Purple Dragons, also known as Deep Dragons, are among the rarest and most dangerous of the true dragons. Lurking miles beneath the surface, these dragons relentlessly explore the vast reaches of the Underdark. Deep dragons are master manipulators who seek to control other creatures through lies, misdirection and mental domination.

Zz'pora's most distinctive feature was her two, horned heads, the result of exposure to the faerzress of the Underdark. At roughly fifty feet in size, Zz'Pzora was smaller than most other deep dragons. Her scales were iridescent, glowing purple, and her wings were amethyst in color.

Deep dragons live in caves, caverns, subterranean vaults, and other Underdark regions, where they remain safe from sunlight, which harms them. They can hear distant noises transmitted through rock and soil. Accustomed to the ways of the sound-distorting depths, a deep dragon can catch the sound of the merest cave cricket skittering up a wall on the far side of a vast cavern.

Because deep dragons like to explore, they can stray from their permanent lairs for great lengths of time. Older purples with sufficient resources seek scrolls that allow them to travel quickly between their lairs and the frontiers of their subterranean expeditions.

A deep dragon’s permanent lair is a honeycomb of rocky hollows connected by narrow, winding tunnels. Many tunnels lead to dead ends or traps and require real feats of exploration for anyone new to the lair to find a way through. Sometimes purple dragons make their lairs in the structures of previous Underdark residents, if the chambers and connecting hallways are elaborate enough for the dragons’ taste.

Deep Delvers. Purple dragons have a love of exploration and travel.  They spend most of their time exploring the endless depths of the Underdark and seeking out lore of exotic faraway places above ground where they dare not venture.  Though most of their time is spent getting further and further away from their lair, they always find their way back, following strong homing instincts to return to their hoard.

Puppet Masters. Purple dragons are incredibly intelligent.  They are masters at gathering and exploiting information to manipulate other creatures.  Unlike the green dragon, which manipulate through charm and force of personality, purple dragons do so through blackmail and cunning.  They are masters at analyzing other creatures, reading faces for tells, interpreting body language, and using their natural stealthiness to spy on targets.

Dark Shadows. Though they prefer the albino, sightless fish that populate the underground rivers and seas of the Underdark, they will hunt virtually any living creature they come across.  They prefer to stalk their prey, watching and waiting from the darkness, their dark coloration and sleek physique helping them to blend in with their surrounding, making them difficult to spot even for creatures with darkvision.

As with most natives to deep places, sunlight is a purple dragon's bane.  But that doesn't mean they confine themselves to the Underdark.  They leave it quite often, plane shifting to the Shadowfell.  Their psychic inclination and affinity for dark energies leaves them perfectly adjusted for travel through the Plane of Shadow.

Purple dragons often make their nests near areas infested with the undead, or lure them to their lairs in the hopes that their eggs might be influenced by the negative energy radiating from them.  Most often, it does, granting the next generation the ability to plane shift to the Shadowfell.  In some rare cases, the exposure to negative energy from undead gathered by its parent and the mutagenic faerzress energies of the Underdark causes a purple dragon wyrmling to hatch as a shadow dragon.

Lair Actions

On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the dragon takes a lair action to cause one of the following effects; the dragon can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row:

• Hallucinogenic fog billows around one creature the dragon can see within 120 feet of it. The creature must succeed on a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw or be charmed by the dragon until initiative count 20 on the next round. While the creature is charmed, the dragon has a telepathic link with it as long as the two creatures are on the same plane of existence. The dragon can use this telepathic link to issue commands to the creature while it is conscious (no action required), which the creature does its best to obey. The dragon can specify a simple and general course of action, such as "Attack that creature," "Run over there," or "Fetch that object." If the creature completes the order and doesn't receive further direction from the dragon, it defends and preserves itself to the best of its ability
• Magical darkness spreads from a point the dragon chooses within 60 feet of it, filling a 15-foot-radius sphere until the dragon dismisses it as an action, uses this lair action again, or dies. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with darkvision can’t see through this darkness, and no light, magical or otherwise can illuminate it. Creatures within the area are [Tooltip Not Found].  Creatures with blindsight, tremorsense or truesight, or that do not rely on sight are unaffected.
• One creature the dragon can see within 120 feet of it must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw or be moved up to 30 feet in any direction. During this forced movement, the creature ignores difficult terrain and can move through obstacles and other creatures, but it must end it's movement in an unoccupied space.

Regional Effects

The region containing a legendary deep dragon’s lair is warped by the dragon’s magic, which creates one or more of the following effects:

• Any creature which falls asleep within 1 mile of the dragon's lair is afflicted with terrible nightmares. Any creature that finishes a short or long rest within this area suffers 1 level of [condition]exhaustion[condition] on waking.
• The caves and passageways of the Underdark seem to shift endlessly within 1 mile of the dragon's lair. A creature can spend its action to carefully examine their surroundings and attempt an Intelligence (investigation) check against the dragon's spell save DC. A creature who discerns the illusion for what it is, sees it as a vague image superimposed on the terrain.
• Creatures within 5 miles of a deep dragon feel as if they are being followed, even when they are not