there are a few chromatic dragons, black, white, red, blue, and green. but no yellow, and green is the only mix color, so where are the others, the existance of all the solid color dragons implies a yellow dragon, but the green dragon implies more mix dragons (orange, purple, and grey)
ive come up with a few potential new dragons, wizards take note
yellow dragon: a long and serpentine dragon, smaller than others, has a highly concentrated plasma beam breath that does fire/radiant damage (whichever does more to the target) and can scream to do thunder damage, found in deserts
orange dragon: a big ocean dragon, not a great flier and has dinky little legs like koolasuchus, but it the biggest dragon alive, it lives in big shipwrecks and sunken cities or caves in open ocean water where it attacks ships and hunts whales, imagine a giant flying sea serpent as the BBEG of a pirate campaign!
purple dragon: necrosis dragons, weaker and slower than others but can spit a lingering necrotic gas that kills people and turns them undead
grey dragon: a big armored lava dragon, covered in stone and metal infused scales and osteoderms, its got a big club and isnt a great flier, but can spit a huge blast of lava/magma that sticks around for a ton of turns and can trap players (like the purple dragon but buffer). lives in mountains and likes dwarven cities.
more dragons that re based in different shades or mixed colors could also exist, though im probably not going to come up with anything special for them here
teal dragon (blue-green)
chartreuse dragon (yellow-green)
amber/rust dragon (red-orange)
honey (?) dragon (yellow-orange)
magenta dragon (purple-red)
navy dragon (purple-blue)
brown dragon (orange-black)
maroon dragon (red-black)
pink dragon (red-white)
thats all i could come up with, feel free to comment ideas
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Hello dearest adventurers! I am the Confused Introvert, i dont know too much about D&D, but im the king of oddly specific and almost useless homebrew cantraps/low level spells, and am currently working on a setting called "Illogical Wizardry" where all of my useless and somewhat absurd spells are implemented to replace the good and known ones (mage hand, fireball, vicious mockery, etc)
I could see adding yellow, orange, and purple to the array, those make sense. But then you would need to add three more metallic dragons to balance the scales, and then you would need to add three more gemstone dragons too to fill it all out properly.
I think the tri-color mixes (teal, chartreuse, amber/rust, honey (?), magenta, navy, brown) are taking it a bit too far. (Also amber is a shade of yellow, and brown is a mix of red & green not orange and black. Most of the other colors you named aren’t really “mixed” colors either.) And mixing any other color with black or white just gets you darker or lighter shades of those other colors, so again, not really necessary. (I suggest googling “color wheel” and “color theory” and doing a bit of research if this really does interest you to pursue.)
The chromatic dragons have representation on each of Tiamat's five heads. That's been a staple of D&D monster design since at least AD&D. Dragons of other colors have shown up in homebrew, articles, maybe some adventures. One could take a small box of crayola crayons,. the eight pack and expand your dragon coloration, or you could go for the big box and create 120 colors of dragons. But to what end other than demonstrating knowing a list of colors? Then you could go real deep into color tiles and you find yourself playing D&D with David Hume who's still asking if you can conceive of a color you're never personally seen before.
Anyway, the problem with parsing the rainbow with chromatic dragons is in the default lore, the five chromatic dragons (and five gemstone dragons). There's sort of a default symmetry to official dragon kind, but again it's possible to parse out varietals, the question would be, "why?" If you're playing a dragon-centric campaign, I suppose there's room for variants or maybe outright abandonment of the usual D&D dragon taxonomy.
FWIW, in my game world, Tiamat was once a prismatic dragon until she was flayed by Bahamut and host of conspirators in an effort to create a stable world. The artifact the Flail of Tiamat had a very different role than its usual association. During the flaying, she was split into the five headed dragon, each of the five being a different aspect of her personality ... she also lost yellow, orange and purple aspects. The yellow dragon is associated with fear, the orange dragon is associated with hatred, and the purple secrecy and forbidden. There's supposedly a ritual to "unify" Tiamat to her prismatic form, but that would end the world as characters know it.
In third party world, Hit Point Press will be kickstarting it's Field Guide for Floral Dragons shortly, that should be quite a bit of variety.
End of the day, D&D generally lands to 5/5/5 of three kinds of dragons because it's "good enough" for most playing, and like any monster in the game, a DM's granted license to create a greater variety if they're world building or their actual game needs it.
yes i was referencing the color wheel. and im an artist, im familiar with this, i was just trying to come up with some other dragons. i dont use the metal and gem dragos that much but could easily add more, there are 9 total metallic dragons (as far as i know) so it doesnt need much balancing, and there are about 7 gem dragons. so basically any reference to balance is inacurate
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Hello dearest adventurers! I am the Confused Introvert, i dont know too much about D&D, but im the king of oddly specific and almost useless homebrew cantraps/low level spells, and am currently working on a setting called "Illogical Wizardry" where all of my useless and somewhat absurd spells are implemented to replace the good and known ones (mage hand, fireball, vicious mockery, etc)
im just trying to come up with more dragon ideas here! not trying to upset anyone, i like dragons and like making little ideas for campagins. im pretty new to dnd so i dont know that much, sorry if anyone got upset by this post
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Hello dearest adventurers! I am the Confused Introvert, i dont know too much about D&D, but im the king of oddly specific and almost useless homebrew cantraps/low level spells, and am currently working on a setting called "Illogical Wizardry" where all of my useless and somewhat absurd spells are implemented to replace the good and known ones (mage hand, fireball, vicious mockery, etc)
…there are 9 total metallic dragons (as far as i know) so it doesnt need much balancing, and there are about 7 gem dragons. so basically any reference to balance is inacurate
It was mentioned above, but previous editions had those colors, additional gem and metallic dragons, and a whole bunch of other categories (and that's just the true dragons). One could always update them for 5e. I'd be surprised if no one has already made that available online. You can read about them on the Forgotten Realms wiki.
In our family setting, Tiamat had a sister with the other five heads (yellow, orange, pink, brown, purple). She mortally wounded the sister, limiting the power of the 'lesser five' chromatic dragons. We did end up adding other gem and metallic dragons.
On a bit of a tangent, shouldn't the crystal dragon have been diamond to begin with?
Interestingly, this was originally addressed wayyyyyyy back in the day in "Dragon" magazine #65 from June 1982. Non-published chromatics were discussed in an article titled "The Missing Dragons - Completing the colors" by Richard Alan Lloyd, who would go on to publish several other articles about other types of dragons (although I couldn't tell you which issues those were in off the top of my head). He argued that the fact we have blue and red dragons, but NOT yellow, also being a primary color, while having the secondary color of green, must then mean that yellow exists. The explanation for this being that green dragons are the result of the mating between blue and green dragons. It would then follow that orange (from red and yellow) and purple (from red and blue) dragons would also exist. In this article he also gave AD&D stat blocks and descriptions for these three. Note that black and white dragons were not included in this particular article, as those are not primary or secondary colors.
If you're curious, a quick Google search of the article will pull up a downloadable PDF of the whole issue. Not sure if I'm allowed to post that here.
Earlier commenter mentioned someone on YouTube who has a series about various types of dragons; I'd also recommend checking out Dungeon Dad's Monster of the Week series. He did a whole line of videos on the "lost" dragons and gives 5E stat blocks for every monster he makes a video on. There are quite a few dragons that were published in earlier editions of D&D, a few of which you mentioned, like brown and pink. Dungeon Dad is where I learned all of this; I wasn't there to experience it lol
I'll also add that while it doesn't seem to me like you were upsetting anyone, there's a bit more interesting logic you could add to a few of your ideas' breath weapons. Purple dragons are the ones that would have the plasma breath weapon, listed as a "high-energy lance," in the Dragon article, with that idea being a fusion of the fire and lightning of its red and blue parents. Yellow dragons share the amphibious nature of their green offspring. Similarly, Lloyd posited that the yellow would breathe sodium chloride, which could blind and restrain creatures caught in it. Green dragons would receive their poisonous breath in the form of chlorine, with the electricity of the blue's breath breaking down the salt from the yellow. Orange dragons have a breath of red's fire breaking down the yellow's salt into a sodium - the kind in the periodic element form that explodes upon contact with water, and is flammable with oxygen contact.
…there are 9 total metallic dragons (as far as i know) so it doesnt need much balancing, and there are about 7 gem dragons. so basically any reference to balance is inacurate
Nope, 5 Chromatic, 5 Metalic. 5 Gemstone.
Nah, the 5,5,5 thing you are referencing is the standard set of evil, good, and neutral with respect to evil and good dragons.
There are also dragon sets in the deep lore for chaos, law and neutral with respect to chaos and law. There are a set of Ferrous Dragons etc.
Also there is lore for why Tiamat doesn't have heads for Yellow & Purple et al. She had a (twin?) sister whom she murdered that had those other colors under her purvue. Tiamat births the 5 colors under her purview and since no one is birthing fresh members of the rarer colors but themselves, they aren't enough of them for folk to really know them as much as they know of Tiamats children.
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Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
im just trying to come up with more dragon ideas here! not trying to upset anyone, i like dragons and like making little ideas for campagins. im pretty new to dnd so i dont know that much, sorry if anyone got upset by this post
I don't think anyone is upset, just trying to answer your question of what's up with that. Obviously, D&D was not operating off a color wheel here.
The "official" chromatic dragons are deeply rooted in lore. They tie back to Tiamat and they represent pure aspects of what it means to be a dragon. None of them feel tacked on or added just for the sake of adding another type of dragon. If you're looking to make a deep, immersive world, your BBEG-level creatures need this kind of context within the world and its history.
For a lot of folks, just adding a purple dragon because there isn't one yet can feel really tacked-on and artificial without this kind of deeper lore connection behind it. Doesn't mean you can't do it for fun, but it's something to think about if you're looking to level up your homebrew.
Also I'd suggest that if dragons shaded all the way into tertiary colors, identifying them by their colors would probably fall by the wayside. Instead of having to remember that the Chartreuse dragon breathes rotten eggs, people would just start calling it the Rotten Egg dragon. The colors only work as an identifier if there are few enough to easily remember which does what.
If you poke around on the internet a little bit, you can find several more dragon variants in Dragon magazine:
Issue 65: yellow, orange, and purple dragons
Issue 24: six Chinese dragons
Issue 37: six crystal dragons
Issue 62: faerie, grey, and steel dragons
The problem, in my opinion, is that there's very little lore with any of these. They're basically just stat blocks with some info on where they might be found, and how they fight. I'd have preferred they also get a tasty bit of lore or new ability. Just my opinion, but hearing "this dragon is yellow" is less interesting than something like "this dragon is the result of a mad wizard's experiments, and legends say it retreats into the ethereal plane if it encounters anything powerful enough to threaten it." Maybe its breath weapon banishes or petrifies targets instead of inflicting damage? Dragons are such an iconic monster, I feel like the players should always be worried that they're not fully prepared to face one, and just changing up the damage type may not be enough.
I'm not trying to discourage anyone from making new dragon types and filling out the "missing" colors... just trying to suggest that some lore and a few surprises get thrown in, too.
Hello dearest adventurers! I am the Confused Introvert, i dont know too much about D&D, but im the king of oddly specific and almost useless homebrew cantraps/low level spells, and am currently working on a setting called "Illogical Wizardry" where all of my useless and somewhat absurd spells are implemented to replace the good and known ones (mage hand, fireball, vicious mockery, etc)
In the vast and varied multiverse of Dungeons & Dragons, there exists a plane where elemental energies converge in a spectacular display of raw power. It is here that a Red Dragon, embodying the relentless fury of fire, and a Blue Dragon, the living manifestation of crackling lightning, crossed paths. Their encounter, fueled by curiosity and a shared sense of draconic superiority, resulted in an unexpected alliance. Over time, this alliance deepened, leading to the birth of a new species - the Violet Dragon.
The Violet Dragon embodies the raw elemental fury of its parents. Its scales shimmer with a unique iridescence, a blend of its parents' red and blue hues, resulting in a mesmerizing violet. This dragon's breath, a fusion of fire and lightning, manifests as a conductive plasma, a testament to its unique heritage. The Violet Dragon inherited the Red Dragon's fiery temper and the Blue Dragon's cunning intellect, making it a formidable creature.
Despite its fearsome abilities, the Violet Dragon remains a rarity, its existence known to only a few scholars and adventurers. Those who have encountered this majestic creature speak of its awe-inspiring presence and the raw power it commands. Yet, the Violet Dragon remains a mystery, its true potential yet to be fully understood.
Armor Class: 19 (natural armor) Hit Points: 225 (18d10 + 108) Speed: 40 ft., climb 40 ft., fly 80 ft.
Multiattack. The dragon can use its Frightful Presence. It then makes three attacks: one with its bite and two with its claws.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d10 + 6) piercing damage plus 3 (1d6) fire damage and 3 (1d6) lightning damage.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d6 + 6) slashing damage.
Tail. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d8 + 6) bludgeoning damage.
Frightful Presence. Each creature of the dragon's choice that is within 120 feet of the dragon and aware of it must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature's saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to the dragon's Frightful Presence for the next 24 hours.
Plasma Breath (Recharge 5-6). The dragon exhales a conductive plasma in a 60-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 19 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 66 (12d10) fire damage and is stunned until the end of its next turn as the electrical current disrupts its nervous system. On a successful save, a creature takes half as much damage and isn't stunned. This breath weapon ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried.
there are a few chromatic dragons, black, white, red, blue, and green. but no yellow, and green is the only mix color, so where are the others, the existance of all the solid color dragons implies a yellow dragon, but the green dragon implies more mix dragons (orange, purple, and grey)
ive come up with a few potential new dragons, wizards take note
yellow dragon: a long and serpentine dragon, smaller than others, has a highly concentrated plasma beam breath that does fire/radiant damage (whichever does more to the target) and can scream to do thunder damage, found in deserts
orange dragon: a big ocean dragon, not a great flier and has dinky little legs like koolasuchus, but it the biggest dragon alive, it lives in big shipwrecks and sunken cities or caves in open ocean water where it attacks ships and hunts whales, imagine a giant flying sea serpent as the BBEG of a pirate campaign!
purple dragon: necrosis dragons, weaker and slower than others but can spit a lingering necrotic gas that kills people and turns them undead
grey dragon: a big armored lava dragon, covered in stone and metal infused scales and osteoderms, its got a big club and isnt a great flier, but can spit a huge blast of lava/magma that sticks around for a ton of turns and can trap players (like the purple dragon but buffer). lives in mountains and likes dwarven cities.
more dragons that re based in different shades or mixed colors could also exist, though im probably not going to come up with anything special for them here
teal dragon (blue-green)
chartreuse dragon (yellow-green)
amber/rust dragon (red-orange)
honey (?) dragon (yellow-orange)
magenta dragon (purple-red)
navy dragon (purple-blue)
brown dragon (orange-black)
maroon dragon (red-black)
pink dragon (red-white)
thats all i could come up with, feel free to comment ideas
Hello dearest adventurers! I am the Confused Introvert, i dont know too much about D&D, but im the king of oddly specific and almost useless homebrew cantraps/low level spells, and am currently working on a setting called "Illogical Wizardry" where all of my useless and somewhat absurd spells are implemented to replace the good and known ones (mage hand, fireball, vicious mockery, etc)
When people homebrew other dragon colors, purple is almost always psionic or psychic related. I don't really have anything else to add here, though.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
I could see adding yellow, orange, and purple to the array, those make sense. But then you would need to add three more metallic dragons to balance the scales, and then you would need to add three more gemstone dragons too to fill it all out properly.
I think the tri-color mixes (teal, chartreuse,
amber/rust, honey (?), magenta, navy, brown) are taking it a bit too far. (Also amber is a shade of yellow, and brown is a mix of red & green not orange and black. Most of the other colors you named aren’t really “mixed” colors either.) And mixing any other color with black or white just gets you darker or lighter shades of those other colors, so again, not really necessary. (I suggest googling “color wheel” and “color theory” and doing a bit of research if this really does interest you to pursue.)Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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Yeah, 5e leaves a lot out of it's books. If you delve back you find all the different kinds of dragons.
This fellow is revieing all of them.
Dragon Lore - YouTube
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
You forgot the famous Rouge Dragon well known for its stealth abilities.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
The chromatic dragons have representation on each of Tiamat's five heads. That's been a staple of D&D monster design since at least AD&D. Dragons of other colors have shown up in homebrew, articles, maybe some adventures. One could take a small box of crayola crayons,. the eight pack and expand your dragon coloration, or you could go for the big box and create 120 colors of dragons. But to what end other than demonstrating knowing a list of colors? Then you could go real deep into color tiles and you find yourself playing D&D with David Hume who's still asking if you can conceive of a color you're never personally seen before.
Anyway, the problem with parsing the rainbow with chromatic dragons is in the default lore, the five chromatic dragons (and five gemstone dragons). There's sort of a default symmetry to official dragon kind, but again it's possible to parse out varietals, the question would be, "why?" If you're playing a dragon-centric campaign, I suppose there's room for variants or maybe outright abandonment of the usual D&D dragon taxonomy.
FWIW, in my game world, Tiamat was once a prismatic dragon until she was flayed by Bahamut and host of conspirators in an effort to create a stable world. The artifact the Flail of Tiamat had a very different role than its usual association. During the flaying, she was split into the five headed dragon, each of the five being a different aspect of her personality ... she also lost yellow, orange and purple aspects. The yellow dragon is associated with fear, the orange dragon is associated with hatred, and the purple secrecy and forbidden. There's supposedly a ritual to "unify" Tiamat to her prismatic form, but that would end the world as characters know it.
In third party world, Hit Point Press will be kickstarting it's Field Guide for Floral Dragons shortly, that should be quite a bit of variety.
End of the day, D&D generally lands to 5/5/5 of three kinds of dragons because it's "good enough" for most playing, and like any monster in the game, a DM's granted license to create a greater variety if they're world building or their actual game needs it.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
yes i was referencing the color wheel. and im an artist, im familiar with this, i was just trying to come up with some other dragons. i dont use the metal and gem dragos that much but could easily add more, there are 9 total metallic dragons (as far as i know) so it doesnt need much balancing, and there are about 7 gem dragons. so basically any reference to balance is inacurate
Hello dearest adventurers! I am the Confused Introvert, i dont know too much about D&D, but im the king of oddly specific and almost useless homebrew cantraps/low level spells, and am currently working on a setting called "Illogical Wizardry" where all of my useless and somewhat absurd spells are implemented to replace the good and known ones (mage hand, fireball, vicious mockery, etc)
im just trying to come up with more dragon ideas here! not trying to upset anyone, i like dragons and like making little ideas for campagins. im pretty new to dnd so i dont know that much, sorry if anyone got upset by this post
Hello dearest adventurers! I am the Confused Introvert, i dont know too much about D&D, but im the king of oddly specific and almost useless homebrew cantraps/low level spells, and am currently working on a setting called "Illogical Wizardry" where all of my useless and somewhat absurd spells are implemented to replace the good and known ones (mage hand, fireball, vicious mockery, etc)
Nope, 5 Chromatic, 5 Metalic. 5 Gemstone.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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It was mentioned above, but previous editions had those colors, additional gem and metallic dragons, and a whole bunch of other categories (and that's just the true dragons). One could always update them for 5e. I'd be surprised if no one has already made that available online. You can read about them on the Forgotten Realms wiki.
In our family setting, Tiamat had a sister with the other five heads (yellow, orange, pink, brown, purple). She mortally wounded the sister, limiting the power of the 'lesser five' chromatic dragons. We did end up adding other gem and metallic dragons.
On a bit of a tangent, shouldn't the crystal dragon have been diamond to begin with?
Interestingly, this was originally addressed wayyyyyyy back in the day in "Dragon" magazine #65 from June 1982. Non-published chromatics were discussed in an article titled "The Missing Dragons - Completing the colors" by Richard Alan Lloyd, who would go on to publish several other articles about other types of dragons (although I couldn't tell you which issues those were in off the top of my head). He argued that the fact we have blue and red dragons, but NOT yellow, also being a primary color, while having the secondary color of green, must then mean that yellow exists. The explanation for this being that green dragons are the result of the mating between blue and green dragons. It would then follow that orange (from red and yellow) and purple (from red and blue) dragons would also exist. In this article he also gave AD&D stat blocks and descriptions for these three. Note that black and white dragons were not included in this particular article, as those are not primary or secondary colors.
If you're curious, a quick Google search of the article will pull up a downloadable PDF of the whole issue. Not sure if I'm allowed to post that here.
Earlier commenter mentioned someone on YouTube who has a series about various types of dragons; I'd also recommend checking out Dungeon Dad's Monster of the Week series. He did a whole line of videos on the "lost" dragons and gives 5E stat blocks for every monster he makes a video on. There are quite a few dragons that were published in earlier editions of D&D, a few of which you mentioned, like brown and pink. Dungeon Dad is where I learned all of this; I wasn't there to experience it lol
I'll also add that while it doesn't seem to me like you were upsetting anyone, there's a bit more interesting logic you could add to a few of your ideas' breath weapons. Purple dragons are the ones that would have the plasma breath weapon, listed as a "high-energy lance," in the Dragon article, with that idea being a fusion of the fire and lightning of its red and blue parents. Yellow dragons share the amphibious nature of their green offspring. Similarly, Lloyd posited that the yellow would breathe sodium chloride, which could blind and restrain creatures caught in it. Green dragons would receive their poisonous breath in the form of chlorine, with the electricity of the blue's breath breaking down the salt from the yellow. Orange dragons have a breath of red's fire breaking down the yellow's salt into a sodium - the kind in the periodic element form that explodes upon contact with water, and is flammable with oxygen contact.
So anyway, I started (Eldritch) blasting
Nah, the 5,5,5 thing you are referencing is the standard set of evil, good, and neutral with respect to evil and good dragons.
There are also dragon sets in the deep lore for chaos, law and neutral with respect to chaos and law. There are a set of Ferrous Dragons etc.
Also there is lore for why Tiamat doesn't have heads for Yellow & Purple et al. She had a (twin?) sister whom she murdered that had those other colors under her purvue. Tiamat births the 5 colors under her purview and since no one is birthing fresh members of the rarer colors but themselves, they aren't enough of them for folk to really know them as much as they know of Tiamats children.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
I don't think anyone is upset, just trying to answer your question of what's up with that. Obviously, D&D was not operating off a color wheel here.
The "official" chromatic dragons are deeply rooted in lore. They tie back to Tiamat and they represent pure aspects of what it means to be a dragon. None of them feel tacked on or added just for the sake of adding another type of dragon. If you're looking to make a deep, immersive world, your BBEG-level creatures need this kind of context within the world and its history.
For a lot of folks, just adding a purple dragon because there isn't one yet can feel really tacked-on and artificial without this kind of deeper lore connection behind it. Doesn't mean you can't do it for fun, but it's something to think about if you're looking to level up your homebrew.
Also I'd suggest that if dragons shaded all the way into tertiary colors, identifying them by their colors would probably fall by the wayside. Instead of having to remember that the Chartreuse dragon breathes rotten eggs, people would just start calling it the Rotten Egg dragon. The colors only work as an identifier if there are few enough to easily remember which does what.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
If you poke around on the internet a little bit, you can find several more dragon variants in Dragon magazine:
Issue 65: yellow, orange, and purple dragons
Issue 24: six Chinese dragons
Issue 37: six crystal dragons
Issue 62: faerie, grey, and steel dragons
The problem, in my opinion, is that there's very little lore with any of these. They're basically just stat blocks with some info on where they might be found, and how they fight. I'd have preferred they also get a tasty bit of lore or new ability. Just my opinion, but hearing "this dragon is yellow" is less interesting than something like "this dragon is the result of a mad wizard's experiments, and legends say it retreats into the ethereal plane if it encounters anything powerful enough to threaten it." Maybe its breath weapon banishes or petrifies targets instead of inflicting damage? Dragons are such an iconic monster, I feel like the players should always be worried that they're not fully prepared to face one, and just changing up the damage type may not be enough.
I'm not trying to discourage anyone from making new dragon types and filling out the "missing" colors... just trying to suggest that some lore and a few surprises get thrown in, too.
i will look into those
Hello dearest adventurers! I am the Confused Introvert, i dont know too much about D&D, but im the king of oddly specific and almost useless homebrew cantraps/low level spells, and am currently working on a setting called "Illogical Wizardry" where all of my useless and somewhat absurd spells are implemented to replace the good and known ones (mage hand, fireball, vicious mockery, etc)
Not so long ago, I created this breed of dragon :
Violet Dragon
Large dragon, neutral evil
In the vast and varied multiverse of Dungeons & Dragons, there exists a plane where elemental energies converge in a spectacular display of raw power. It is here that a Red Dragon, embodying the relentless fury of fire, and a Blue Dragon, the living manifestation of crackling lightning, crossed paths. Their encounter, fueled by curiosity and a shared sense of draconic superiority, resulted in an unexpected alliance. Over time, this alliance deepened, leading to the birth of a new species - the Violet Dragon.
The Violet Dragon embodies the raw elemental fury of its parents. Its scales shimmer with a unique iridescence, a blend of its parents' red and blue hues, resulting in a mesmerizing violet. This dragon's breath, a fusion of fire and lightning, manifests as a conductive plasma, a testament to its unique heritage. The Violet Dragon inherited the Red Dragon's fiery temper and the Blue Dragon's cunning intellect, making it a formidable creature.
Despite its fearsome abilities, the Violet Dragon remains a rarity, its existence known to only a few scholars and adventurers. Those who have encountered this majestic creature speak of its awe-inspiring presence and the raw power it commands. Yet, the Violet Dragon remains a mystery, its true potential yet to be fully understood.
Armor Class: 19 (natural armor)
Hit Points: 225 (18d10 + 108)
Speed: 40 ft., climb 40 ft., fly 80 ft.
STR: 23 (+6), DEX: 10 (+0), CON: 22 (+6), INT: 16 (+3), WIS: 13 (+1), CHA: 17 (+3)
Saving Throws: Dex +5, Con +11, Wis +6, Cha +8
Skills: Perception +11, Stealth +5
Damage Immunities: fire, lightning
Senses: blindsight 60 ft., darkvision 120 ft., passive Perception 21
Languages: Common, Draconic
Challenge: 15 (13,000 XP)
Actions
Multiattack. The dragon can use its Frightful Presence. It then makes three attacks: one with its bite and two with its claws.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d10 + 6) piercing damage plus 3 (1d6) fire damage and 3 (1d6) lightning damage.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d6 + 6) slashing damage.
Tail. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 15 (2d8 + 6) bludgeoning damage.
Frightful Presence. Each creature of the dragon's choice that is within 120 feet of the dragon and aware of it must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature's saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to the dragon's Frightful Presence for the next 24 hours.
Plasma Breath (Recharge 5-6). The dragon exhales a conductive plasma in a 60-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 19 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 66 (12d10) fire damage and is stunned until the end of its next turn as the electrical current disrupts its nervous system. On a successful save, a creature takes half as much damage and isn't stunned. This breath weapon ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried.
My Homebrew: Spells Subclasses