So I just watched a clip of Todd Kendrick's interview with Jeremy Crawford, talking about Fizban's. Jeremy said something very interesting in this clip:
"...the book talks a lot about how dragons are a manifestation of the material plane itself... Dragons are to the material plane what angels are to the upper planes... and what fiends are to the lower planes. They are an incarnation of the plane's essence."
I was really excited to hear this because this is something that I have thought about (I know it sounds like I'm making this up to get attention, but I'm not). I made a home-brew world where dragons were practically extinct, but when I wanted them to be more present in my next setting I thought about the nature of dragons. Wondered about what their role in the world is. What sets them apart from other monsters so much? That's when I came to the conclusion that almost every creature type relates in some way to other planes, some extreme on the alignment chart, or both.
Celestials are tied to the upper planes and goodness,
Constructs and giants are creatures of Law, be it the morons of Mechanus, or the giants bound by the ordning
Elementals form in the different corners of the elemental chaos
Fairy-folk live in the feywild
Devils and Demons revel in evil acts from the lower planes
Aberrations are the creatures that stalk the space beyond our stars
All these creatures of other realms and extremes in morality. Where does that leave dragons? They are not lumped in with other lesser monsters like mimics and yetis, so what makes dragons so special?
Much like how the creatures listed above are representations of the planes and societies they come from, dragons embody what it's like to be in the middle of all these clashing ideals and extraplanar interferences. A dragon is not bound to good or evil, law or chaos. Dragons are masters of their own destinies. Each one a free spirit, able to choose the path it takes in its long, long, lifetime. Some dragons may take this as a call to travel this plane that is so symbolically connected to their existence, marveling at the beauties the smaller creatures have manage to create despite such short lives. Other dragons may use this world view to justify forcing their will upon weaker people, believing that it is their birthright to do as they please no matter how many cities burn.
For good or for ill, the nature of dragons as a whole is to reflect the material plane. The world at the center of the Great Wheel. The world that stands, never shaking from its position of cosmic neutrality.
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You can't drown someone with Create Water. If your lungs are containers than your bones are objects. Any Siege monster that attacks you deals double damage because it’s attacking your bones.
Yeah, this is actually about where I ended up, too, weirdly enough.
In my cosmology, there are the Arcane Planes, the Elemental Planes, and the Divine (or Philosophical) Planes. Dragons pass through all of them in dream form as they, essentially, hunt. But, in the course of all this travel, they also pollinate the plane they physically live on with the right amount of magic and spirit to create life. That's what the Prime Material is - life. The only material that really is an alloy of the other ones - take any element away from a lifeform and it dies. And in my head, the "alloy" idea would tie together a Bahamut - Tiamat campaign someday. I hadn't bothered really thinking that far ahead.
I think a lot of folks "big monsters" land in similar orderings in a lot of DMs games ... more proof that we're all living in some sort of Jeremy Crawford adjacent simulation and Todd Kendrick is his herald.
In my game Dragons are similarly tied to "creation" of the prime material plane, the Bahamut/Tiamat riff among dragons is actually a phenomena of prime material planes being situated within an Out Planes framed cosmology. There are actually other Draconic entities amidst my game worlds' equivalent of Phlogiston ,,., not quite spell jammer, but with no how, or knowing the right entities ,,, D&D IN SPAAAAAAACE is possible, some stars are instrumental to creation, other stars have a more alien (though they'd say nativist) relationship with the prime material universe. Anyway, Gem Dragons exist as evidence that there is something, something closer to the stars, about dragons interrupted by the riff of metalic/chromatic. The OG Cult of the Dragon with the dracoliches is actually with a few other Dragon factions are trying to subvert the metallic/chromatic rift to reevaluate the place of dragonkind, but it's sort of heresy and only spoken of in cult type associations.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Well, the nature of forgotten realms dragons is highly debatable (but likely comes down to a common descendent, and a modicum of innate magic), Here are some of the dragon origins in my setting.
Durinis: dragons are reptiles or amphibians pumped full of nature or mind-spirits, and thus are greatly affected, really they were a science experiment, in this world, couatls are dragons, made from snakes and various celestial spirits.
The pact worlds: The dragons are manifestations of the plane of arakatis (A plane characterized by a combination of arcane and elemental power), except for gem and void dragons, who came from the far realm.
Arcanos-dragons are what happens when a lizard eats a powerful wizard or several weaker ones.
Mechtos-Dragons are descended by a deity representing totality, but usually come from their 7 children (Tiamat, Bahamut, lernarea, knockos which are focused on separate alignments. Plus archis, spiris, and backos, based of mind, body, and spirit.)
Valeros-Dragons exist because people think they do, they are powerful and posses great intelligence, but not as wise as they often depicted, as they only came into existence 50 valerian years (about 63 earth years) ago.
“ the book talks a lot about how dragons are a manifestation of the material plane itself... Dragons are to the material plane what angels are to the upper planes... and what fiends are to the lower planes. They are an incarnation of the plane's essence." “ now there is an interesting concept to play with. for what follows I’m looking strictly at the Forgotten Realms. According to The Grand History of the Realms, a massive catastrophe hits Faerun in -31,000 DR that reshapes the planet, rearranges the stars, and massively alters the planet’s climate. At the end of this tens of thousands of dragon eggs hatch all over the planet. By -30,000 DR the dragons have wiped out the last of the creator race civilizations (Sarrukh, Batrachi, & Aearee) and Dragons rule the planet. As the dragons rise to power so too do the Giants eventually leading to a war between them. In the middle of all of this some of the powers of the Feywild open gates into Faerun (-27,000 DR) letting the first elves into Faerun. Trying to merge the two it looks like Faerun was not well pleased by the actions of the creator races (especially the Batrachi) and decided to start over with a new top predator
So I just watched a clip of Todd Kendrick's interview with Jeremy Crawford, talking about Fizban's. Jeremy said something very interesting in this clip:
I was really excited to hear this because this is something that I have thought about (I know it sounds like I'm making this up to get attention, but I'm not). I made a home-brew world where dragons were practically extinct, but when I wanted them to be more present in my next setting I thought about the nature of dragons. Wondered about what their role in the world is. What sets them apart from other monsters so much? That's when I came to the conclusion that almost every creature type relates in some way to other planes, some extreme on the alignment chart, or both.
All these creatures of other realms and extremes in morality. Where does that leave dragons? They are not lumped in with other lesser monsters like mimics and yetis, so what makes dragons so special?
Much like how the creatures listed above are representations of the planes and societies they come from, dragons embody what it's like to be in the middle of all these clashing ideals and extraplanar interferences. A dragon is not bound to good or evil, law or chaos. Dragons are masters of their own destinies. Each one a free spirit, able to choose the path it takes in its long, long, lifetime. Some dragons may take this as a call to travel this plane that is so symbolically connected to their existence, marveling at the beauties the smaller creatures have manage to create despite such short lives. Other dragons may use this world view to justify forcing their will upon weaker people, believing that it is their birthright to do as they please no matter how many cities burn.
For good or for ill, the nature of dragons as a whole is to reflect the material plane. The world at the center of the Great Wheel. The world that stands, never shaking from its position of cosmic neutrality.
You can't drown someone with Create Water. If your lungs are containers than your bones are objects. Any Siege monster that attacks you deals double damage because it’s attacking your bones.
Yeah, this is actually about where I ended up, too, weirdly enough.
In my cosmology, there are the Arcane Planes, the Elemental Planes, and the Divine (or Philosophical) Planes. Dragons pass through all of them in dream form as they, essentially, hunt. But, in the course of all this travel, they also pollinate the plane they physically live on with the right amount of magic and spirit to create life. That's what the Prime Material is - life. The only material that really is an alloy of the other ones - take any element away from a lifeform and it dies. And in my head, the "alloy" idea would tie together a Bahamut - Tiamat campaign someday. I hadn't bothered really thinking that far ahead.
I think a lot of folks "big monsters" land in similar orderings in a lot of DMs games ... more proof that we're all living in some sort of Jeremy Crawford adjacent simulation and Todd Kendrick is his herald.
In my game Dragons are similarly tied to "creation" of the prime material plane, the Bahamut/Tiamat riff among dragons is actually a phenomena of prime material planes being situated within an Out Planes framed cosmology. There are actually other Draconic entities amidst my game worlds' equivalent of Phlogiston ,,., not quite spell jammer, but with no how, or knowing the right entities ,,, D&D IN SPAAAAAAACE is possible, some stars are instrumental to creation, other stars have a more alien (though they'd say nativist) relationship with the prime material universe. Anyway, Gem Dragons exist as evidence that there is something, something closer to the stars, about dragons interrupted by the riff of metalic/chromatic. The OG Cult of the Dragon with the dracoliches is actually with a few other Dragon factions are trying to subvert the metallic/chromatic rift to reevaluate the place of dragonkind, but it's sort of heresy and only spoken of in cult type associations.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Well, the nature of forgotten realms dragons is highly debatable (but likely comes down to a common descendent, and a modicum of innate magic), Here are some of the dragon origins in my setting.
Durinis: dragons are reptiles or amphibians pumped full of nature or mind-spirits, and thus are greatly affected, really they were a science experiment, in this world, couatls are dragons, made from snakes and various celestial spirits.
The pact worlds: The dragons are manifestations of the plane of arakatis (A plane characterized by a combination of arcane and elemental power), except for gem and void dragons, who came from the far realm.
Arcanos-dragons are what happens when a lizard eats a powerful wizard or several weaker ones.
Mechtos-Dragons are descended by a deity representing totality, but usually come from their 7 children (Tiamat, Bahamut, lernarea, knockos which are focused on separate alignments. Plus archis, spiris, and backos, based of mind, body, and spirit.)
Valeros-Dragons exist because people think they do, they are powerful and posses great intelligence, but not as wise as they often depicted, as they only came into existence 50 valerian years (about 63 earth years) ago.
My homebrew content: Monsters, subclasses, Magic items, Feats, spells, races, backgrounds
“ the book talks a lot about how dragons are a manifestation of the material plane itself... Dragons are to the material plane what angels are to the upper planes... and what fiends are to the lower planes. They are an incarnation of the plane's essence." “ now there is an interesting concept to play with. for what follows I’m looking strictly at the Forgotten Realms. According to The Grand History of the Realms, a massive catastrophe hits Faerun in -31,000 DR that reshapes the planet, rearranges the stars, and massively alters the planet’s climate. At the end of this tens of thousands of dragon eggs hatch all over the planet. By -30,000 DR the dragons have wiped out the last of the creator race civilizations (Sarrukh, Batrachi, & Aearee) and Dragons rule the planet. As the dragons rise to power so too do the Giants eventually leading to a war between them. In the middle of all of this some of the powers of the Feywild open gates into Faerun (-27,000 DR) letting the first elves into Faerun.
Trying to merge the two it looks like Faerun was not well pleased by the actions of the creator races (especially the Batrachi) and decided to start over with a new top predator
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
This reminds me of how Merlin speaks about The Dragon in the Excalibur 1980 movie. Those scenes are food for creative thought.