Hey there my name is AJ Pickett, this is the
Mighty gluestick and its time to talk about Red Dragons, well mostly red dragons, I would
also like to address a few other general draconic topics that crop up time and time again in
this video so bear with me, I'll try to keep it entertaining. Red dragons are the archetype of dragons in
general and are absolutely the icons of Dungeons & Dragons, they are universally recognized
and have been with us in story and symbology for a very long time. We know them today as the scarlet scaled,
horn crested, big, violent and very touchy flame breathing chromatic villains, but, in
the early days of the game lore, the dragons were not as fixed in their design as they
are now, I would say the illustration of the Red Dragon from 2nd edition advanced dungeons
& dragons was the emergence of the modern appearance of red dragons. Actually, if you check out this illustration
of Tiamat, goddess of evil dragons, from the first edition Monster Manual, you can see
that the distinctive designs of each chromatic head were missing, even though the idea that
each colour of her heads would have a different style was already there. The style for the red dragon is based on Flames,
of course, spikes and splays and fluted membranes that emulate the flickering flames and smouldering
embers, they are creatures of elemental power, and also beings of magic, quite different
from anything else. Every part of a red dragon has some aspect
of magical and elemental power infused into it, their biological make up is alien, it
doesn't conform to the usual rules of living things, they are more like a fusion between
very different forms of life, much like genasi or djinnis fuse elemental power with a mortal
soul, dragon souls are elemental power, many dragons diffuse their power into the world
when they die and technically speaking, dragons don't have a soul in the same sense that other
mortal creatures do, they don't travel to the outer planes as petitioner souls, they
don't have the same attitude towards those outer planes either, to them, they are just
other dimensions for them to dwell in, but they are not immortal beings, they don't have
the same soul potential, there is no afterlife for them beyond the astral plane, for them,
the prime material plane and elemental planes are much more important and real, however,
when it comes to mortal, incarnate beings of monstrous power, not much outclasses a
dragon. In fact, it is within the power of the dragons
to actually destroy the Abyss and restore the multiverse to what it once was, more on
that at the end of this video. Now, I took the opportunity to ask the Youtube
community what you wanted to know about Red Dragons, and you certainly gave me a lot to
research, covering a huge range of lore and all the different settings and editions. So I will do my best to compare red dragons
across the world settings, including Dragonlance, Greyhawk, spelljammer and Pathfinder, Council
of Wyrms, Mystara and so on. We will take a look at diet, kobolds, spell
casting, population density, the relationship with the Githyanki and even the subject of
good-aligned red dragons, so, grab yourself a hot beverage, we are about to get deeply
nerdy. The 2nd edition Monstrous Manual for Advanced
Dungeons and Dragons describes red dragons as the most covetous and greedy of all the
dragons, forever seeking to increase their treasure hoards. They are obsessed with their wealth and memorize
an inventory accurate to the last copper. They are exceptionally vain and self-confident,
considering themselves superior not only to other dragons but to all other life in general. Despite the vast majority of them being quite
evil, they are not universally evil as a breed, but it is a rare thing to encounter a good
red dragon and also, as with any intelligent living creature, their alignment can change
many times over the course of their very long lives. Yes, alignments in monsters can change, just
as player character alignments can... why not? Is it possible for some player characters
to actually cause this change of heart in a dragon? Maybe, after all, to deny the joys of a campaign
where the objective is to redeem, rather than murder, all the evil beings in the world,
perhaps even reform devils and demons, I would never say that the rules forbid it... because
they simply don't. If you want to address the theme of nature
vs nurture in your games and have the player characters attempt to curb the red dragon's
behaviour, I see nothing wrong with that at all, in fact, I have some suggestions for
you. Let's say the player characters get their
hands on a red dragon egg and hatch it, then decide they are going to raise that hatchling
to be good, the first obstacle is that the dragon hatchling is born able to speak, read,
understand sorcery and a lot of the instincts that are present in humanoid infants is just
completely absent in the Red Dragon. They are not completely dependent on the humans
for longer than a few days, they have a powerful instinct to hunt and kill prey and they are
just naturally extremely territorial and they are the ultimate hoarders from the moment
they are biting anyone who tries to steal the broken remains of their egg. The characters will quickly come to realize,
hopefully, that greed and praise are the keys to controlling the hatchlings behaviour and
that scolding, lecturing or talking to them like they are an infant is a really bad idea. Raising a red dragon just like you would raise
a humanoid child with the hope they will turn out thinking and acting like a good-natured
humanoid is just stupid. Red dragons are apex predators, isolationists
and do not respond to any instinct to be an accepted part of the group, they will always,
always see themselves as the leaders of a group, the owners of everything the group
has and they will see those who raised them as their minions, not their parents. Let me give you an example of how fundamentally
different a dragon infant is from a humanoid child. If the human child catches the neighbours
pet and kills it slowly like a cat with a mouse, that would be a real cause for concern,
one might chastise that child, beat them and take away things to punish them, make them
apologize to the neighbour and so on. If you chastise the hatchling, it's going
to ignore your idiot babble, if you beat it, it's going to fight back and if you manage
to thrash them soundly, the hatchling is going to see you as its rival and possibly as a
potential mate, which would be disastrous. Taking away their stuff? Not going to happen. Apologize to the neighbour, also not going
to happen, the dragon hatchling will probably just demand they get more pets and steal their
silverware while they are at it. Yes, you can slowly but surely curb those
anti-social and predatory behaviours over time, with a hell of a lot of patience and
determination, but chances are, it's just going to result in a red dragon that tends
not to immolate humanoids like they were vermin, playthings and salty little flame-grilled
snacks. Working within the limitations of the dragons
own instincts and desires is the key, the only other option is using magic and mind
control to forcibly alter their behaviour, which is actually quite unethical, even to
a creature that is otherwise going to be evil itself. A catch 22. There is always the possibility that the dragon
gods or just sheer fluke, random chance may result in an uncharacteristically good-natured
red dragon, but keep in mind that for the rest of its life it will have to accept that
it is an outcast among its own kind, who will most likely, one day, end up murdering it
as a traitor to Tiamat and being a revolting weakling. The good red dragon is anything but a weakling
of course, but that's just the prejudice its evil kin will direct at it. Speaking of hatchlings and mating, let's talk
about that. Once every century or so, a female red dragon
will feel the urge to reproduce and she simply announces the fact that she is going to mate
with a male who just automatically accepts, there is no courtship really. There is a good reason for this, the Females
select their mate based on his formidable reputation in combat as well as the size of
his hoard of treasure, being nice or pretty, or his feelings in the matter have got nothing
to do with it, if he refuses, the female will either select what is most likely his worst
enemy or be so insulted she will try to murder him. For the males, being selected as a mate by
a female is critical to their social status and their ego, and with red dragons, oh you
better believe EVERYTHING is about their ego. While the hoard of treasure serves other purposes,
red dragons tend to believe it not only assures them a good chance at fathering offspring
but also pleases Tiamat and the other draconic gods. Females collect vast treasure hoards as well,
of course, it's a sign of status among all red dragons, regardless of gender. Their coupling is a violent and dangerous
activity, the dragons will meet at a certain spot, roar challenges at each other, fight,
set forests on fire, cause a volcanic eruption or some such, and in the midst of all the
fury and chaos, they will mate. If you are witness to the actual deed, it's
pretty quick and the male departs immediately after the fact because the female got what
she wanted from him and he is now back to being just another hated rival. If you have some fanciful notion of a loving
relationship between red dragons developing, well, it's not impossible, but keep in mind,
there is no such thing as physical intimacy between red dragons, if they make physical
contact outside of the actual act of mating, it will result in violence 100% of the time. Look at it this way, the male dragon proudly
displaying its missing eye and ear will brag that any lesser male would never survive a
fight with its mate, all other male dragons are unworthy and its mate chose wisely. They are not humanoids, they don't think like
humanoids, they also find humanoid mating habits to be ridiculous and disgusting. Also, no sane red dragon would ever, ever
mate while polymorphed into any other form. Does it seem like I am heading off a lot of
half-dragon and crossbred dragon questions before they get asked in the comments section? OK, so let's talk about half-dragons of the
red variety for a moment. Half Red Dragons are not the result of red
dragons mating with humanoids, that would be instantly fatal to any humanoid and the
actual reproductive organs are totally different between a humanoid and a dragon anyway. Half Red Dragons are the result of the magical
essence of the dragon being infused into the mortal and resulting in a pregnancy, it doesn't
have to be a male dragon doing this to a female humanoid, a male dragon could do this to a
male human, who transfers this essence, resulting in a half-dragon pregnancy, the mother is
protected from the gestation because the baby dragon forms in a leathery sack inside the
womb, which is born not too long after, the mother typically protects the egg sack fiercely,
keeping it as hot as possible, including resting it in a bed of burning coals and the half-dragon
stays in that sack-like egg for some time before hatching. At birth it is quite tiny but grows very rapidly,
depending on how much food and elemental energy it can consume. Half red dragons become independent as soon
as they can hunt small game and don't have an instinct to remain with their mother. Just, get the idea of red dragons and love
out of your head. The only thing a red dragon loves is itself. True Red dragons produce half-dragons for
lots of different reasons, but they most certainly don't do it out of love, desire, affection
or attraction for humanoids, also, they really don't have any desire to mate with any other
breed of dragon, because none of the others are as perfect as their own kind. Dragon crossbreeds are rare anyway, as the
elemental and magical power of the dragons doesn't tend to mix easily and particularly
with the chromatic dragons, a crossbreed is quite random, it may have traits that are
nothing like either of its parent's breeds. Female red dragons will guard their eggs as
they incubate in some hot environment over the next 270 days, sometimes a subservient
female red dragon who can't have hatchlings of her own yet will also guard the clutch
of eggs, normally there will be four eggs in the clutch and when they do finally hatch,
there will be a supernatural surge of elemental energy in the region, causing a heatwave,
forest fire, volcanic event or even a shower of meteors. The hatchlings will stay with the mother until
they are no more than young adults, but at some point the mother will revert back to
her usual draconic instincts and start to see the offspring as nothing but more potential
rivals and threats, causing her to get more and more aggressive toward them until one
day, she drives them off and lets them know that if they encroach on her territory again,
she will kill them. There was quite of lot of interest in the
subject of Red Dragons and the Githyanki, so let's talk about that for a few minutes. Red Dragons have a special relationship with
the astral raiders known as the Githyanki, the story goes that during the war against
the mind flayers, Vlaakith the first, Gith’s advisor, made a suggestion to her to seek
out allies from different planes to aid them in their war of liberation across the multiverse. She specifically advised her to speak with
Tiamat, the queen of evil dragons. And so Gith ventured into the Nine Hells to
form an allegiance but she never came back, her soul is still around, a treasure that
resurfaces in the lore now and then. Instead, Ephemolon, the red dragon envoy,
relayed the news that Tiamat had agreed to let her red dragons become servants to the
Githyanki’s cause against the mind flayers while keeping Gith hostage in the Nine Hells. In addition, Vlaakith was to take Gith’s
place as ruler until her return. Oh fun fact time, hold onto your socks... It has now been established in the lore that
the githyanki and githzeria were originally humans, captured by the mind flayers and that
the mind flayers not only mutated and conditioned them into the form they now have, as egg-laying,
leathery yellow-skinned and black-eyed with clawed fingers and toes, but they also killed
their god. This answers a very long-running mystery as
to what happened to the human's original creator god. Take it or leave it, but it is now supported
by the lore and I think it is delicious fuel for countless campaigns to try and travel
to a dead god that floats in Pharagos, exuding magical power into the place, somehow revive
that god and well... who knows what would happen? Anyway, under the agreement between Gith and
Tiamat, a small number of red dragons serve as an aid to the Githyanki knights and warriors
without interfering in politics nor offering any sort of advice. Both the Githyanki and dragons are prohibited
from using their abilities against one another. These dragons start serving their Githyanki
masters at a young age. When they reach adulthood, they are replaced
with younger dragons. In return, they will take the accumulated
loot from raids. This tradition is now a part of what you would
call the Dragon society of the Red Dragons, it makes a lot of sense for young red dragons
to do this because it serves as a form of service to Tiamat, it gets them combat experience
with the protection of Githyanki knights and raiding vessels, they go on a fun tour of
the prime material plane and many outer planes, they grow to adult size away from the danger
of older reds taking them out and when they do return to their chosen world, they have
a decent hoard of treasure and their tour of duty is seen as an admirable and intimidating
achievement that makes them far more attractive to other red dragons, giving them a better
chance of attracting the attention of a female, or in the case of females, they have been
free of the backstabbing and drama and can simply return, pick a mate and get on with
their lives. I would hazard a guess to say those female
red dragons have a higher chance of staying in service to the githyanki for longer, but,
keep in mind, the red dragons are not serving the githyanki, they are serving Tiamat, they
won't attack the githyanki as long as they are treated with the utmost respect. The tactics used by the Githyanki raiders
are quite effective and the dragons not only serve as mobile ship destroyers, but they
can also cling onto the hull of a githyanki vessel and protect it from what might otherwise
be a blind and undefended spot. Closing into grappling range with a githyanki
ship is next to impossible with a red dragon blasting fire at anything which gets too close. Some red dragons have become native to the
Astral plane thanks to this ancient relationship and they only travel outside of the astral
plane to let time pass for them normally and increase their age, size and power. Red dragons who are reaching the very end
of their long, long life spans may travel to the astral plane, case in point is on the
famous dragon I was asked to talk about, the dragon Ashardalon. Ashardalon is famous for going to extraordinary
lengths to extend his own life span, to the point that after he received a mortal wound
one time, he bound a Balor demon to himself, still visible as a huge patch of leather demon
skin on his chest, sort of binding the demon's heart with his own. This was not actually sufficient to keep him
alive so he broke into an astral domain called the Bastion of Unborn Souls, a very, very
taboo thing to do that got a lot of gods and primordial powers quite angry with him, and
in there he is free of the passage of ordinary time and absorbs vital energy unique to the
place where all the new souls come from. Now, that raises some other questions, such
as what does a being eat while on the astral plane, or do they even need to eat on the
astral plane or is that not how the timelessness works? Well, I can answer questions about dragon
cuisine at least, we can ponder the astral plane some other time. Dragons follow many of the same rules for
nutrition that regular massive flying reptilian creatures do, we can base these figures on
the extrapolation of Monitor lizards and komodo dragons, and you can thank the mainstream
attention of Game of Thrones for this research. Now, carnivores tend to eat less often than
herbivores thanks to the nutritional availability of what they eat and some reptiles have been
known to go surprisingly, shockingly long times without eating anything — days, weeks,
months, that kind of stuff. Depending on how fast their metabolism is,
they might go an entire season without eating — many, many months — and then their metabolism
speeds up again, and then they eat again. Red dragons are typical of their species in
that they will have periods of heavy activity and lots of eating, followed by an extraordinarily
long time of sleeping in their lair, years, decades, even a century for really ancient
dragons of enormous size. Now, dragons are not reptiles, they are a
different order of life that shares a lot of the morphological traits just because of
how they live and what they eat, but, dragons are also infused with elemental power and
that provides a huge amount of their metabolic energy, to the point that dragons in very
elementally active places or with access to elemental power, don't need to eat organic
matter at all, they just do it for pleasure, the older the dragon gets, the less it tends
to need to eat other creatures and the more infused with elemental power they become. The elemental power also helps with the dragon's
energy efficiency in flight, which compensates for the lower wingspan in relation to body
mass for the really big dragons, but, if you go too far down this pseudo-scientific rabbit
hole, well, its sufficient to say that dragons are very magical and weird creatures. This raises the age-old question, if they
are kind of part elemental, can you eat a Red dragon? Well, actually yes you can, there is lore
for that as well thanks to the Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons published in November 2008
which says that the flesh of red dragons tasted extremely spicy. To be properly prepared, it had to be exposed
to open air for at least two days and aged for some time. Anyone who ate red dragon meat that was not
treated in this manner was susceptible to horrible cramps and extreme pain. Nutritionally its very dense, on a par with
yak meat, but with almost zero fat, like Kangaroo meat. Also, I hope you like it very rare because
obviously, red dragon meat is not going to react much to heat. I suggest a good marinade or dry it to make
dragon jerky. The next question in regard to Red Dragons
but also about dragons, in general, is what is the population density of dragons in the
fantasy worlds? Well it varies from world to world quite considerably,
Toril is an old world that has long been a location of interest for planes travellers
and spelljammers, it has a very rich and diverse biosphere that supports an enormous amount
of wildlife and has a wide array of different climates and terrain types. On the continent of faerun, many mountain
ranges stretch across the landscape for thousands of mile, so there is no great shortage of
suitable lair sites for the mountain-loving Red Dragons. They most often run into competition from
their own kind, but also tend to live uncomfortably close to Copper dragons and the Reds have
quite a dislike of the gold dragons, resenting their respect and power much more than they
would ever willingly admit, for every named Red dragon that we know about in the lore,
you could expect there to be many more who are less famous or just too young to have
made much of a name for themselves, for this reason, also the nature of dragons to sleep
for long periods of time means that it is very difficult to give an accurate estimate. Red dragons are very territorial however,
they are known to come together to combine their formidable power in displays of terrible
dominance, these are called Dragonflights. Aside from those amazing gatherings, red dragons
may develop traits that allow them to live around others of their kind in a clan. This is much more common with groups of younger
male dragons, particularly those who are returning to their world after a few centuries of service
in the Githyanki foreign legion, but, you can find clans of mixed gender or as I mentioned,
a fertile female with an infertile companion that will assist in raising some new hatchlings. Personally, I think it's conservative to say
that there could be as many as one young adult red dragon per 400 miles of mountainous terrain,
for the ancient reds, it could be as many as one per thousand miles or so, but I can
certainly be wrong. The different breeds of the dragons are in
a fierce rivalry with each other as well, so that further limits the possible density
of the complete population of red dragons. Perhaps there could be many more if there
were only red dragons in the world, but, as we know there are way more breeds all competing
for the same resources. except for their favoured terrain types. Red dragons thrive on this intense and deadly
rivalry. They relish a fight with another dragon, they
are large, powerful brawlers, not that great at flying close quarters but they will rip
into the wings of any enemy dragon to take their fight to the ground if they have to. Otherwise, from a high perch within their
hill or mountain country, they will haughtily survey their territory, which they consider
to be everything that can be seen from their position. They prefer to lair in large caves that extend
deep into the earth but will gravitate towards geothermally active zones as well, such as
volcanic event sites. Red dragons will also tend to sense geothermal
events before they happen, this has led to some mistaken legends about fights between
rival ancient dragons setting off volcanos. Fact is, they sensed the impending eruption
and were fighting for the right to claim the new prime real estate. Fighting a red dragon on its own turf often
includes all the natural dangers of mountainous and very rough terrain that is quite unsuitable
for horses. The lair of a red dragon is a challenge for
survival in and of itself, but, more on fighting red dragons later in this video. Talking of lairs, one has to mention kobolds. One thing I often include in my campaigns
is the mass movement of tribes of kobolds who are relocating from an old lair site to
a new one, carrying a lot of the dragon's treasures with them. Kobolds who serve red dragons tend to be swolebolds,
they are larger, more aggressive and don't tend to tolerate the lesser kinds of kobolds. Thanks to ready access to a lot of heat, they
tend to master blacksmithing and equip themselves with well-made armor and weapons. Dragons also use magic items, wear armor and
carry additional weapons, though usually these are made to be extensions and enhancements
of their existing claws, fangs and such. Oh, that's a good time to mention Themberchaud,
the red dragon located in the deep dwarf city of Gracklstugh in the northern Underdark of
faerun. He is what they call a wyrmsmith, a captive
red dragon kept to make use of his magical flames to smelt metal, work it and temper
it into the finest metal blades. Themberchaud had known for years that his
keepers have been concealing things from him, such as their plan to execute him when he
got too powerful and dangerous for them to control. His keepers, the monastic order of the keepers
of the flame, kept a stash of red dragon eggs and manipulated the extremely vain and egotistical
red dragons in their charge using mind-controlling psionics, but also catering to their dragons
every whim. which I guess, since the deep dwarves consider
dragon fire so valuable as to go to such extraordinary and dangerous lengths to get it on demand,
we should talk about the red dragon's fire breath. The fundamentum is an organ unique to dragons. Once thought to be the source of a dragon’s
breath weapon, the fundamentum is an enormous blood vessel, like an extremely large, complex
artery. The fundamentum channels the energy-rich blood
from the heart directly into the upper stomach of a dragon’s gizzard. The gizzard of a dragon contains two hollows:
a smaller “upper stomach” and the gizzard chamber. Elemental energy, transferred from the heart
through the fundamentum, remains in the upper stomach until needed. This energy either aids in digestion—in
which case it flows into the gizzard whenever food arrives from the esophagus—or it comprises
a dragon’s breath weapon. In truth, “breath weapon” is a misnomer,
since the fire, poison, acid, or other substance discharges not from the lungs but from the
upper stomach. The stream of energy is more accurately vomited
than exhaled. Traces of this energy might leak from a dragon’s
upper stomach into the esophagus, mouth, and nostrils, from which they might emerge like
puffs of smoke or wisps of poison—another reason people believe the breath weapon is
part of the respiratory system. This leaking energy also causes the damage
dealt by most dragons’ bite attacks. After food reaches the gizzard, the hard plates
inside the organ, similar in composition to the horns and teeth, grind it up. The upper stomach bathes the swallowed food
in energy from its pool. This is why dragons can literally digest elemental
energy, they soak it up across their body, enriching their blood supply, and then filter
it out of the blood into the digestive system. The older the dragon gets, the more efficiently
they can do it, and the less their body relies on organic food. The flame is of magical origin, but when it
leaves the dragons mouth, it is technically now just non-magical, at least according to
5th edition D&D's declaration... I kind of agree with that in principle, but
also, dragons often enhance their breath weapon with their own unique form of metamagic that
allows them to alter the form and function of their breath energy, I won't go into great
detail on it here, but its worthy of a whole video of its own. Also, specifically, red dragons tend to not
simply reduce their victims to ash and pools of molten metal because they don't want to
lose any treasure their victims are carrying, so they are more tactical in how they deploy
it. Dragon magic is certainly a thing, there is
a good reason why draconic is the scholarly language of magic. The spell mage hand, for example, is modelled
on a spell created by the Gold dragon named Nexus called Hand, dragons like this spell
because their massive talons are not that great for fine manipulation of objects and
a little magic hand is very ... handy. Ugh, sorry. In the 2nd edition Draconomicon there is also
a spell dragons use to find humanoid familiars, there is a spell called Venomdust that creates
one of the most toxic powders known, the great red dragon named Thermal created the rare
spell called Firetrail which is designed to create a contrail of fire droplets behind
the dragon as it flies, which is excellent for setting humanoid towns and cities on fire,
covering 30 feet per round in a soon to be a blazing inferno. This is also highly effective against massed
army troops and their siege weapons, which are usually made with a lot of flammable wood. Dragons also have their own version of resurrection
and raise dead spells, which can reunite what they call the Dragon Anima with its body,
the Anima is their elemental spirit, so to speak, it is their version of a soul. Only very rare dragons know how to do this. On the whole, dragon magic does the same sort
of things that humanoid magic does, they quite like spells that kill thieves and interlopers,
they like spells that protect them from other dragon attacks and they like spells that vastly
increase their power to spy on the lands around them, or communicate with far off places. Dragons aren't big users or creators of magical
items. There are some exceptions, however, and a
few of these are definitely worthy of note, I should point out though, that these are
only usable by dragons. If you happen to find a great big, deep green
obsidian sphere with strange geometric patterns inlaid with pure gold all over it, this is
an Orb of Draconic Influence and it is used by powerful dragons to alter the behaviour
of all dragons within a range of ten miles. The effect is delicate and influences all
dragons in range equally, subtly changing their emotional state. The orb also grants the dragon protection
from attack, making the attacker change their mind about attacking the dragon if they are
fairly close to the orb, plus the orb blocks all forms of magical scrying, or remote viewing,
of the lair it is located in. Circlets of the Wyrm are kind of the Belts
of Giant strength of dragon kind, they allow younger dragons to gain the power of an older
dragon, also, dragons make and use potions that allow them additional uses of their dragon
breath. Some items have a deceptive name, such as
the Gauze of Appearance, which can make invisible creatures visible. they like to drape this delicate material
over doorways or over top of parts of their treasure hoard. Dragons do have magical weapons they strap
onto their limbs to enhance their physical attacks, but these sort of things are seen
as kind of weak, so red dragons will not use magic fang enhancers or spiked tail rings
and that sort of thing. Red dragons hoard all forms of treasure, while
other dragon breeds might favour one type over the other, reds really do covet everything
of value, so they stock magic items in their lairs, absolutely, you will almost always
find weapons and armor, wondrous items, spell books, scrolls, relics and even the occasional
artifact. Red dragon lairs, obviously are of keen interest
to every dungeon master, so here are the basics on what you can present to your players to
give them that classic red dragon experience. The red loves to look over its domain, this
means they favour mountains and hills because they afford them a good perch high up to see
everything, and also be seen as the lord and master of their world. If there are no particularly high perches
available, they will settle for a wide-open space where they have a very distant line
of sight, this means that underground, they will select, or create, very large cavernous
lairs that allow them a good line of sight all around them, and allow them to move about
freely, if not flight, then at least a wing assisted leap or jumping from one area to
another, they are actually highly athletic beasts in combat, moving fast and unpredictably,
closing and opening gaps, causing disruption to enemy tactics. If the spellcaster decides to hang back and
let the fighters close into melee range, the dragon will instantly reverse that situation
and basically land on top of that spellcaster as soon as they can... on top of the spellcaster
preferably. They love volcanic, superheated, geothermally
or elementally active areas, a natural gateway site that may connect to the elemental plane
of fire inside a deep cavern reached from several openings in the peaks of some magnificent
mountains is what a red dragon would consider the penthouse suite... prime real estate. Very difficult to get to, very dangerous to
wander around it, and full of rich thermal energy the dragon soaks up with pleasure. Kobolds propagate in red dragon lairs like
Dozers populate Fraggle Rock, I mean, they are as common as rats on a grain ship, red
dragons just generally live with their presence and tolerate them, because the kobolds literally
worship them like gods and, well, that's a very useful and appropriate attitude. Plus, kobolds rival dwarves in their skill
at mining and excavation and do a wonderful job of loading precious metals and gems into
the dragon's hoard. Kobolds act as messengers between dragon lairs,
they also fetch creatures for the dragon to eat when it just wants a snack and can't be
bothered going hunting. Kobolds tend to not bother dragons because
those that do never survive to breeding age, and such negative traits just get weeded out
of the gene pool, this may also be why kobolds don't tend to grow to large sizes, even though
they are of draconic blood, which is something not often talked about. Without the rather mercurial pruning of their
population by true dragons whims, perhaps kobolds would be a lot more like Dragonborn. Due to their size, dragons find narrow chasms
in their lairs to be no bother at all, but these are certainly very dangerous for adventurers
sneaking in to steal treasure, plus, the kobolds rope bridges and such as not built to handle
the weight of larger humanoids, so they really can't be trusted. The volcanic plumes and geysers, mud and magma
pools in the lair produce exotic and toxic gases that don't affect the dragon or the
kobolds but can cause sickness in humanoids who spend too long in the lair. Particularly enterprising geologists, alchemists
and artificers have been known to scour every nook and cranny of old red dragon lairs for
unique crystals which form there and nowhere else, infused with some measure of draconic
magic. One can find giant fire beetles, dragon ticks
the size of lobsters, parasites that mimic the appearance of gold coins, mimics, the
amazingly pungent but quite handy Underdark trash eaters, the Troglodytes, and the Urds,
which you might think are just other kobolds, but they are quite a lot more complex, serving
red dragons as their little eyes and ears in distant places and red dragons love to
keep tabs on things, particularly each other. Page 52 of 3.5 edition's Draconomicon states,
and I quote. "A red dragon is particularly interested in
news about other red dragons, mostly because its own status relative to its peers remains
a top concern. A red dragon’s pride is easily wounded because
any defeat or insult left unanswered causes a loss of status. This is one reason why red dragons are prone
to destructive rages. A red dragon usually can recover some lost
status by wreaking havoc. Every red dragon firmly believes that no being
deserves to keep anything it is not strong enough to defend. Red dragons also apply this rule to their
own kind. Occasionally, red dragons perceive weakness
among one of their own, and the subject is not allowed to live. The victim is attacked, and its lair is stripped." I often get asked by people, if there are
so many monsters in the world of Toril, how can any humanoid civilisation survive, and
dragons, being the top tier predators make a perfect example to explain some things. First of all, dragons spend years and year
just slumbering in their lair, doing pretty much absolutely nothing, then they wake up
for a few terrible months, cause death, destruction and then fly off for weeks or months at a
time, then eventually they return and go back to sleep again, they are mainly just interested
in having a massive banquet of fresh meat, hunting and fighting to stretch their wings
and test out their older and more powerful body, then going and involving themselves
with other dragons before returning, making sure everything is just how they like it,
and going back to sleep. So for most of the time, humanoid societies
just leave the dragons alone and hope they don't wake up this year, the older the dragons
get, the longer they sleep, so, it's really just the younger dragons that are a real pain
in the ass, and they are much easier for humanoids, working together, to deal with, People on
Earth still get eaten every year by Tigers, we haven't exterminated all the tigers or
polar bears for that matter, we just stay out of their way and know how best to avoid
getting eaten, dragons are a lot harder to avoid and deal with because they are highly
intelligent and love to eat humanoids, but, humanoids on Toril can hurl lightning bolts
and mass highly motivated troops armed with long spears, balistas, heavy crossbows and
most townsfolk build very sturdy cellars and sewers under their town that they dive into
at the first yell of "DRAGON" that they hear. That may explain why there are so many dungeons,
when you really think about it, dragons make people who make dungeons, dungeons and dragons. There may certainly be those who make something
of a reputation for themselves as hunters and killers of dragons, but for the most part,
this would be those who claim they can rid some poor country folk of particularly ravenous
younger dragons who eat a lot of livestock and quite a few people along with them, that
sort of dragon hunting is fine, respected even, but disturbing ancient dragons in their
lairs is absolutely not fine with the locals and dragon hunters who make it well known
that is their plan may very well end up murdered before they get anywhere near the dragon. Don't forget that there are a lot of other
draconic races, not least of which are the Dragonborn. Personally, I am glad the lore has moved away
from Dragonborn being the result of a ritual transformation of the servants dedicated to
the cause of Bahamut and the fight against the evil spawn of Tiamat, that was far too
narrow a path for a proper playable race in D&D for me, and it also restricted the relationship
between the true dragons and the Dragonborn. Now, it's wide open to all sorts of possibilities. I can just picture a kingdom with an ancient
red dragon that dwells in the nearby mountains, it tends to wake up when the volcano in that
mountain range starts to get active, so on first signs of plumes of ash and earth tremors,
the people of the kingdom gather up tribute and drove a tribute of livestock up to the
high country, among the population, many Dragonborn, a fair few dragon blooded sorcerers, perhaps
even some dragon blood in the royal family, and the kingdoms banners proudly display their
fearsome red dragon. Oh yes, someone asked if Red Dragons are the
ancestors of other dragons, no they are not, the first dragons on faerun were the Eodraco. From incomplete fossils laboriously reconstructed,
sages determined that eodraco was similar in size and configuration to the modern wyvern,
averaging 35 feet long, with a 50-foot wingspan. No evidence was found indicating that eodraco
had the tail sting of a modern wyvern and it was nowhere near as intelligent as a modern
wyvern, which are not that smart anyway, so the Eodraco was as stupid as a bag of ogres,
however, back then it was still smarter than all the other thunderbeasts from the age before
the first creator races. This was long before the planet Toril was
hit by one of the Tears of Selune, which marked a remarkable evolutionary leap in the proto-dragons
that saw the first fire breathing forms of the dragons. I think it is much more likely that this was
due to the meddling of gods, but, it's a hotly debated mystery with no real firm answers,
even the fossil record can't really be trusted on Toril. True red dragons developed at the same time
as the rest of the chromatic dragons, due to the influence of the draconic gods, on
Toril, Bahamut and Tiamat are particularly important, even though they don't even rank
very high in the draconic pantheon, they just happen to have picked Toril as the site of
most of their rivalry and the resulting split between Chromatic and Metallic dragons is
thanks to them. On other planets, the lack of Tiamat and Bahamut
is mirrored by the lack of such clear divides between the dragon breeds,
From the Birthright campaign setting, Vore Lekiniskiy is a Master Fire Worm, which is
similar to a red dragon, except in his case, he can breathe not just fire, but also molten
rock like a volcano, his breath weapon is so dangerous it can cause him internal damage
if he uses it too often. Luckily, he is kind of merged with a mountain
which causes him a lot of tactical disadvantages, but still, fireworms of the planet Cerilia
are formidable and thankfully, quite rare. You can find the stats for Vore in dragon
magazine number 248, an issue packed with dragon-related articles. There are dragons on most worlds, one exception
is Athas, the world of the Dark Sun campaign setting, where the dragons there are not born
dragons, they are transformed defiler humans and half-elves who have transformed themselves
into potent psionic dragons. The most famous of which is the Dragon of
Tyr, but there are many others on that blighted world. In the Pathfinder RPG, the lore of red dragons
is, as you would expect, very similar to D&D, where they differ a little is their ability
to radiate deadly heat from their body and some cosmetic differences to keep the lawyers
happy. Pathfinder does a wonderful job of explaining
the relationship between red and gold dragons though, and at this point, I think I better
talk about dragon breeds and their sizes because 5th edition D&D just seems to assume players
are supposed to know how big dragons are. Let me remedy that. Dragons are classified by their age category
and by their size category, the two go hand in hand, but not all breeds are the same. Only the red, gold and silver dragon can reach
the Colossal size category, all the other metallic and chromatic dragons stop growing
larger once they hit Gargantuan size. Now, I have to point out that again, dragon
size varies between different editions of D&D, in earlier editions, they just keep on
growing larger and the dragon sizes vary on different world settings, so, it's very tricky
giving hard, definitive answers, the more you research this stuff, the more slippery
the facts become. It is possible to encounter a Great Wyrm,
ie, a very very old, red dragon that has a body measuring 183 feet in length, not counting
a tail that is 171 feet long. That looks something like this. That is a Los Angeles class attack submarine
for comparison, it also has a man standing on it, just to give you an accurate scale
for how big a great wyrm red dragon actually is. As you can see, they are very big and the
sheer destruction they can inflict on pretty much anything is very, very impressive. Dragon sizes vary mainly in how fast they
there and how common the really large dragons are for each breed, the ferocious white and
black dragons less commonly get to really large sizes because they have a high mortality
rate, the gold dragons start off bigger than other dragon breeds and are very reclusive,
so tend to survive to a great age, the silver and red dragons are similar in many ways and
have comparable sizes, the copper dragons which also prefer mountain terrain tend to
run into red dragons more often and the reds tend to just be bigger and stronger for their
age category, so it is a balance of potential size, the dragon's age and overall environmental
factors. Red dragons regard all other dragons with
varying degrees of suspicion and contempt, they consider the white dragons to be stupid
and weaker than them, but with admirable viciousness and they respect the white dragons hunting
prowess, particularly when it comes to ambush tactics, they have a grudging respect for
all the dragons that can move freely through the water, as that is something red dragons
loathe to do and it is a potential weakness that they do not broadcast to their enemies. They generally ignore black, green and blue
dragons unless there is some reason not to, such as one of them showing up in their territory
or being very active at the same time they are, which could just result in a good brawl
and severe beating of the lesser dragon to make the red feel good about itself. Reds despise the underhanded weakness of black
dragon treachery, they consider copper dragons to be foolish, bronze dragons too obsessed
with past glory and not focused enough on the here and now, blue dragons too tolerant
and perhaps too reliant on lesser creatures, particularly crowding the filthy things into
their lairs like that. Silver dragons they hate due to them being
metallics, but they also secretly respect them as their primary rivals outside of other
reds, they never need any excuse to pick a fight with a silver dragon, the only exception
is when all the dragons have called a truce for some sort of traditional meeting concerning
matters that apply to all dragon kind, in which case they afford extraordinary respect
to all other dragons present, even fairy dragons because that level of self-control adds to
their status in those specific circumstances. Gold dragons, as we know, they hate for any
number of reasons, not least of which is their size and power, but also the fact the golds
can invade their dreams and beat them without even a fair fight. That is just intolerable! The dragons on Toril have long ago moved away
from the old draconic religion, but the pantheon still exists and the dragon gods are still
acknowledged. Red dragons tend to respect Asgorath or Io
as the draconic creation force, as do all other dragons, they also pay lip service to
Astilabor the goddess of wealth, Garyx, the mighty red destroyer is of course high on
their list of respect, they also quite like Task, god of greed, they frequently rant about
Zorquan and why they are the exemplars of dragoness according to some misquoted thing
Zorquan is said to say or represent and of course, they all respect and appease Tiamat,
mainly this is only on Toril and within spitting distance of Tiamat though, Tiamat is not a
greater deity, she just happens to have a real keen interest in Toril for some reason,
along with her hated brother, Bahamut. Talking of Toril, I have been asked to talk
about famous red dragons, well, Klauth is certainly one of the most famous, Old Snarl
is well in excess of 1300 years old, which is beyond the normal life expectancy of a
red dragon, normally they would top out at around 1200 years before they either vanish,
travelling to one of the mythical dragon graveyards and releasing their essence to the great beyond,
or they will invest their essence into a location, becoming a draconic guardian, or they will
embrace the conversion into a dracolich. There are other forms of undead dragon,s by
the way, I will be talking about them in another video at some point. Klauth lives and is unusually active all across
Northwest Faerun, the spine of the world mountains and his home turf of Klauthen vale, which
is way closer to the city of Luscan than anyone should feel comfortable with. That valley is packed with sheep, goats, Rothe
and the mountains around there have a lot of caves, two of which are lairs of Old Snarl,
though to gain access, you have to be able to lift a stone slab that Klauth put there..
it is really, really heavy. Klauth made the valley his home after he fought
three other dragons and got badly wounded, almost losing a wing and having half his body
frozen solid, there is a rumour that this valley has a magical spring that boosts healing
and there is a location called Orothryn's well in the middle of the valley, you can
find it east of Raven Rock and west of Mirabar. Klauth extends his life span by consuming
the essence of unborn red dragons directly from their eggs, so he is widely hated and
feared by other dragons. He has attacked Mirabar in the past, thanks
to the dragon rage mythal and is known to have consumed entire hordes of orcs in the
spine of the world mountains. He is certainly one of the largest dragons
on Faerun and the Wyrm of the North is closely watched by pretty much everyone. I would say that Klauth is something of a
unifier, because when he is spotted outside of his lair, everyone kind of puts rivalries
aside and bands together for sheer survival. Tchazzar needs a mention as well, the story
of this dragon is very complicated thanks to him being a fiendish red dragon that could
shapeshift into humanoid form. He died in 1479 DR but in his prime, he was
a force of pure chaos and evil. He was convinced of his superiority over all
living things, even more so than a typical red dragon and while he demanded absolute
loyalty from his subjects and minions, he saw them all as nothing more than expendable
pawns. He ruled in Luthcheq in Chessenta in his humanoid
form, a handsome, angular faced man with yellow eyes, perfect teeth and slightly pointed ears. He rose to power in humanoid form by his efforts
to unify Chessentan cities in rebellion against Unther, which succeeded and he was crowned
king. He then created a temple to himself, claiming
divinity and went off slaughtering hordes of Sahuagin, sending visions of his humanoid
form standing on a massive pile of their bodies, but, when his humanoid alter ego never returned,
he became a martyr and legend to his people, fueling his planned path to godhood. Unfortunately, Tiamat got tangled up in his
fate and really did the dirty to Tchazzar, who actually saved Tiamat only to have her
eat him, then she later brought him back to life and he went back to ruling chessenta
for a while before the spell plague threw him into the shadowfell and he got fed on
by a blight wyrm named Sseelrigoth for one hundred years before he was rescued and went
back to ruling Chessenta from Luthcheq, but eventually, that group that rescued him, the
Brotherhood of the Griffon, was responsible for betraying him and he was killed by Shala
Karanok, who was kind of the steward of chessenta while the dragon was missing in action and
ended up getting thrown in a dungeon by him for some time. The jury is still out as to if this is the
last we hear of Tchazzar... I highly doubt we have seen the last of him. Now, as creatures of magic and primordial
power, dragons are most comfortable dwelling on the prime material plane and the elemental
planes, but I have been asked how the different planes of existence influence dragons. For the reds, obviously, the elemental plane
of fire is delicious, but, it's a bit too much for the younger dragons to handle really,
so its usually the really mature red dragons that dwell there and that makes it even more
dangerous for young reds, plus, the elemental power of the plane of fire is teeming with
elemental spirits, it is infested, so to speak, whereas the pure power of a volcanic caldera
on the prime material plane is clean and fresh. The teeming elemental spirits worm their way
through the essence of the ancient red dragons and can drive them fairly insane, or cause
an unhealthy imbalance that can result in their biological side becoming actually rocky,
volcanic, painfully out of sorts with their prime material nature, which may see them
become something more akin to a catastrophic dragon, now no more than a raging force of
elemental destruction and no longer a desirable mate for the rest of its kind. The elemental plane of fire is limitless in
space, but the majority of that space is too furious even for a red dragon to tolerate
in its material form. On death, the essence of a red dragon no longer
has that restriction, and they may be set free to explore an entirely different existence
in the deepest reaches of the elemental plane of fire, dancing in the hearts of stars across
the multiverse, completely free forever. In the upper planes, dragons face entirely
different problems, but planes that respond well to the strength of will of a draconic
mind are ideal places to set up their own little realms, a safe and secure domain to
hoard their most valuable treasures. Still, there is a lack of the elemental power
they crave and they really don't like rubbing shoulders with gods, who exist simply to challenge
the dragon's firm belief that they are the perfect form of life and basically the reason
the prime material plane exists at all. There is that slightly unreal quality to the
outer planes, and also, there are other planar dragons there which certainly don't make life
easy for interloper prime material dragons attempting to overstay a welcome they were
never offered. So, red dragons tend to be a little more common
on the plane of limbo or the astral sea, the ethereal plane and the elemental and para
elemental planes, but much less common elsewhere, and they certainly don't much like the parallel
planes of the shadowfell, the feywild and the realm of dreams, mainly because the damned
metallic dragons do quite like those places, and the shadowfell is just a miserable place
that can taint a dragon permanently with shadow. There are no hard and set rules about how
the planes influence the dragons, how long it takes, and so on, but I hope that goes
some way to explaining the dragons attitude toward them. Now, shall we take a look at red dragon game
mechanics? In the latest edition of D&D we have four
stat blocks for each dragon type, the Wyrmling, which is a medium-sized dragon, challenge
rating four, that has a bite attack, breath weapon, immunity to fire but not much else,
the name is a bit confusing as in earlier editions a Wyrmling is a newly hatched dragon
infant, now it sort of skips the first ten years of a dragons life and starts off at
the late stage of a very young to the later stage of a Juvenile dragon, so between 10
and 50 years of age, when the dragon first goes looking for some sort of lair, before
then, they essentially wander, hunting and camping out in lairs of opportunity, such
as feeding on hibernating bears and sleeping in their dens between meals. Then we move up to the Young Adult dragon
in 5th edition, which represents between 51 and 100 years of age, these are the red dragons
that are of most concern to farmers, travelling merchants, frontier settlements and so on,
as the dragon passes 50 years of age it is entering breeding age and is looking to establish
a lair and start seriously collecting a hoard of treasure, this is also the age where they
may depart for the Astral plane to serve Tiamat and join the Githyanki. The young adult stat block gives us a large
dragon, challenge rating 10, now able to attack with tooth and claw, have lair actions, but
it is far from being a legendary creature and is still quite at risk of being murdered
by a band of adventuring humanoids or, of course, other dragons, behirs, rocs and the
like. Then, past a century old, the red dragon is
now an adult, as it enters the second century of life, the red dragon adults physical growth
begins to slow but it is now entering the prime of its life, concentrating on honing
its mental and physical capabilities, confident and secure enough in a well-established lair
to start a study of arcane magic, it not only collects treasures from vanquished foes and
plundered locations, it also studies the treasures, including the magic items and spellbooks,
relics of faith, alchemical creations, potions and wondrous constructions, figuring out how
they relate to its own, more instinctual magical powers. The adult red dragon is huge, challenge rating
17 and has those all-important legendary actions as well as lair actions. Finally, we have the Ancient Red dragon stat
block, which crams all the other life stages beyond 200 years into one listing, it is a
formidable gargantuan monster, challenge rating 24 and while no extra features are added,
all the existing ones are more powerful as you would expect. I'm not going to go over all of these details,
you don't need me to repeat everything you can find for yourself in the monster manual,
but I can give you some tips to make the red dragon the serious threat they really should
be, and have them survive for more than the first few rounds of combat. What most new DMs forget about is that the
lair of a red dragon is toxic, very toxic and very hot, the waves of heat, the plumes
of noxious gas make vision obscured, terrain difficult and what would normally be a regular
short-range missile or spell attack behaves more like a long-range attack, suffering disadvantage
on the attack rolls. Red dragons prefer to stay on the ground to
fight because they are brutal, massive, powerful opponents that have more attacks per round
than adventurers, allowing them to simply concentrate all their attacks on selected
targets to take them out, one by one. Dragons are very smart, the adult red dragon's
intelligence of 16 means they can predict what the player characters are going to do
with their characters to a certain extent and preemptively mess with those actions. If this sounds like I am saying it's ok to
cheat a little bit, I am not, I am just saying, it's ok to not cut your players so much slack
and let the dragon actually single them out and murder them, just like you would if you
were that dragon... I am saying, BE the dragon, think like the
dragon.. what you know about the player characters is pretty much what a two-century-old dragon
would be able to deduce about them with only a little bit of observation, and dragons have
very very sharp senses. When is the last time your player character
party ever managed to get within close range of a dragon without any chatter, without any
botched stealth rolls and without setting off any alarms, any trap or disturbing any
creatures on the way that would cry out, growl, squeal, roar or yell at them, and when is
the last time one of your players though, oh right, if I fire a bow and miss, that arrow
is going to hit something hard and go snap clatter clatter clatter plink? Yeah, NEVER right? So 100% that dragon is well aware they are
coming well before they get there and it has casually set up all sorts of mayhem before
they arrive. Wooden ceiling supports that hold back tons
of loose rock? Sure, hit one with a tail swipe or burn through
it with a breath attack and it not only crushes those under it and creates an area of difficult
or impassable terrain, but it also kicks up a plume of obscuring, choking dust. Really think about this stuff! What would you do if you could breathe a cone
of fire? Don't leave the victims enough space to get
out of the way, fill the tunnel they are forced to approach by with a raging inferno. Are the players critically failing their saves
vs the breath weapon and taking serious damage? Their spellbooks and scrolls, torches, clothing,
backpacks, leather boots and such are not automatically flameproof, set the damn things
on fire! Sure, the wizard can douse the flaming spellbook
in one action, but that is one action lost. Can they get those verbal spell components
out if they are choking on poisonous clouds of sulphur? Not likely man! Did you just hit that fighter in full plate
with a direct blast of fire? Great, now they are taking a few more points
of heat damage the next round because their metal armor is red hot and the cloth padding
under it is actually smouldering against their skin. Do you think dragons never pick up boulders
and hurl them just like giants do? They have been fighting giants for thousands
of years, of course, they are going to use this excellent tactic. Pile of sand scattered around the lair? Wingbeats can create cones of wind that blast
sand into the victim's eyes, blinding and obscuring. The red dragon is highly agile for a huge
creature, they are also excellent climbers, so think three-dimensionally, the roof and
walls of a cavern are just more floor space for them to leap from one spot to another,
they can easily jump into the middle of a party of adventurers and lay into all of them,
using Wing attacks on their opponents turns to knock multiple targets prone. Red dragons don't just sit still and take
missile and ranged spell attacks while they go toe to toe with a melee fighter, they will
close to melee range with the ranged opponents and then attack from range against the melee
opponents. They understand spellcasting and concentration
checks, they will use healing potions, they will load up with enchantments to protect
themselves and enhance their attacks. Notice that adult red dragons have 60 ft blindsight? That means they can keep fighting perfectly
will even in total obscurement, not just darkness. Poison, fire, sand storms, flying boulders,
rock falls, lava pools, splashing lava with tail slams, and we have not even considered
that the dragon has a small army of fanatical guerilla fighting kobolds on its side as well. Masses of kobolds attacking with simple ranged
attacks from a reasonable distance and cover can whittle down adventurers extremely quickly. The dragon rarely attacks on its own within
its lair and they don't hesitate to make use of their own hoarded magic items and monstrous
pets at every opportunity. A red dragon and a couple of hellfire oozes
made for one gnarly fight in an old 4th edition campaign, and I certainly didn't stick to
the rules because every dragon I put in my campaign world has some sort of quirk. Think of the kung fu movies, you fight through
all the minions to get to the rival kung fu master, and they are attacking you in every
possible way they could with a wooden chair or something, that is their thing, they are
masters of the deadly chair. Red dragons may do that sort of thing, but
it will be hell hounds or Fire Newts or Salamanders or Fire elementals or Galeb Dur or some such. You players are not just fighting a dragon,
they are fighting their own lack of caution, their own misconceptions, their lack of respect
for the terrain, their lack of tactics dealing with the mobs of minions and the lack of agility
to deal with a dragon they can't even get near without being blinded, poisoned, bludgeoned
and immolated. Also, dragons can cast spells and also, dragons
will seek out lairs that have special properties well beyond the samples they present for you
in the monster manual to inspire you. So think about earth motes, acid lakes, steam
mephits, dragon cultists, wards, circles, oozes, mimics, elementals, magical ruins,
planar portals, summoned devils, the spawn of Tiamat and things like golems, animated
armor or weapons and other weirdness. If you really think about all the ways you
can enhance the encounter, even a lower level dragon becomes one of the most dynamic and
dangerous fights the game can offer, which is entirely appropriate in a game that is
named after them. Please hit the like button if you made it
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geek with pride and As always, thanks for listening and I will be back with more for
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