Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Unlike the chromatic dragons, and gold/silver metallic dragons, I can never even remember what the difference between them is. Probably because the difference is "copper alloy", "copper alloy", and "pure copper". Bronze is the worst -- while traditionally it was made with tin, arsenic bronze was a thing and it wasn't that rare to add lead to bronze as well.
I'm guessing brass and bronze are in there because EGG didn't want to use the other pure metals of antiquity (iron, lead, tin, mercury) for 'good' dragons, but I'm always left with "okay, which reddish-brown metal is it again?" In the same position I'd probably have gone with tin/mercury/copper/silver/gold and left out iron and steel.
I hear you. I had one I used as a major NPC in a campaign, and every time it came up I had to look at my notes to see if it was brass or bronze. At least he could have picked metals that started with different letters.
And not that it matters, but imho both an iron dragon and/or a mercury dragon would have been badass.
Mercury dragons have been in the game since AD&D, they've just never been a core dragon type.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Yeah, iirc iron was, too, in some dragon magazine article.
I agree that alloys are less intuitive for remembering the specifics of a dragon's signature capabilities or traits than primary colors. But the metallic dragons themselves are well-established, fun, and perhaps most importantly, easily distinguished from chromatics by most inhabitants of a given setting in-universe.
I don't think they're that difficult to keep straight though. Gold and Silver are easy due to their fame, and get you fire and ice. Brass is also fire, because hey, City of Brass, easy enough to remember. That leaves Copper and Bronze; the way I remember those is that Copper is greenish (because patina) so they're the acid one, which means Bronze must be lightning by process of elimination.
Having said that - the part I do struggle with are their secondary breath weapons, but remembering those isn't really necessary when you can just look it up.
I wasn't complaining about metallic dragons in general; I'm fine with silver/gold through I'd be tempted to rework their breath weapons slightly. I was complaining about brass/bronze/copper.
I'm aware, which is why I addressed those specifically in the part you omitted.
Looking at the part I omitted:
I'm not sure that the City of Brass is that memorable. As for the others, all copper alloys turn green (including brass, bronze, high copper alloys of gold, ...), since the green is CuO, and the natural association for lightning is copper (as it's used for electrical wires).
As you yourself just said, the copper is the reason for that 😛
As for the City of Brass not being memorable... I mean, anyone who doesn't/can't is welcome to come up with their own mnemonic.
I will never forget the primary breath weapon of bronze dragons (which then allows me to remember the other two "lesser" metallics), but that's more because I created an entire story line around it...