Dragon, Quasi-Elemental Lightning

Quasi-Elemental Lightning Dragon

Stormy and with tempers as quick as greased lightning (pardon the pun), lightning dragons are one of the more dangerous elemental dragons to those caught unprepared. They are often seen flitting (if something of their size can flit) among the brilliant flashes of lightning that occupy the Quasi-elemental Plane of Lightning.

Appearing as blue dragons with crackling lightning dancing from their scales, they prove to be an intimidating sight. They are surrounded by a soft light which grows in intensity as they become angry. An extremely mad dragon may get bright enough to blind a person. They emit a barely audible rumble that increases in volume proportionally to the brightness of the light. The sound, however, never posses a serious threat to damaging ears.

Lightning dragons speak their own tongue and one common to all elemental dragons. When they are born, they have a 13% chance to speak the language of any sentient creature. This chance increases by 4% per age category.

COMBAT: Lightning dragons like to take an offensive approach to combat, employing whatever means they have to eradicate opponents. They rarely flee from combat, even if they are gravely injured. Their penchant for destruction has been described by at least on invoker as “charming”.

BREATH WEAPON/SPECIAL ABILITIES: A lightning dragon’s breath weapon is a 5′ wide stroke of lightning that streaks 100′ in a straight line. This bolt inflicts double damage to creatures wearing metal armour or carrying more than 30 lbs. of metallic materials.

• Lightning dragons cast spells and use their magical abilities at 14th-level plus their combat modifiers.
• Any AC bonus gained from metal armour is negated when fighting a lightning dragon. If a metal shield is used, the AC bonus from that is negated as well. If a lightning dragon is struck by a metal weapon, the wielder is shocked as if she had just been attacked by the lightning dragon’s innate shocking grasp ability.
• When reduced to less than 1/4 of their maximum hit points, lightning dragons will become so angry and glow so brightly, that all who look at them must save vs. spell or be blinded for 1d10 rounds. Those who pass the save may look at the dragon as they please.
• Lightning dragons are born immune to energy draining, blindness, and electricity. They are born with the innate ability to use shocking grasp at will.
• As they age, they gain the following additional abilities: Young: Lightning bolt three times per day. Juvenile: Thunder staff three times per day. Adult: Chain lightning three times per day. Mature Adult: Wall of lightning(similar to wall of fire but with lightning instead of fire) three times per day. Very Old: Summon the storm (a version of control weather which always produces an intense lightning storm) three times per day.

HABITAT/SOCIETY: Lightning dragons prefer to remain on their home plane, but occasionally make jaunts onto other planes. Storm giants seem to have a particular liking of the creatures, as do many invokers.

Lightning dragons have the greatest chance of all elemental dragons to have a moral bend, with an equal (45%) chance of being good or evil. The rest (10%) are morally neutral. This tendency is offset by a low ethical deviation, with only a small number being lawful or chaotic (5% chance of either). The others (90%) are ethically neutral.

ECOLOGY: Lightning dragons sustain themselves on electricity. They seem to be able to gain small amounts of “natural electricity” from anywhere they are, so it’s near impossible to starve them outside of a vacuum. They draw electricity towards themselves, often leaving a “tunnel” behind them when travelling on the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Lightning. Canny adventurers have followed lightning dragons through the plane to escape being hit with a nasty bolt of lightning.

Because they have a tendency to cause storms, they can be devastating to an ecology, especially a coastal one. They tend to do this infrequently, however.

Age Category	Body (‘)	Tail (‘)	AC	Breath Weapon	Wizard/Priest Spells	MR	Treasure	XP Value
1	9-15	7-12	-2	4d8+2	Nil	Nil	Nil	15,000
2	15-27	12-24	-3	6d8+3	Nil	Nil	Nil	18,000
3	27-39	24-34	-4	8d8+4	1	40%	1/2H, S	19,000
4	39-51	34-46	-5	10d8+5	2	45%	H, S	20,000
5	51-63	46-56	-6	12d8+6	2 2	50%	H, S	22,000
6	63-76	56-66	-7	14d8+6	2 2 2	55%	H, S	23,000
7	76-89	66-80	-8	16d8+7	2 2 2 2 / 1	60%	H, Sx2	24,000
8	89-102	80-91	-9	18d8+8	2 2 2 2 2 / 2	65%	H, Sx2	25,000
9	102-116	91-104	-10	20d8+9	2 2 2 2 2 2 / 2 2	70%	H, Sx2	27,000
10	116-130	104-116	-11	22d8+10	2 2 2 2 2 2 2 / 2 2 2	75%	H, Sx3	28,000
11	130-144	116-129	-12	24d8+11	2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 / 2 2 2 2	80%	H, Sx3	29,000
12	144-158	129-142	-13	25d8+12	2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 / 2 2 2 2	85%	H, Sx4	31,000

Source: John Kastronis, Jon Winter-Holt