Dragon, Elemental Fire

Elemental Fire Dragon

Fire dragons are deadly creatures, born of elemental flame and all-consuming in nature. They’re mesmerising beasts to watch; their bodies flicker and dance in an almost hypnotic pattern. Physically, they appear similar in shape to red dragons, suggesting some ancient link between the two races, but rather than being made of solid flesh, their scales are pure flame. Fire dragons are also fiery-tempered. They are quick to take action, whether it be a friendly gesture or a deadly attack.

Fire dragons speak their own language, the language of fire elementals, and a language common to all elemental dragons. When born, there is a 13% chance that the dragon can communicate with all sentient creatures. This chance increases by 4% per age category.

COMBAT: Fire dragons fight efficiently and mercilessly. They know they are powerful, and they use that power to their advantage. Fire dragons often like to attack with their breath weapon before moving into physical combat. When fighting creatures that seem useful or who could possess useful information, they prefer to use their fire charm ability to soften them up first.

BREATH WEAPON/SPECIAL ABILITIES: A fire dragon’s breath weapon is a cone of elemental fire, 90′ long, 5′ wide at the dragon’s mouth and 30′ at the base.

• Fire dragons are born immune to energy draining and electricity. They take double damage from cold or water attacks (easier said than done on the Plane of Fire, however). When attacked with fire, they actually gain a number of hit points equal to the number of hit dice the attack would have inflicted. For example, a 12th-level mage casts a fireball, which would normally do 12d8 damage. The fire dragon gains 12 hit points instead of taking damage.
• Any being that comes into physical contact with a fire dragon takes Xd8 points of damage, where X is equal to the dragon’s age category. A successful save vs. breath weapon can halve this damage, and immunity and resistance to fire can also reduce this damage. When a being not immune to fire or heat comes within 30′ of the dragon, they take 1d4 points of damage per age category of the dragon. Once within 30′, anything combustible must make a successful saving throw or catch fire.
• A fire dragon cast spells and uses its magical abilities at 16th-level plus its combat modifier.
• As they age, they gain the following additional abilities: Very Young: Fire charm at will. Young: Burning hands three times per day. Juvenile: Fireball three times per day. Adult: Flame strike three times per day. Mature Adult: Delayed blast fireball three times per day. Old: Meteor swarmthree times per day. Very Old: Summon fire elemental three times per day.

HABITAT/SOCIETY: Fire dragons very rarely leave their home on the Elemental Plane of Fire. Those that do normally make their homes in active volcanoes and lava flows. They are solitary creatures, only coming together to mate.

Most (50%) of fire dragons are neutral. The rest are evenly split between good and evil (25% chance of either). Of these dragons, roughly 40% are neutral, and the rest lawful or chaotic (30% chance of either).

ECOLOGY: Fire dragons sustain themselves on flames and heat, very rarely actually eating something. Even when they do this, sages speculate, they don’t gain any benefit from it. They hate water and ice dragons and will attack them on sight (although the species rarely encounter each other).

Fire dragons can be extremely damaging to the life surrounding their lair (unless they’re on the Plane of Fire, of course!). When they leave the lair, their extreme body temperature can ignite dry wood as far as 30′ away. They can easily start forest or brush fires, destroying an ecology within a matter of hours. Fire dragons love doing this, although permanent forest fires in one area tend to be a bit of a giveaway that something odd is going on…

Chant goes that the efreet have a platoon of fire dragons guarding their City of Brass. Considering that the efreet hate fire dragons as much as they do any other creature, and that the feeling’s entirely mutual, it’s likely that these dragons are enslaved somehow. Djinn legends also tell of fire dragons with efreet riders; a lethal combination of malevolent force. Fortunately nobody seems to have seen anything like this for hundreds of years, but those rumours always have a habit or resurfacing.

Age Category	Body (‘)	Tail (‘)	AC	Breath Weapon	Wizard/Priest Spells	MR	Treasure	XP Value
1	15-27	14-25	-3	4d12+1	Nil	Nil	Nil	18,000
2	27-39	25-36	-4	6d12+2	Nil	Nil	Nil	19,000
3	39-51	36-46	-5	8d12+3	Nil	35%	E, S, T	20,000
4	51-58	46-58	-6	10d12+4	1	40%	H, S, T	22,000
5	58-75	58-68	-7	12d12+5	2	45%	H, S, T	23,000
6	75-88	68-78	-8	14d12+6	2 2	50%	H, S, Tx2	24,000
7	88-101	78-92	-9	16d12+7	2 2 2	55%	H, S, Tx2	25,000
8	101-114	92-103	-10	18d12+8	2 2 2 2 / 1	60%	H, S, Tx2	27,000
9	114-128	103-116	-11	20d12+9	2 2 2 2 2 / 2	65%	H, S, Tx3	28,000
10	128-142	116-128	-12	22d12+10	2 2 2 2 2 2 / 2 2	70%	H, S, Tx3	29,000
11	142-156	128-141	-13	24d12+11	2 2 2 2 2 2 2 / 2 2 2	80%	H, S, Tx3	31,000
12	156-170	141-154	-14	26d12+12	2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 / 2 2 2 2	85%	H, S, Tx4	33,000

Source: John Kastronis, Jon Winter-Holt