Homebrew Draconian - Sivak Species Details

Draconian History

The Draconians were born out of two things; Takhisis' desire for superior base troopers to the lowly goblinoids and ogres she had relied upon in the past, and her love for being a dick. In 287 After Cataclysm, servitors of Takhisis stole the eggs of the goodly dragons from their lairs on the Dragon Isles. When the metallic parents woke up some nine years later, Takhisis blackmailed them: either remain neutral in the coming battle, or see their children slaughtered. Then, once they agreed, Takhisis ordered her clerics to start experimenting on the captured eggs. (It was later retconned that she did this on Taladas, which by now hosted copious badlands with no good-aligned races around to observe. See below for the Sesk and Traag.) Although this came back to bite them in 352 AC, when the metallic dragons found out about this betrayal and, enraged, joined the forces of light in open war, it still resulted in the birth of the draconian race. As the tide turned against Takhisis, desperate experiments on chromatic dragon eggs produced the first Noble Draconians, who were inherently goodly and so a terrible failure. Outmatched and overwhelmed, Takhisis' armies shattered, and the draconians fled en mass. Eventually, they founded a fledgeling city-state called Teyr, banding together and swearing that they would survive on their own terms, rather than being slaves and puppets.

 Base Draconians

The most iconic form of draconians, Base Draconians - a term taken from alchemy, and which they personally find very insulting - are draconians born from the eggs of metallic dragons. Beyond this single trait, the draconians are more a collection of races than a single race - something only made worse by the fact that in some species, different genders have different inherent abilities. Classically, there are only five species of Base Draconian, but 4th edition added three more to the list in their Metallic Draconomicon; the Adamantine-blooded Adamaaz, the Iron-blooded Ferak, and the Cobalt-blooded Kobaaz.

Sivak draconians stem from the eggs of silver dragons. Like their progenitors, they are second in power, prominence and rarity only to the golden-blooded Auraks. The biggest of all base draconians at a whopping nine feet, they are also the only base draconians able to fly, and possess powerful tails that they can use as weapons. Male Sivaks are shapeshifters who can assume the form of humanoids they have killed; when slain, their Death Throes results in them either assuming the form of their killer (if a Large or smaller humanoid) for 3 days before crumbling into black soot (which is the most useless Death Throes yet) or exploding in a burst of flame. Female Sivaks instead have chameleonic properties; their shapeshifting is limited to a mere Disguise Self at-will spell-like ability, but also lets them blend into the background. Also, their Death Throes are always the "explode like a fireball" version.

Noble Draconians

When the metallic dragons learned what was being done with their eggs, naturally, they were pretty pissed off about it. So their first major operations were striking at the strongholds where Takhisis' minions were holding their eggs. This put the servants of the Dark Queen into a bit of a pickle, as they'd always been rather careless with their draconian underlings and now found their "limitless" source of replacements cut off. In desperation, they tried to repeat the process by substituting the eggs of chromatic dragons, only to find, in a pesky case of that vaunted "Balance Between Good and Evil" Krynn so loves, the ritual was responding to the inherent darkness in the chromatic dragon eggs by aligning the resultant draconians with the light. Naturally, they tried to exterminate them all, but a few have slipped away and still try to fight the good fight.

Failed Experiments

No ritual gets off to a flying start immediately, and the draconians are no exception. Taladas, that oft-forgotten "lost land" of Krynn, is where you go to point and laugh at Takhisis' failures. Initial experiments with brass dragon eggs produced the Traags, a lazy and cowardly race of pseudo-draconians whose lackluster drive for combat, low "birth rate," and tendency to fly into uncontrollable blood-lust fuelled rages when in combat made them distinctly less than a success. Another round of experiments, conducted on silver dragon eggs, produced the Sesk. These intelligent but physically frail and deformed creatures were too weak to make effective fighters and too reluctant to accept orders. Sesk was introduced in DLA1, a Taladas adventure and not much picked up on elsewhere. Once the ritual was refined, and the first true draconians were produced, the surviving Traags and Sesk were simply abandoned on the flaming-dumpster semi-continent, where they have eked out a living ever since. The Traag are making a decent go of it in Old Aurim; they've organized themselves well enough for that and may even have sussed out how to make more of themselves. The Sesk, by contrast, are rare and presumably moribund. Pseudo-draconians have no inherent magic and can't even trigger the Death Throes power of their successful kin; Traags dissolve into a puddle of smelly slime upon death, whilst Sesk are reduced to a small mound of silvery dust.

In A Nutshll

Draconians are a race of draconic humanoids, resembling a blending of the humanoid frame with distinct reptilian traits. Although there was some early edition waffling over how human-like their features were, leading to the notoriously hideous artwork for the Baaz in the 3e Dragonlance Campaign Setting splatbook, the ultimate picture that has stabilized over editions is very much like the lizardfolk or dragonborn, the latter of whom can arguably be said to descend from the draconian concept.

 Draconian abilities vary widely, depending upon the dragon whose bloodline they originate from. Most species are winged, with only Auraks lacking them, but flight is generally beyond them, and all species have at least one or two innate magical traits.

 The most prominent example of this is their "Death Throes" trait: when slain, a draconian undergoes a powerful eruption of raw magical energy, which usually has very nasty consequences for anyone else around them. This is born from Dark Ones a mutation in the organ that, in a proper dragon, would provide a breath weapon; only the Auraks and the Flame Draconians have innate breath weapons, although in 3rd edition a feat allowed all draconians to develop a breath weapon.

 Needless to say, going boom like this means draconians are very tough to revive - or even to Speak With Dead at. Only the high-level spells Resurrection, True Resurrection, and Wish can bring a departed draconian back to life. Takhisis keeps her secrets.

 Draconians were born of evil magic, a ritual initially developed by an obscure Black Robes wizard named Brenn in the year 1015 Pre-Cataclysm. It wasn't until Thakisis secretly began plotting her return to Krynn in the Age of Despair that the ritual found its fruition. Through a blending of arcane and divine magic, united via the spittle of a malevolent chromatic dragon, unhatched dragon eggs could be transformed into massive groups of smaller, weaker humanoid dragons, which could then be used as more reliable slave-soldiers than the goblins, hobgoblins and minotaurs which the various evil armies depended upon. Thus Takhisis became the queen of Krynn's darkness, up to which (say) Hiddukel had to catch.

 However, despite this start, draconians are also creatures with souls of their own. Though brought up as beings of evil, that was a matter of culture, and they can choose otherwise. Since the fall of Takhisis and her vaunted Dragonarmies, the draconians of Krynn have since tried to find a place for themselves as a species, refusing to vanish into the dust of ages with their now-hated creator-deity.

To reflect this, draconians have actually been a playable PC race since at least third edition, with Baaz and Kapaaks appearing in the corebook and the rest appearing in Dragons of Krynn - although that Level Adjustment is a killer, with breeds ranging from +4 LA to +12 LA. Baaz and Kapaks received a 4e update in Dragon Magazin #421, although much like the Dray it wasn't the best fit - at least they got mechanical variations that tried to emulate the original "feel" of the race.

 Draconians returned to Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition at long last in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, where their lore underwent its most drastic shake-up of any edition - even 4e only just added a few new draconian types!

5e

“Draconians were not playable in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but were converted to a PC option inDungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition. Unfortunately, there were some... hiccups."

Draconians finally returned to Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons. However, they have reverted to being a monster-only race, with WotC stating that they felt the race just wasn't mechanically suited for being playable and instead players should just refluff Dragonborn. Which, okay, it does have some legit grounds, since the iconic Death Throes trait isn't really player-compatible, but at the same time, few are inclined to cut WotC a lot of slack since it just seems like yet more laziness.

5e shook up draconian lore even more than 4e had done, dropping the base and noble draconian split and trying to cross-promote the new Gem Dragons by instead breaking draconians up into 5 archetypal breeds, each of which is associated with one Metallic Dragon, one Chromatic Dragon, and one Gem Dragon. They maintain their death throes but were still homogenized to be similar to the base draconian but not tired specifically a single dragon type, drop the added breath weapon from 3e, and are not refer to their classic names except for what the base originals were called on Krynn because Dragonlance.

Dreadnoughts are crafted from Silver Dragon, Blue Dragon, or Sapphire Dragon stock. Loosely corresponding to the Sivak, they are the most martial-minded of the draconians, and have the ability to shapeshift into the forms of their most recent kill.

Foot Soldiers are created from Brass Dragon, White Dragon, and Crystal Dragon eggs and have replaced the Baaz as the weak but numerous grunt strain. They only have a 1/2 Challenge Rating, but they explode in a burst of petrification when killed, which makes them a lot more dangerous than you'd think (to themselves and others).

Infiltrators are wrought from the eggs of Copper Dragons, Black Dragons, and Topaz Dragons. As the name suggests, they're the stealth operatives and commandos of their kind, wielding poisoned weapons, spewing acid at anyone they don't like, and dissolving into pools of corrosive acid when slain.

Mages are the magic-focused troopers, and are fashioned from Bronze Dragon, Green Dragon, and Emerald Dragon eggs. They seem to have their roots in the Bozak.

Masterminds are the most powerful of all the draconians, and are created from the most powerful dragon breeds; Gold Dragons, Red Dragons, and Amethyst Dragons. Based on Auraks, they are wingless and thus flightless, but also powerful intuitive spellcasters and natural strategists.

The 5e Draconians were printed again in Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen with their original names and some revisions to their stats.

Baaz is unchanged except for gaining the Draconic Devotion trait all Dragon army soldiers have.

Bozak shoots lighting instead of necrotic bolts and add Web to thier spells (its because they look like a gladiator in the art isn it).

Kapak is proficient in deception and adds 10 feet to climb speed.

Sivak no longer explodes but instead crumbles, living behind a screaming specter image of the person that killed it, frightening all the nearby foes it had in life. its shape stealing powers are also more its original, explicitly stating its a visual and tactile illusion rather than a polymorph.

Aurak radiates a commanding presence that stifles other Draconians from being charmed or frightened and trades the shield spell for dominant person.

Additionally the Traag makes a return in the D@D Beyond supplement Monstrous Compendium Volume Two: Dragonlance Creatures. no mention of them being lazy or cowardly, just engines of uncontrollable violence. They are now the large size but have greater strength and slightly better intelligence than an ogre, rampaging through victims when they set themselves on fire.

 

Draconian - Sivak Traits

Flight, Darkvision, Damage Resistance, Sweeping Tail, Death Throe, Powerful Build, Murderous Visage