Dragons of Pride and Cunning

Gray dragons are greedy, rapacious, and cunning creatures. Their bodies are armored with bony plates that rise into projecting spurs. Their tails are exceptionally long and forked with a pair of scythe-like bone blades. Their scales are a mottled gray and brown and their mouths are a sea of fangs. Their wings are small and muscular. The eyes of a gray dragon tend to be a glittering red or orange, and their heads are adorned with many small spikes and a set of sharp horns. 

Thrill Of The Hunt. Gray dragons consider themselves the top of the food chain and unparalleled hunters. They are exceptionally skilled in the ways of tracking and slaughtering prey. They do this not just to feed themselves, but because they relish in the act of the hunt. Gray dragons feel at their best when they are stalking a creature that poses a real challenge. While they will resort to killing and eating livestock and other dull creatures to avoid starvation, they take no pleasure in the act. To them, the hunt is just as, if not more important, than the meal itself. They actively seek out powerful and elusive creatures so that they might hunt and kill them. Once they actually have their prey cornered, they take their time, making sure to savor the moment. They enjoy toying with their prey until they become bored and decide to go for the killing blow.

Venal Creatures. Gray dragons are among the most flippant draconic creatures to be found anywhere in the world. Their mood changes in an instant, and their words mean very little. They frequently turn diplomatic discussions into a game of cat and mouse. If an individual speaking with them fails to hold the dragon’s attention, the creature is liable to give the individual a half day’s head start with instructions to run and hide before chasing them down for its own amusement. However, for those with something of substance to offer a gray dragon, they can become a powerful ally. Gray dragons have little interest in treasure or riches, but the prospect to hunt a worthy opponent is an offer a gray dragon simply can’t refuse. Many gray dragons take up bounty hunting contracts on behalf of anyone who can offer them a proper challenge. These contracts frequently turn into regular working relationships where a gray dragon might rely on a kingdom’s bounty board for a steady flow of creatures to hunt, the more dangerous and elusive, the better. 

Grim Momentos. Since they have little to no interest in gold and riches, gray dragon’s don’t hoard valuables in the same way other dragon’s might. What they do collect are mementos and trinkets taken from their successful hunts. A gray dragon will keep a vast collection of odds and ends that to anyone else, might seem to be completely useless. These “treasures” are all objects of sentimental value to the dragon. What to an onlooker might seem to be a random stone block could be a remnant from a powerful wizard’s tower the dragon tore down to get to the spellcaster within. A cracked wagon wheel might be from the wagon of a thief who thought they could flee by horse and carriage. A single pauldron might be from a noble knight who sought to challenge the dragon’s authority. Every item within the dragon’s collection has a story, and the dragon is bound to know them all. While intrinsic value is of little concern, there are always bound to be a few magical artifacts or useful items that find themselves within this collection by mere happenstance. The older the dragon, the more likely this is to be the case. 

Gray dragons are seldom found in their lair as they are often far away from home stalking prey or seeking out their next avaricious goal. They do, however, maintain a location as their home, even if they aren’t there very often. They typically claim secluded locations in badlands, scrublands, dry prairies, or other areas with few visual obstructions. A gray dragon likes to see potential quarry for miles around as they fly high through the air like massive birds of prey. So keen is the eyesight of a gray dragon that it can spot the tiniest movement across a plain from miles away. Once it spots a target, it is liable to dance from cloud to cloud for hours, seeking to bridge the gap between it and its target before swooping in. Gray dragons are also one of the only draconic species that form temporary lairs. While on an extended hunt, far away from its permanent home, a gray dragon is likely to set up a base of operations it can rest in while not actively hunting its prey. Since a gray dragon’s permanent lair might stand abandoned for weeks or months at a time, before leaving to go on a hunt, the dragon makes sure to seal the entrance to its home with large rocks or other such obstructions to keep nosy creatures far away. 

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:

• The dragon causes stalactites to rain down from the ceiling of its lair. All creatures within a 20-foot radius take 14 (4d6) piercing damage (4d6), or half as much on a successful DC 15 Dexterity saving throw. A creature who fails this save by 5 or more is pinned to the ground by the falling rock and is restrained (escape DC 10).
• The dragon vomits a torrent of blood into a 30 foot cone originating from its space. All creatures in the cone must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution Saving Throw or become poisoned.
• Jagged spikes of stone erupt from the ground in a 30 foot area within the lair. All creatures in the area must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or take 11 (2d10+8) piercing damage and be knocked prone. The area also becomes difficult terrain.  

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:

• It becomes very difficult to cover your tracks within 10 miles of the dragon’s lair. Magic that obscures the trail left behind by a creature doesn’t function, and creature’s make survival checks to cover their tracks with disadvantage as the terrain actively tries to maintain evidence of being disturbed. 
• Wild animals grow unnaturally large in size and become much more aggressive than usual. All animals which would normally be encountered here become dire animals. If there is no existing stat block for the dire animal in question, the animal has quadruple its normal hit points, its size category increases by one, and the amount of dice rolled for its damage is doubled. 
• Creatures perpetually feel as though they are being watched and magic used to detect the presence of another creature has a 50% chance to behave erratically. For example, if a creature casts the alarm spell, their alarm might be triggered even if nothing stepped within the area of the spell’s effect. 

If the dragon dies the animals in the area remain oversized, however their aggression level returns to normal and any of their future offspring will be of normal size. All other effects end immediately.