‘The most gregarious of the true dragons, brass dragons crave conversation, sunlight, and hot, dry climates.’ Oh, so it’s me if I actually enjoyed living in *insert home state here*!
Brass dragons value conversation and information. So much so that they’re willing to give treasure to gain, or exchange it for treasure. If an intelligent creature should avoid conversing with the beast in its presence, the dragon will follow it. If they try to escape, the dragon’s interest will be peaked and it will knock it out with its sleep breath. When they awake, they’ll be pinned by the mighty dragon until its lust for conversation is quenched.
While a brass dragon is very trusting of those who enjoy talking as much as it, it is smart enough to know when it is being manipulated. They’ll often return the favor, lying and manipulating those that try to do that to it. Often times, they’ll enjoy it like a game of jousting.
They covet magical items with which they can converse. Enchanted items or lamps containing dginn are their greatest treasures. They’ll bury these treasures deep in the sand, much like blue dragons. Adventurers who find this loot should beware, for a brass dragon is still a dragon. Should that treasure be disturbed, a great fury shall be unleashed.
Huh. Kinda one-dimensional, isn’t it? Still, you can at least squeeze some neat plots out of it. Perhaps the party needs to make a trade with a brass dragon for a crucial piece of information. Or maybe they discover their hoard and a dginn tries to convince them to take it away, turning them against the dragon. You could make them try to beat it in a game of lies and manipulation. There’s some fun stuff to do with it.
So long as you don’t have a group of murder hobos. Which you do. Because it’s Dungeons and Dragons.
As for their stats, it’s just the same as the red dragon. However, they do have two different abilities that help them stand out. The first is the aforementioned sleep breath; with this, it can knock out its foes without killing them. And the second is its ability to transform into another creature.
How does the ladder apply to combat? Ever heard of a two-phase boss fight?
Honestly, I found this one to be pretty underwhelming. The lore is so completely focused on that one aspect that it doesn’t have very much room for depth or growth. Its just ‘the dragon you can talk to’. Meh.
With all that in mind, let’s put the Brass Dragon on the Best of the Bestiary!
- Beholder
- Death Tyrant
- Green Dragons
- Red Dragons
- Blue Dragons
- Black Dragons
- White Dragons
- Couatl
- Behir
- Aboleth
- Brass Dragon <————-
- Chuul
- Chimera
- Death Knight
- Bone Devil
- Dracolich
- Ankheg
- Shadow Demon
- Marilith
- Aarackockra
- Azer
- Demilich
- Spectator
- Cambion
- Animated Armor
- Banshee
- Basilisk
- Yochlol
- Bulette
- Cloaker
- Darkmantle
- Doppelganger
- Pit Fiend
- Erinyes
- Chain Devil
- Bearded Devil
- Barbed Devil
- Spined Devil
- Ice Devil
- Nalfeshnee
- Glabrezu
- Chasme
- Barlgura
- Horned Devil
- Balor
- Shadow Dragon
- Vrock
- Dretch
- Goristro
- Hezrou
- Manes
- Quasit
- Planetar
- Imp
- Displacer Beast
- Carrion Crawler
- Rug of Smothering
- Bugbear Chief
- Bugbear
- Vine Blight
- Twig Blight
- Needle Blight
- Bullywug
- Cockatrice
- Lemure
- Solar
- Deva
- Cyclops
- Centaur
- Dinosaurs (All six of them)
- Flying Sword
- Crawling Claw
If it didn’t make such a good boss fight by virtue of being a dragon, it would be so much lower.
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