Dragon, Gravastar

Gravastar Dragon

Also known as vacuum dragons, void dragons

Gravastar dragons are an enigma. See berk, no one’s really sure if they actually exist or not. Oh sure, there’s that barmy in the Gatehouse who rambles on about them, there’s the Dustman who always talks about his friend “Harvey the Vacuum Dragon”, and there’s even the Guvner who’s supposedly found the loophole that lets these creatures exist. All the material here is just conjecture and hearsay—but it very well could be right, if enough people believed it.

Those familiar with spelljamming probably know about black holes. These are undead stars of sorts, things so massive that they warp light, magic and time itself around them. Gravastars are similar, but not the same. Or maybe they are—it’s way too hard to say anything with certainty when it comes to objects like these. To put it in terms non-Guvner can understand, gravastar is a sphere of super-dense matter that hides an extremely condensed ball of vacuum inside. Yes, condensed vacuum, whatever this means. Some graybeards believe that this state of vacuum is the same that exists in vacuum elementals and vacuum dragons—hence why the latter gained this name. However, like everything that relates to far reaches of space and Plane of Vacuum, it is very much a speculation.

The trouble with gravastar dragons is that you can’t see them. They’re about as easy to spot as a yugoloth’s sense of guilt. They don’t radiate heat according to infravision and detect invisibility only lets you know that there is something there, but not the form of it. A few bloods have tried using a wish to see what they look like. Last one that did that, well, let’s just say he’s enjoying the Bleaker’s hospitality at present. Some say that x-ray vision can reveal them, but I wouldn’t try it.

Seeing as how most other catastrophic dragons can speak other languages, it would make sense if these did too. They speak the language common to all catastrophic dragons and at birth have a 21% chance of speaking any known language. This chance increases by 6% each age category.

COMBAT: Well, if anything is known about these enigmatic beasts, it is that they can fight. Once a group of powerful bloods went looking for one of these things. No one heard from them for over a year, until a portal opened and bits and pieces of bodies came spilling through a portal into some fiendish kitchen in the Hive Ward. Only one of the bodies was intact enough to identify it, although the Hardheads are still wondering what happened to the berk’s arm (chant goes a fiend ate it while no one was looking). We know nothing on what strategies gravastar dragons employ in fight—to determine such a thing a blood must at least have a way to distinguish them from especially powerful vacuum quasielementals.

BREATH WEAPON/SPECIAL ABILITIES: A gravastar dragon doesn’t have a breath weapon, per se, rather, it has what can best be described as an anti-breath weapon. The attack sucks all breathable material out of a 60′ diameter. Berks can keep the air (or whatever) in their lungs (or whatever) if they pass a saving throw vs. breath weapon. If they fail, they are rendered helpless for the next 1d4 rounds while they gasp for air. If they pass, they suffer 2d4 points of damage due to the strain of trying to hold in the air. Creatures that don’t need to breath, such as undead and golems, are unaffected by this attack.

• Gravastar dragons cast spells and use their magical abilities at 15th-level plus their combat modifiers.
• Gravastar dragons are born immune to energy draining, cold, and air attacks.
• Gravastar dragons are born with the ability to steal breath. This attack requires a successful to hit roll on a target, ignoring any armour. If successful, the victim must roll a successful save vs. death magic, or die from suffocation.
• As they age, they gain the following abilities: Very Young: Void wall (the opposite of wall of fog) at will. Young Adult: Steal wind (reverse of gust of wind) three times per day. Mature Adult: Vacuum wall (reverse of wind wall) three times per day. Very Old: Control vacuum (similar to control weather, except it allows varying sizes of vacuums) three times per day. Wyrm: Summon void mephit at will.

HABITAT/SOCIETY: Not much is known about gravastar dragons. Presumably, they are some of the rarest creatures on the planes, perhaps they don’t even exist. If they do, they were likely among dragons, who sided with Primordials in the Dawn War. What exact dragons they could be is dark. Speculatively, they are loners, rarely leaving their home plane, and even then, only going to remote, empty regions of wildspace or other elemental planes.

Gravastar dragons’ alignment in relation to law/chaos is all most exclusively neutral (70%), with occasional lawful or chaotic bends (15% each). It seems that almost every (98%) of vacuum dragons are neutral, with the others (2%) being evil. Strangely, no good gravastar dragon has ever been reported.

ECOLOGY: At least theoretically gravastar dragons do not eat. They subsist on nothing, literally. The presence of too much material will slowly cause them to starve. This is supposedly why they keep no treasure; the nearness of it would starve them. This poses a question—how do they reproduce? Catastrophic dragons need to spread destruction on planes other than their own to create more of their eggs. But gravastar dragons have never even been seen on Prime. What disaster can they even hope to unleash in the void? Graybeards, who study the deepest depths of phlogiston have an idea. See, far from the explored and inhabitated portions of the Material Plane rivers of phlogiston sometimes thin out, creating vast regions of vacuum known as voids. Those scholars, who believe in gravastar dragons believe that it is they, who have created those voids by sucking phlogiston in. Considering some voids can be almost incomprehensively large, surpassing all known Crystal Spheres in size, it raises a shuddering question—just how many gravastar dragons can hide in the perfect emptiness of the Vacuum?

Age Category	Body (‘)	Tail (‘)	AC	Breath Weapon	Wizard/Priest Spells	MR	Treasure	XP Value
1	7-20	7-17	0	n/a	Nil	Nil	Nil	15,000
2	20-32	17-29	-1	n/a	Nil	Nil	Nil	18,000
3	32-44	29-39	-2	n/a	Nil	45%	Nil	19,000
4	44-56	39-51	-3	n/a	1	50%	Nil	20,000
5	56-73	51-61	-4	n/a	2	55%	Nil	22,000
6	73-86	61-71	-5	n/a	2 2	60%	Nil	23,000
7	86-99	71-85	-6	n/a	2 2 2	65%	Nil	24,000
8	99-112	85-96	-7	n/a	2 2 2 2 / 1	70%	Nil	25,000
9	112-126	96-109	-8	n/a	2 2 2 2 2 / 2 2	75%	Nil	27,000
10	126-140	109-121	-9	n/a	2 2 2 2 2 2 / 2 2	80%	Nil	28,000
11	140-154	121-134	-10	n/a	2 2 2 2 2 2 2 / 2 2 2	85%	Nil	29,000
12	154-168	134-147	-12	n/a	2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 / 2 2 2 2	90%	Nil	31,000

Source: John Kastronis, Jon Winter-Holt, Margarita. Canonwatch: this elemental dragon used to be simply called ‘vacuum dragon’ and had nothing to do with astrophysics. We made a decision to combine those homebrew dragons with catastrophic dragons from 4e, who were named after natural disasters and other calamities.