Some say that the Titans forged the first Dragons during the Dawn Wars, as massive elemental siege engines to crush the Gods' rebellion. Regardless of the truth, dragons are clearly the most formidable of the elemental creatures found on the Prime Material plane.
There are five principle kinds of dragon, one for each of the elements that comprise the Material plane's basic stuff.
Drake (Draco draco)
Spoiler
Show
The Drake is the most frequently encountered dragon in heraldry and myth.
Drake eggs are a mottled bronze-and-gold color, primarily due to the trace orichalcum deposits in the shell. This fades to a deep iron-black color as the egg readies to hatch, presumably allowing the hatchling to absorb the shell's harder minerals and incorporate it into its growing scales.
Drake nests are often made within active steam vents or even the calderas of calmer volcanos, as they need a warm, dry and sulfur-rich environment to incubate. The female Drake guards the nest alone, and will often fight off or even devour her own mate rather than allow him entry into the nesting area.
Hatchling Drakes measure up to two paces from snout to tail, and typically weigh between sixty and a hundred pounds. Their skin is typically a brilliant pinkish-white, shot through with streaks of bronze and gold. Once hatched, a Drake requires a steady diet of sulphur, copper, and gold, as well as a prodigious amount of fresh meat, to maintain a healthy growth rate. Alchemists prize drake hatchlings, and especially nearly-hatched drake eggs, because a young drake's digestive system is a natural alchemical crucible which transmutes sulphur, copper and gold into the ultra-hard orichalcum, giving the drake its legendary resistance to weapons.
Within a season, a hatchling Drake has matured into a young dragon. At this point in its development, it is typically two paces from shoulder to haunches and five paces from snout to tail, and has developed a wingspan of slightly over three paces. Young Drakes are surprisingly lithe, often weighing as little as nine hundred pounds, and often have a slightly skeletal look that belies their strength and speed. A young Drake quickly learns to take to the sky and leaves the nest, seeking out its own lair and fighting with its siblings for territory and dominance.
As the Drake reaches sexual maturity, the male begins developing an elaborate crown of horns and ridges across its face and head, while the female begins developing a bony crest and beak. Adult male Drakes tend to keep the thin physique of an adolescent, eventually reaching an adult length of over twenty paces from snout to tail, a wingspan of up to fifteen paces, and a weight of nearly fifty tons. Female Drakes fill out until they are barely able to fly, reaching a length of thirty paces, a wingspan of eighteen to twenty paces, and a weight of over one hundred and fifty tons. It is at this stage that both sexes begin to develop the "dragon pearl" organ beneath the pituitary gland, a sphere of refined elemental materia which allows them to manipulate and breathe elemental fire.
A male Drake at this stage of its life is compelled to begin acquiring treasure of all kind, especially treasure containing copper and gold. As his intelligence increases to and then surpasses that of demihumans, he will compose more and more devious and grandiose plans to conquer and acquire his hoard. This is understandable, as the size of a Drake's hoard is directly proportional to his chance of success in mating.
An adult female Drake will seek out the nests of male Drakes that have accumulated sufficient renown to interest her, and fight them - often to the death. Those who are insufficiently strong, cunning, and avaricious are merely consumed, while those who can demonstrate a sufficient horde and the ability to defend it are granted an opportunity to mate with her. In either case, much of the male Drake's horde will be consumed by the female, who must consume and process several thousand tons of gold and copper before she is capable of laying eggs.
A gravid female will be tended by her mate, who will continue to bring gold, copper and meat to her nest until she has laid her eggs. Once the eggs are laid, however, the male's natal duties end, and no living creature will be permitted within her lair until they hatch. The full gestation time of a Drake egg is unknown, but is estimated to be at least two years.
Wyvern (Draco pterus)
Spoiler
Show
Wyverns are often referred to as "lesser dragons", but they are every bit as crafty and dangerous as their fire-breathing cousins.
Wyvern eggs are a brilliant lustrous silver, being woven of a mithril chain mesh finer than a spider's web. The hatchling dragon will break through this with an adamantine egg tooth, then proceed to consume the entire egg shell as its first meal.
Wyvern nests are typically encountered at the tops of mountains and mesas, preferrably in areas with violent inclement weather.
Newly-hatched wyverns are a purplish-pink color shot through with dark blue veins, and are highly vulnerable until they have digested their shells and begun to grow their first scales. Within days, however, their skin is covered in a fine mesh of gleaming silver dragonscales, and they have grown from eight hands long to a length of nearly two paces, and a stretched wingspan of nearly three paces.
Wyverns quickly take to the air, learning to navigate updrafts and currents until they are comfortable flying even in the most ferocious of storms.
A young Wyvern requires a diet rich in silver and gemstones, especially rutile, rubies and sapphires, which the natural alchemical processes in their digestive system transmute into a mithral and feathersteel latticework that strengthens their bones. Without these supplements, a Wyvern's bone structure quickly becomes both soft and brittle, and it will soon sicken and die.
Within a decade, a Wyvern has reached its adult length of 5 paces from shoulder to haunch, with a two pace long neck and a three pace long finned and barbed tail. The adult Wyvern's wingspan is an impressive fifteen paces, and is comprised from the middle two limbs. By this time, its dragon pearl has fully developed, allowing it to control winds and emit a violent stream of intense blue-white lightning from its mouth. Contrary to myth, a wyvern has the same six-limbed skeletal structure as the other dracoforms, but its front two limbs are often held against its body. These limbs are no larger than a demihuman's arms, connect to the body with a patagial flap, and end in highly dextrous fingers, allowing the Wyvern roughly the same level of fine manipulation as a demihuman.
Wyverns are the most mobile dragons as adults, typically acquiring territories that span entire subcontinents or island chains. A wyvern will keep a sharp eye for news or intrigue that it can turn to its advantage, and will often maintain a network of spies and assassins to ensure a steady stream of tribute. Wyverns tend to be highly active in demihuman affairs, often manipulating events towards their own long-term advantage. They prefer to work from the shadows, however, never showing their hand if they can help it.
Naga (Draco cintimanti)
Spoiler
Show
Few non-scholars realize that the Naga is actually a type of dragon at all, preferring to think of it as some kind of serpent. The Naga does indeed seem strange for a dracoform, bearing live young and having only two limbs, or even no limbs at all.
Naga have the widest variation in body shape and coloring of any of the dragons, owing to their intuitive control of their own life-force. Some naga have brilliant crests of peacock-like or parrot-like feathers over their heads, while others have something very like human hair, and others have smooth squamous scales. Some naga have serpentine heads, while others have almost human or elven faces that only belie their draconic features when they unhinge their jaw to feed. Some naga are completely limbless, while others have nearly demihuman arms ending in two to four dextrous fingers and an opposable thumb, and others have wings covered in brilliant rainbow-covered plumage.
A newborn Naga always appears as a brilliant green serpent with a flat, vaguely humanoid face, approximately two paces long and as thick around as a man's thigh. They have two limb buds just behind the head, which will re-absorb into its body or develop into the Naga's limbs once it reaches maturity and develops its dragon pearl.
At maturity, a Naga can be anywhere from 5 to 20 paces long, and weigh anywhere from 100 pounds to 15 tons. They have the keenest intellect and most varied interests of any of the dragon species, and many are friendly to demihumans, if somewhat overbearing and manipulative.
The Naga's dragon pearl is capable of secreting a virulent poison that can kill any living creature nearly instantly, and is also capable of emitting a potent but invisible gas that affects the minds of living creatures. Combined with the naga's eerily penetrating gaze, this allows the Naga to gain mental, emotional and sometimes physical control over nearly any creature it comes in contact with. The Naga's dragon pearl also allows an elder Naga to cure or inflict diseases and deformities on creatures in its presence, and give it an intuitive grasp of medicine, botany and biology.
Because of these powers, some Naga are capable of interbreeding with demihumans, producing the jhuanthi servant races. Other Naga choose to interbreed with other dragons or even non-sapient beasts, producing strange amalgamations called chimera. Jhuanthi and chimera are themselves usually sterile, but a few rare specimens are capable of interbreeding with others of their own kind or with their original non-draconic stock.
Wyrm (Draco niphos)
Spoiler
Show
The Wyrm is an arctic hunter at home in the frozen wastelands of the north.
(will come back and finish this one later)
Basilisk (Draco calcatrix)
Spoiler
Show
The Basilisk demonstrates the most remarkable sexual dimorphism of any of the dragon species.
Basilisk nests are often made in natural cave systems, and can occasionally be mistaken for crocodile nests. The eggs are exceptionally hard and heavy, however, and occasionally have a light adamantine sheen. This fades as the eggs incubate, until at hatching the egg is nearly indistinguishable from an exceptionally large hen's egg.
The hatchling basilisk is exceptionally small for a dragon, often only reaching a hand's length from nose to tail. Unlike other flying dracoforms, in basilisks it is the first pair of legs rather than the second that form the wings, which are remarkably similar to a bat's. The head is thin and crocodilian, with milky-white and slightly reflective eyes.
Baby basilisks will often consume their broodmates as they hatch, then move on to begin searching for more prey. As they mature, the female's wings slowly thicken and stretch until they resemble the remaining limbs, giving her the appearance of a massive, six-limbed crocodile with heavy armor plates. Female basilisks have been known to reach 50 paces in length and weigh upwards of two hundred tons. The male, however, rarely exceeds a length of three feet or a weight of thirty pounds, and maintains the ability to fly for its entire lifespan. The male develops a brilliant red "crown" or "****-comb" on its head, and often has a striped pattern of green, grey, and black scales.
At maturity, the basilisk's dragon pearl develops, allowing it to alchemically convert living tissue into limestone at a distance of nearly thirty feet. This limestone is used to supplement the basilisk's diet. Little is known of the basilisk's life cycle compared to other dragons, because the basilisk's instinct is to petrify any creature that comes near it, then consume the petrified corpse. Needless to say, this makes studying the creature exceedingly difficult.
Unlike other dragons, the basilisk does not appear to be sapient. Male basilisks are solitary hunters which seem to have roughly the intelligence of a turkey, while females are ambush predators with habits remarkably similar to the saltwater crocodile.
