Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If the dragon fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.
Mimicry. The dragon can mimic animal sounds and humanoid voices. A creature that hears the sounds can tell they are imitations with a successful DC 14 Wisdom (Insight check.
Multiattack. The dragon can use its Frightful Presence. it then makes one Bite attack and two Claw attacks.
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 17 (2d10 + 6) Piercing damage plus 7 (2d6) Acid damage.
Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 10 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) Piercing damage, and if the target is a Large or smaller creature, it has the Grappled condition.
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 14 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.
Acid Breath (Recharge 5–6). The dragon exhales sticky, corrosive acid in n a 60-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 19 Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 40 (9d8) Acid damage immediately and 18 (4d8) Acid damage at the end of its next turn. On a successful save, a creature takes half as much of the initial damage and no damage at the end of its next turn.
The dragon can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. The dragon regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
Detect. The dragon makes a Wisdom (Perception) check.
Tail Attack. The dragon makes a Tail attack
Wing Attack (Costs 2 Actions). The dragon beats its wings. Each creature within 10 feet of the dragon must succeed on a DC 19 Dexterity saving throw or take 13 (2d6 + 6) Bludgeoning damage and be knocked prone.
Description
The gray dragon is likely the most avaricious, ill-tempered, and feral of all dragons. It lives to hunt for sport, more obsessed with the act of stalking and bringing down powerful prey than accumulating wealth. It is prone to fits of rage such that the gray dragon would rain death and destruction to every random habitat and settlement within miles of its lair. It dwells in temperate regions that have high rocky outcroppings surrounded by low flatlands.
Spiked Horror. The gray dragon is covered in armor-like, bony plates called osteoderms, with spikes protruding from its forearms and limb joints. Its head features a crest of long, sharp spikes, with smaller ones jutting below its oversized jaw like a garish beard. A jagged line of barbs runs from the back of its head and along its spine, and its forked tail ends with two wicked scythe-like bony plates which it uses to impale prey. A fang-filled mouth and a pair of long ears give the gray dragon a bat-like visage.
Earth Connection. It is said that gray dragons evolved from fang dragons, an extinct type of bestial dragon that had no breath weapon. Legend has it that Tiamat, the Queen of Dragons, weaved her dark magic and infused all unhatched fang dragon eggs in the world with basilisk blood. Since then, only gray dragon hatchlings have been born, and each has shown a natural affinity with the Elemental nature of Earth, including immunity to petrification.
Consummate Hunter. Driven by its predatory nature, the gray dragon prefers to fight by just using its teeth, claws, and tail, often delivering the killing blow before its target can react. At times the gray dragon will toy with its prey, tormenting it by telling how futile it is to escape, and even mimicking voices it has heard to distract or lure the target. It sees it as a testament to its hunting prowess to bring down formidable creatures with just its cunning, hunting skill, and physical attacks. Thus, it rarely uses its breath attack unless it believes its life might be in danger. The gray dragon's elemental breath is a cone of caustic, viscous slime. The slime is so sticky that it continues to dissolve the flesh of its victims for a time after the initial contact.
Guarded Lair. A gray dragon often leaves its lair for extended periods to hunt. Before doing so, it seals its den, where it keeps its vast treasure piles, with boulders and slabs of granite and limestone. The lair's outlying chambers are usually patrolled by the gray dragon's minions, which are often basilisks, cockatrices, earth elementals, galeb duhr, medusae, ooze paraelementals, and stone giants. These creatures are not necessarily subservient to the gray dragon and see it more as a mutual arrangement of protection. However, they do fear the gray dragon's wrath and take extraordinary steps not to incur it.
Lair and Lair Actions
A Gray Dragon’s Lair
The gray dragon dwells in badlands, brushlands, praries, and tundras that have rocky crags, cliffs, and outcroppings that overlook great flatlands where it can spy potential game from great distances. It makes its lair in sprawling caves and ancient ruins. Its den is full of amassed treasure and decorated with the bones and skulls of the most dangerous and largest creatures it has slain. The gray dragon hunts and leaves its lair more often than other dragons and secures its lair by blocking its entrances with huge boulders.
The challenge rating of a legendary gray dragon increases by 1 when it’s encountered in its lair.
Lair Actions
On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the dragon can take one of the following lair actions; the dragon can’t take the same lair action two rounds in a row:
Aftershocks. A tremor shakes the lair in a 60-foot radius around the dragon. Each creature other than the dragon on the ground in that area
Spike Growth. The dragon chooses a point on the ground that it can see within 120 feet of it. Stone spikes sprout from the ground in a 20-foot radius centered on that point. The effect is otherwise identical to the Spike Growth spell and lasts until the dragon uses this lair action again or until the dragon dies.
Wall of Stone. The dragon creates a wall of earth on a solid surface it can see within 120 feet of it. The wall can be up to 30 feet long, 30 feet high, and 1 foot thick. When the wall appears, each creature within its area is pushed 5 feet out of the wall's space, appearing on whichever side of the wall it wants. Each 10-foot section of the wall has AC 5, 30 hit points, resistant to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren't adamantine, and immunity to necrotic, poison, and psychic damage. The wall disappears when the dragon uses this lair action again or when the dragon dies.
Regional Effects
The region containing a legendary gray dragon's lair is warped by the dragon's magic, which creates one or more of the following effects:
- Small earthquakes are common within 6 miles of the dragon's lair.
- Earth elementals scour the land within 6 miles of the lair.
- Rocky fissures within 1 mile of the dragon's lair form portals to the Elemental Plane of Earth, allowing creatures of elemental earth into the world to dwell nearby.
If the dragon dies, the earth elementals disappear immediately, and the other effects fade over the course of 1d10 days.
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