ scales and limbs. A gray’s spikes could detach, allowing it to pin potential prey to the earth with the appropriate attack. A gray’s scales ranged from limestone white to granite gray, serving as excellent camouflage in the Dragon’s preferred terrain. As the Dragon flew, its lighter-shaded underbelly blended in with clouds and sky from the vantage point of viewers on the ground.
A gray Dragon’s oversized mouth was a sea of fangs. Several of its fangs were long enough to prevent the Dragon from completely closing its mouth. A collection of fanglike horns protruded from the lower jaw. These horns allowed the Dragon to crack open the exterior of a petrified victim and access the soft interior. Gray Dragons smelled strongly of sun-warmed stone and faintly of long-dead carrion.
They flew poorly, but could rise with a single clap of their wings to lunge forward.
Combat
These Dragons had poor magical offensive ability, but they had mastered physical combat, and their special abilities were much more defensive. They raked with their claws and slashed with their tails for damage, and had an 80% chance to knock down a medium- or smaller-sized victim. Those knocked aside must have make a successful Strength check to avoid falling (saving throws for fragile carried items applied) and a successful Constitution check to avoid being stunned for the following round. Also, the victim of any successful claw attack must have made a successful Dexterity check to avoid suffering 1d4 additional damage from the Dragon’s body spurs. These attacks were used to clear aside incidental foes and/or pin the main intended victim, whom the Dragon then did bite.
Gray Dragons had excellent vocal control and were able to mimic human voices very effectively as well as using spell scrolls and verbally triggered magical items crafted by humans.
A gray Dragon prefered to stay aloft during a fight. From the air, it used its breath weapon and attacks within reach, riveting foes with its rocky spikedtail and claws. If one or more opponents took to the air to close with the Dragon, the gray either focused all its attacks on one or two brave flyers or, if three or more attackers had taken wing, made a hasty retreat for the horizon to seek easier prey. Although gray Dragons enjoyed the hunt, they were less keen on fair fights against truly dangerous foes.
Because of their greater intelligence, gray Dragons recognized the importance of immobilizing the opposition. They often attacked sled dogs or draft animals first when assaulting a caravan or other large group of traveling people. The craftiest Dragons had even been known to make sneak attacks at night, staying only long enough to steal the dog sleds, forcing the travelers to go to the Dragon’s well defended lair to retrieve them. This, of course, enabled the beast to spend a pleasant time elegantly picking the interlopers off one or a few at a time.
Gray Dragons old enough to knew fourth-level spells favorred dig, as it enabled them to create pitfalls for intruders without too much work. They also favored creating a phantasmal force illusion of the stolen dog sleds or other booty in order to tempt intruders into a booby-trapped area without risking the loss of the real prizes.
Gray Dragons raided and killed any creatures that wandered into their territories. This trait has not endeared them to any being, and careless gray Dragons might have found themselves hunted by forces of both evil and good at the same time.
When a gray Dragon identified a victim, it swept from the belly of a cloud if possible, but otherwise dove from directly overhead, attempting to remain outside its prey’s field of vision. It used frightful presence to stun foes, then spends an action point to unleash its breath weapon against them. A gray Dragon kept to the air during a fight.
While aloft, it could use its breath weapon and made attacks with its jagged claws and tail. These tactics allowed the Dragon to divide a group of targets so that it could focus on the greatest threats. If foes took to the air in attempt to close with it, the Dragon focused its attacks on a single flying opponent. If more than two enemies took wing, the Dragon retreated to seek easier prey.
Most creatures encountered a gray Dragon unexpectedly, surprised by a blast of acidic ooze. However, adventurers exploring a gray Dragon’s lair might run afoul of its allied guardians.
Wyrmling
A gray wyrmling’s mouth doesn’t have as many fangs as an older gray’s, but it still packs in too many teeth for comfort. Its tail ends in the stubs of what will eventually grow into twin blades of bone. Its color shades from off-white along its belly to gray along its sides and back. Their smaller size sometimes causes other creatures to misidentify them as hawks or other birds of prey until it is too late to escape.
Vulnerabilities
Gray Dragons took +1 hp/HD of damage from attacks based on Energy (fire and electricity), but take -1 hp/HD damage from attacks based on Time and Matter (earth and water).
Breath Weapon
Although a gray Dragon could attack with a claw / claw / bite routine like nearly all other Dragons, its main weapon of choice was a breath weapon of cold air that could be employed three times per day.(Radianxce Dragons can do so each 3rd round)
The gray’s breath weapon was a cone of paralyzing cold air(SvTS or unable to act until save each minute=(6r)at -2 succesful. This is the so-called petrifying effect of Gray Dragons) and spittle mucous slime 3 feet wide and 60 feet long. The spittle was a caustic substance that corroded metal in 3d4 rounds unless it was washed off; the metal was allowed a save vs. acid to avoid this effect (magical bouses apply) or it would lose 1 Armor Value each round affected by the acid.
This breath weapon came out of the Dragon’s mouth in a cone. When the Dragon was airborne, this power could bring about the death of a flying opponent. The area of effect in a single round is dependant on the flying speed of the dragon in that round. All in the path of the dragon's flight while breathing required a saving throw vs Dragon Breath, to jump aside and lower damage to have normal. Gray Dragons had been observed on a number of occasions using this weapon against masses of migrating birds, particularly waterfowl.
Poison Tail
The tail of a gray oozes type B poison: Those struck by it sufferred 2d6 damage, plus a total of 20 points from the venom (unless they successfully saved vs. poison) at the rate of 4hp/round after 1 round.
Special Abilities:
Grays gain abilities as they age:
Hatchling Protection from normal missiles;
Wyrmling; Shield (3/day);
Small Adult: Spell Turning (3/day); Poison Tail
Large; Telekinesis (3/day); Regenerate once a day (self only)
Huge; Distance distortion (3/day); Sink (2/day).
Due to its exceptional eyesight, any gray Dragon has an automatic 25% +5% /HD chance to detect hidden or camouflaged creatures, even in its elven shape.
Habitat/Society:
Gray Dragons preferred to seek food far from their lairs, which they typically walled up with huge boulders to keep out intruders in their absence. They spoke snippets of many languages and would bargain to avoid hopeless or hard battles. They never attacked others of their own kind, and they mated once every 60 years or so, parting after a single night.
In some ways, gray Dragons were the most enigmatic of all dragons. Lacking in distinctive hue, they were hunters on stony borderlands, forever soaring in the sky’s embrace. Also called Fang Dragons (for their ferocity), Stone Dragons (for their ability to petrify victims), and Spike Dragons (for their detachable spikes), these beasts shared the worst qualities of other Dragons. (Radiance Dragons do not have this petrifying ability)
Grays delighted in the hunt at least as much as its fruits. Their desperate, animal love of stalking prey might have been their defining characteristic. Few gray Dragons could muster sufficient self-discipline to reach the heights of power and reputation later dragons enjoyed. Grays spend their time far from their lairs, glorying in the savage thrill of the hunt and basking in their quarry’s fear.
Gray Dragons were corruptible beasts, willing to compromise any stated principle when better alternatives come along. Grays particularly delighted in turning social encounters into excuses to begin elaborate chases. Even when receiving gifts of gold or other valuables in exchange for assistance, a gray Dragon might broke off negotiations to present the terms of a game, something like this: “You have until sunrise to flee as far as you can. At that time, I begin my hunt for you. If I find you, you lose.”
On the other hand, gray Dragons’ unpredictability ensures that they did not always act this way. Perhaps they knew that creatures that fall into routine make easier prey themselves. A shrewd diplomat could take advantage of this side of a gray Dragon’s nature by promising the Dragon a better, future opportunity for a hunt, thus hedging a negotiation away from failure.
The occasional gray Dragon found itself the focus of savage tribal worship. Particularly primitive tribes did kowtow to gray Dragons in hopes that the Dragons’ aptitude for stalking prey would transfer to them. More sophisticated tribes selected sacrificial victims either from among their own number or, more often, from among members of enemy tribes or visitors from distant lands. Upon obtaining a victim, members of such a tribe contacted the gray Dragon, possibly with smoke signals. Then they released the poor soul with little or no equipment— perhaps a warning and a flint knife—to flee across barren scrubland or badlands.
Gray Dragons might have acted as field scouts, spies, and hounds for sophisticated locals who hadpowerful interests. Payment for such a service is the service itself, which the Dragon saw not as a service at all, but as an enjoyable pastime. Since a gray invariably ate what it catched, employers never entrusted it with the delivery of live bounty—though the Dragon might have delivered a skull or another gnawed bone fragment from its quarry.
When hungry enough, a gray might have stooped to feeding on domestic cattle, sheep, or other herd beasts, but it did so rarely; dim herd animals offered little thrill or challenge for the chase. Grays subsisted almost entirely on a diet of creatures that were intelligent or dangerous enough to provide at least the semblance of a contest.
Ecology:
Gray Dragons ate all manner of fresh meat, especially enjoying the flesh of intelligent mammals.
Their fangs (powdered) and their cranial fluids were valued in the making of swords +2, and similar magical items.
Lairs and Terrain
Gray Dragons preferred badlands, scrubland, dry prairies, and other clear terrain over terrain that contains visual obstructions. They liked to see potential quarry for miles around as they ride high thermals like gigantic birds of prey. A gray could see the tiniest movement across a plain and might have danced from thermal to thermal for hours to bridge the gap to a distant thing it wants to investigate.
A gray Dragon might have establish a temporary lair while on an extended hunt in a region far from its permanent lair. Such a simple outpost gave the gray a place to sleep, a place to eat its catch, and a place to store any treasure destined for its main hoard. Grays located these outposts on mountain ledges or in similar locations accessible only by air. The Dragons left such lairs unguarded, returning each night to feast on the fruits of their hunts. A gray Dragon’s home lair might have stood abandoned for weeks or months at a time, so before it left on a hunt the Dragon sealed the lair’s central chamber with an avalanche of boulders and petrified victims.
Favored Treasure
Gray Dragons did not prefer any type of treasure over any other type. Their hoards typically consisted of items taken from the victims of past hunts: mementos and trophies of glorious successes. Even though gray Dragons did not value treasure for its own sake to the extent that other Dragons do, grays nevertheless took strong measures to protect their keepsakes, this in order to fulfill the Ceremoby of Sublimation.
Life Cycle
A gray Dragon layed its eggs after about four months, for a total incubation time of twenty months. A clutch numbered one to two eggs, all of which prove viable under optimal conditions.
A gray Dragon was a wyrmling until about the age of ten, and is lived until nearly age 27 to 90 years, without the magical ceremony. The oldest confirmed age any gray Dragon has reached was approximately 2100 years.
After Death or dragon circle ascension
When a gray Dragon died, became Large or Huge or succesfully became immortal, its body petrified, becoming a spiky outcropping with an uncannily draconic shape. Such a deceased gray Dragon body experiences environmental diffusion, the result was an area of abnormal aridity of 500 yards per HD of the former dragon. Streams running through the area dried up, as do wells. Any creature that spended more than an hour in the area became parched, and water stored in containers somehow disappeared. If it became Large or Huge after a period of 2 months per current HD the size increased dragon will burst from the petrified shell, and is weak for another 1 month /HD while its skin slowly hardens and giving it Armor value (current AV=0, when last month is passed the Dragon will have its final new AV (dived increments over the months before gaining this stage)
Gray Dragon Lore
A character knew the following information with a successful History or Dragon Lore skill check.
Succes ; Gray Dragons preferred badlands, scrubland, dry prairies, and other flatland terrain, where they could see potential quarry from miles around as they rode the thermals. Their eyesight was supernaturally acute, allowing them to distinguish a small herd of wild horses from a group of mounted humanoids at a height of miles. The creature is by now long extinct.
Succes +3: A gray Dragon’s breath weapon was a caustic ooze that dissolved flesh on contact and for some time thereafter. The ooze became sticky on contact with air, hampering and burning the Dragon’s prey. Older gray Dragons had a special affinity with stone. They could exude a stony essence that petrified foes that had been immobilized by their claw or breath weapon attack. A Huge gray Dragon’s spikes had an elemental resonance that petrified not only the Dragon’s primary targets, but also nearby creatures. This attack could leave a literal field of stone in its wake. The creature did still exist in the era of Blackmoor.
Succes +5: While away from its lair on an extended hunt, a gray Dragon established an outpost lair where it slept, fed, and stored booty. Such an outpost ws accessible only from the air and was not guarded, but the gray Dragon returned to it each night after hunting. Gray Dragons habitually left their permanent lairs abandoned for long periods. During its absence, a gray Dragon sealed its home lair off from both casual and determined exploration. The inmost areas of the lair were sealed with tons of stone in the form of boulders, limestone slabs, and even petrified victims. Medusas or giants defended the outlying chambers. These creatures did not necessarily serve the gray Dragon but had agreed to share the lair complex for mutual protection. Sometimes a greedy or powerseeking guardian attempted to hijack an absent gray Dragon’s hoard. This creature did still exist in the last Dragon wars of 500 AC.
Succes +8: Gray Dragons did not lay their eggs in their permanent lairs but distributed them widely in outpost lairs. Hatching in such harsh conditions culled the weak from the breed. From the moment they hatched, gray Dragon wyrmlings were capable of flight and hunting. Those that managed to survive their first months proved themselves tough enough to enjoy a long life. All Dragons evolved from this species, now long extinct.
Succes +12: Originally gray Dragons (in Blackmoor era called fang Dragons) were brutish creatures with no particular elemental power. It is said that a powerful entity chose several unhatched gray Dragon eggs to receive special treatment. Placed in a nest lined with cockatrice feathers, infused with medusa blood, and brooded over by a basilisk, these eggs underwent a year-long hatching ritual. When the first wyrmling emerged from its shell, it was named Tanhumeth, and its intentions when becoming adult were “purifying” its bloodline. Tanhumeth, along with the rest of this singular brood, sought out and eradicated all the less well-developed Gray Dragons that could be found. Only the newly invested gray Dragons, with their oozing breath attack, remained. Occasionally an archaic gray Dragon without the elemental ability was discovered, living a solitary existence in some fell ravine. When news of this event reaches a gray/fang Dragon, it tracked down the inferior specimen and executed it.
The last Gray dragon was named Saerna and died somewhere around 500 AC. Encountered gray dragons were mostly actually Eldar, a sort of extinct Elves.
Succes +15; The last story is a fable, compiled is misinterpreted and partial information about this draconic species. The Eldar and dragons partially merged in their history. Some say they almost became a single race. The eldar were also near to extinction in 500AC, and the extremely rare gray dragons encountered are shape-shifted versions of them.
There are rumors that the latest Mystara Dragon races (Silver, Copper, Bronze---cannonnicaly added by GKoM, Almanacs 1011, 1012, 1013AC)
were evolved or changed Gray Dragons.
Well known Dragons (according notes 1021AC)
Great Dragon: This current major Dragon Immortal was a member of the extinct "Grey" Dragons (Thelvynn Foxeyes)
Saerna: Ancient Male 1000+Was the last of the original race of the Great Dragon. Died somewhere around 500 AC
14-04-2022; Added this sentence from later comment just for ease and completion
Becoming a (seemingly ) immortal dragon may seem just to be; Be high level, find a book of soul capture, find a large or huge dragon, kill the dragon, capture its soul, find the Radiance or Chamber of Spheres (or travel in time to an active Radiance generator), survive the radiance itself, fuse your essence with the captured Dragon soul and the Radiance...and Tadaa (changes of succes in the past do not merit similar results. Extremely dangerous) :mrgreen: ;)
I hope this helps ;) :mrgreen: