Let's Dissect the 2e Monster Manual's Dragons - Gold Dragon

I could swear I've seen this guy on the side of some Chinese restaurant.

For some reason, I was under the impression we’d be doing Silvers first, despite this book listing them all in alphabetical order.

Anyway, today we’ll be covering the resident noodle dragons!

Gold dragons are wise, judicious, and benevolent. They often embark on self-appointed quests to promote goodness, and are not easily distracted from them. They hate injustice and foul play.

And, as you can see, it’s every stereotype about Eastern dragons compounded with D&D’s usual crusader shit. Still, it’s nice to have a powerful “good” guy actually being proactive in a setting like this.

A gold dragon frequently assumes human or animal guise and usually will be encountered disguised.

I can see why: easier to see what someone’s really like when you’re not a giant scaly beast that could eat that person in one gulp.

At the same time, though, I don’t know how the hell anyone would be able to stand not being a dragon for so long. I’d go nuts after the first day or two.

At birth, a gold dragon's scales are dark yellow with golden metallic flecks. The flecks get larger as the dragon matures until, at the adult stage, the scales grow completely golden.

So, they get prettier with every passing year, got it.

Racial tongues. You know, I should just start saying “lesbians” instead of “racial tongues”, just because it’s more fun.

Combat: Gold dragons usually parley before combat. When conversing with intelligent creatures they use detect lie and detect gems spells to gain the upper hand.

Wait, detect gems? Interesting. I can picture a couple ways this would be useful: one is to discern whether the party in question might know any spells that require gems as a spell component.

The other would be, of course, to know whether to put them to sleep and just steal their shit. Look, no matter how tall a moral high-horse he’s riding, this guy’s still a D&D dragon.

In combat, they quickly use bless and luck bonus.

So, they’re Falkor. Makes sense, considering.

Older dragons use luck bonus at the start of each day if the duration is a day or more.

Falkor’s grandpa, who’s even luckier than he (somehow).

They make heavy use of spells in combat. Among their favorites are sleep, stinking cloud, slow, fire shield, cloudkill, globe of invulnerability, delayed blast fireball, and maze.

Hey, wait, where the hell is this guy getting all these? I don’t think it was ever implied dragons could actually learn new spells that had nothing to do with their age. Is this guy a special case, or could they all do this?

Vaguely-written rules? In 2e?! How utterly unprecedented!

Breath weapon/special abilities: A gold dragon has two breath weapons: a cone of fire 90' long, 5' wide at the dragon's mouth, and 30' wide at the end or a cloud of potent chlorine gas 50' long, 40' wide and 30' high. Creatures caught in either effect are entitled to a save versus breath weapon for half damage.

TWO breath weapons?! Holy shit, these guys are such Mary Sue dragons. They really wanted to make it clear that Gold dragons are just the most bestest dragons ever, huh?

At birth, gold dragons have water breathing ability, can speak with animals freely, and are immune to fire and gas.

Damn, four whole at-birth perks. No wonder everyone always picked these fuckers while playing Council of Wyrms.

They can also polymorph self three times a day. Each change form lasts until the dragon chooses a different form; reverting to the dragon's normal form does not count as a change.

OH YEAH, and that, too! Swear to fuck…

A gold dragon's natural form has wings.

That’s… very contrary to the illustration. I know 3e gave us pictures of the dragon in question with wings, buuuut 2e and 3e are very different beasts.

However, they sometimes choose a wingless form to facilitate swimming, gaining the higher swimming rate listed above.

I… guess? Wouldn’t it make sense to also give yourself flippers while you’re at it? I guess the implication here is that they can do that, so we might as well assume they do.

A gold dragon in any wingless form can fly at a speed of 6 (MC E).

HOW? I call bullshit if the answer is “magic”. There’s already a dime-a-dozen rationalizations as to how D&D dragons can fly, but at least the skinny dragons in this setting have wings!

If they blow themselves up like we do, that would get them up, but there’s a reason real dragons evolved wings; once we’re in the air, we need a means to propel ourselves, and awkwardly wiggling around isn’t exactly an efficent way to do so.

How DARE this fantasy role-playing game featuring color-coded dragons, floating eyeball monsters, and giant Godzilla turtles not accurately depict my people’s extraterrestrial biology with unfaltering accuracy!

I’m offended. The Monstrous Manual is canceled.

As they age, they gain the following additional powers. Young: bless three times a day.

Does he cast it whenever people sneeze around him?

Juvenile: detect lie three times a day.

You ever wonder if he just fakes casting detect lie in cases where it’s already obvious, just so the liar will admit it?

Adult: animal summoning once a day.

So, they’re the Disney Princesses of dragons.

Mature adult: animal summoning once a day.

Is… is this a typo? Or do they get a second animal summoning daily at this age? This is one Snow White-ass dragon, here.

Mature adult: luck bonus once a day.

Okay, that was definitely a typo. Also, we already did the Falkor joke, so…

Old: quest once a day, and detect gems three times a day.

Quest is like a chickenshit version of Geas, in that instead of killing you for disobeying, it just penalizes your saving throws. Detect GEMS tells you whether a Genesis game you’re playing is using a shitty music driver.

It goes on to explain what luck bonus is for, and that it can make gems lucky for three hours.

Habit/Society:Gold dragons can live anywhere.

That’s a bold statement.

Their lairs are secluded and always made of solid stone, either caves or castles.

Then that’s not really “anywhere”, now is it? I guess you could argue that this is a matter of preference, but still. And here I was picturing a dragon living in a modest hut in the tropics under the name of Pinkleton.

These usually have loyal guards: either animals appropriate to the terrain, or storm or good cloud giants.

GIANTS?! You have fucking GIANTS guarding your little McMansion, Mr. Gold?!

The giants usually serve as guards through a mutual defensive agreement.

The hell does that mean? What, do the giants and dragons take turns house-sitting?

This next bit caught my eye, because I think it explains everything we’ve covered in this series, thus far.

Have a look at this:

Gold dragons can eat almost anything, however, they usually sustain themselves on pearls or small gems. Gold dragons who receive pearls and gems from good or neutral creatures will usually be favorably inclined toward the gift bringers, as long as the gift is not presented as a crass bribe. In the latter case, the dragon will accept the gift, but react cynically to any requests the giver makes.

Think about that, for a minute.

How the hell would a gold dragon be able to get ahold of literal pearls and jewels, things rare enough for people to actually kill each other over, on a regular enough basis to sustain themselves on?

Again, the term “usually” implies that they have enough access to this wealth to eat it not merely frequently, but exclusively. They don't get Detect Gems until they're Old aged, and it's only within a 30' radius for one minute three times a day.

Well, think about who might happen to have an abundance of gems and pearls just lying about. And, think about how handsome, shiny, and charismatic the gold dragons are.

And again, "A gold dragon frequently assumes human or animal guise and usually will be encountered disguised."

Given how long-lived dragons are, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to think the golds, in their hunger for precious stones, might be able to spread a generations-long blood libel campaign against the chromatics.

And who would the humans be more inclined to listen to, the grumpy non-shiny dragons that yell at you to get off their lawn, or the shiny gold noodles who donate mosquito nets to Fantasy Africa and start bake sales for orphanages?

Exactly.

Now, do I believe the writers intended all this?

Pfft, no. But I probably just gave some aspiring DM a good plot hook.

Anyway, something something eat the rich. I’m in the mood for some udon.