Dragon, Nova

Nova Dragon

Also known as radiance dragon, aurora dragon

Nova dragons are majestic creatures, similar in appearance to amethyst dragons, but much larger. Their skin is a shimmering mass of silky material which constantly changes colour, shedding energy as coloured streams of light. Despite their scintillating looks, nova dragons are generally calm and collected, giving a wide berth to both natives and visitors of the Plane of Radiance.

Nova dragons speak their own tongue and a tongue common to all catastrophic dragons. Also, 20% of hatchling radiant dragons can speak with any intelligent creature. The chance to posses this ability increases 6% per age category.

COMBAT: Nova dragons are honourable and respectful of their opponents. They are not foolish, however. They will take advantage of any weakness (most likely the lack of reliable ways to see that nonnatives possess) and attack their opponent without mercy.

BREATH WEAPON/SPECIAL ABILITIES: A nova dragon’s breath weapon is a stream of brilliant radiance, 50′ long, 20′ high, and 10′ wide. This instantly kills any creature of less than 6 HD that doesn’t save vs. dragon breath, a successful save still induces blindness for 2d20 rounds and the creature takes the damage listed below. A creature of more than 12 HD that makes its save takes half the damage and isn’t blinded, otherwise they take full damage and are blinded for the same length of time.

• Nova dragons cast spells and use their magical abilities at 15th-level plus their combat modifiers.
• Nova dragons are born immune to energy draining, blindness, and electricity. They are also immune to all harmful effects of their home plane, including extreme heat and lack of air to breathe. They are born with the following abilities: chromatic orbat will, colour spray at will, dancing lights at will, and continual light three times per day.
• As they age, they gain the following additional abilities: Young: Hypnotism three times per day. Juvenile: Rainbow pattern three times per day. Adult: Prismatic spray three times per day. Mature Adult: Prismatic wall three times per day. Very Old: Prismatic sphere three times per day.

HABITAT/SOCIETY: Nova dragons are very reclusive creatures. Very few live on the Prime Material Plane, most dwell on the Plane of Radiance. Nova dragons prefer to dwell in areas of brilliant light displays, such as in crystal chambers where colourful light is reflected or in palaces of solid light. It is thought that nova dragons used to be gem, solar and radiant dragons, who have betrayed their progenitor Powers and allied with Primordials, who imbued them with destructive power of elements—in their case it was Radiance.

Some 50% of nova dragons are neutral in alignment, of the rest, half are good and half evil. On the law-chaos axis, 40% of nova dragons are lawful, 40% neutral, and only 20% chaotic.

ECOLOGY: Nova dragons eat little, if anything at all. They usually only eat right before going into a long sleep, usually consuming a few large animals. When they are awake, light seems to sustain them. Their reproductive cycle is a bit more complicated than that of other catastrophic dragons. See, vortices between the Plane of Radiance and the Prime Material Plane only form in the hearts of active stars. But catastrophic dragons have to cause destruction, and there’s really nothing to destroy on most suns. So, nova dragons have to travel to neighbouring planets, clawing their way through cosmic foes, including other dragons. An ominous aurora borealis forebodes their arrival on the planet. Then, a nova dragon starts tearing things apart, raining deadly rays down from above. After it is satisfied with the amount of terrain they’ve scorched and plants they’ve burned, they travel back to their home plane. Meanwhile, somewhere among the fires a beautiful multicoloured egg is formed. From this egg a new nova wyrmling hatches. It will grow fast by subsisting on the sun rays and small animals it voraciously devours. While still a wyrmling, a nova dragon will discover its ability to travel in space and use it to reach the star it can use to go onto a plane where it belongs.

THE DARK: While they look like they are made from glowing silk scales, chant goes that these dragons are actually even more insubstantial. A group of Doomguard graybeards claim to have captured a juvenile nova dragon and transported it to the Plane of Vacuum, just to see what would happen. They noted it was suspiciously lightweight after they had sealed it into a box. On exposure the the vacuum, the creature simply faded away to sparkling dust motes. These scholars theorised that the nova dragon is actually made from this fine dust, which interacts with air and produces dazzling displays of light which look like its body. It should be noted that after the nova dragon became effectively invisible, the Sinkers lost track of it. Although unfortunately for them, not before the enraged beast had put half of their group into the dead-book. There’s a moral to the story in there somewhere, cutter.

Age Category	Body (‘)	Tail (‘)	AC	Breath Weapon	Wizard/Priest Spells	MR	Treasure	XP Value
1	13-25	12-22	-2	2d12+2	Nil	Nil	Nil	15,000
2	25-37	22-34	-3	4d12+3	Nil	Nil	Nil	18,000
3	37-49	34-44	-4	6d12+4	1	45%	E, S, T	19,000
4	49-61	44-56	-5	8d12+5	2	50%	H, S, T	20,000
5	56-73	56-66	-6	10d12+5	2 2	55%	H, S, T	22,000
6	73-86	66-76	-7	12d12+6	2 2 2	60%	H, S, Tx2	23,000
7	86-99	76-90	-8	14d12+7	2 2 2 2 / 1	65%	H, S, Tx2	24,000
8	99-112	90-101	-9	16d12+8	2 2 2 2 2 / 2	70%	H, S, Tx2	25,000
9	112-126	101-114	-10	18d12+9	2 2 2 2 2 2 / 2 2	75%	H, S, Tx3	27,000
10	126-140	114-126	-11	20d12+10	2 2 2 2 2 2 2 / 2 2 2	80%	H, S, Tx3	28,000
11	140-154	126-139	-12	22d12+11	2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 / 2 2 2 2	85%	H, S, Tx3	29,000
12	154-168	139-152	-13	24d12+12	2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 / 2 2 2 2	90%	H, S, Tx4	31,000

Source: John Kastronis, Jon Winter-Holt, Margarita. Canonwatch: this elemental dragon used to be simply called ‘radiance dragon’. We made a decision to combine those homebrew dragons with catastrophic dragons from 4e, who were named after natural disasters and other calamities.