Let's Dissect 2e's Dragons, Draconomicon Edition - Yellow Dragon

"HEY! I just got through eating this, at least let me clean the place before you start taking pictures."

  

 “Yellow Dragon” sounds like a drug euphemism.

Although the existence of yellow dragons has long been predicted by sages (based on theories of primary colors), the first specimen was spotted only five or so years ago.

So the actual canon reason people suspected yellow dragons existed was “well, we’ve got ‘em in the other two primary colors!”. Sounds about right.

 The creatures are solitary and secretive, preferring to lay in wait for prey to stumble into carefully-prepared traps instead of hunting actively.

Poacher dragons, essentially.

At birth, yellows have soft, tan-colored scales. As they grow older, the scales harden and become lighter in color, eventually reaching the yellow-grey of desert sands. Their scales always have a dusty texture to them, giving them a finish that doesn’t reflect light well.

Holy shit, a desert dragon whose scale color actually makes sense! Now blues have even less of a reason for their desert niche.

Even their teeth and claws have a similar finish.

That’s what happens when you don’t brush, buddy.

No part of the yellow dragon will glint in the sunlight, thereby giving away its position.

They saw Twilight once, and thought “No way in hell is that ever gonna be me”. God, Twilight hasn’t been relevant in literal centuries by my time, yet people still somehow remember it.

Racial tongues, but with an interesting twist:

Yellow dragons speak their own tongue, which is quite different than that spoken by other evil dragons. Yellows have no interest in speaking with other races, and so they learn no other languages.

These guys are described as “Very” intelligent, in the 11-12 range, yet somehow they know fewer tongues than white dragons. Okay, sure.

Combat: Although preferring guile to combat and ambush to attack, yellows are fierce and cunning fighters. Even if forced into a situation where direct combat is inevitable, they’ll still use their spells and innate abilities so as to mislead, misdirect, and distract their opponents.

So, they’re tricksters, got it. At least there’s no “They’ll fight from a distance with breath weapon first” copypaste.

A favorite hunting tactic for a yellow is to dig a steep-walled, cone-shaped depression in the sand, and then bury itself at the bottom of this crater with just its eyes and nostrils above the surface.

When I get a cone-shaped depression, I tend to take a self care day. Which typically doesn’t involve me burying myself in anything but chocolate.

When an unfortunate creature stumbles into the large depression, the dragon begins moving its wings below the surface of the sand, causing the steep walls of the cone to collapse. Trapped in a sand avalanche, the prey tumbles right into the dragon’s mouth.

Oooh, antlion tactics! In other words, something that, again, actually makes sense in the desert.

A yellow dragon casts its spells and uses its magical abilities at 8th level, plus its combat modifier.

Hey, concise statistics, ain’t that a charm!

Breath Weapon/Special Abilities: A yellow dragon’s breath weapon is a high-velocity blast of scorching air mixed with sand (imagine a super-heated sandstorm).

Again, a superheated sandstorm makes a hell of a lot more sense than lightning breath, for something that lives in the desert. So far, this guy seems to exist primarily to outmatch the blue dragon in terms of sense-makitude.

Also, in addition to the usual saves vs. breath weapon, we get the neat detail that if they fail, not only do they take full damage, they get sand in their eyes and are blinded for 1d4+1 rounds. Neato.

At birth, yellow dragons are immune to fire and heat, and they can cast silence, 10’/radius at will. As they age, they gain the following additional powers:

Young: create or destroy water three times per day

This, incidentally, is what the blue dragon also has as their first ability.

Juvenile: dust devil three times per day

Interestingly, they get dust devil an age category earlier than the blue.

Adult: improved invisibility twice per day

If you thought the camouflage wasn’t enough, this is downright overkill.

Old: wind wall three times per day

Hope you weren’t planning to use ranged weapons on this guy, even if you could see him.

Wyrm: enervation three times per day

AND HE DRAINS LEVELS. This guy is the one you fight when your DM really wants to dick with you.

Habitat/Society: Yellow dragons love deserts, preferring areas of sandy, windswept desolation. They are most comfortable in daytime temperatures of 105’ and up, although they can easily survive subfreezing temperatures at night.

Hot damn (no pun intended).You put me in 105’ degrees heat, you’ll be smelling blueberries within a 20-radius of me.

(The first specimen of a yellow dragon was collected in an area of Anauroch called the Anvil of the Gods, where the average daytime temperature is 115’.)

By “collected”, I hope they mean “observed and recorded”, and not “killed a member of a rare and possibly endangered species”. Knowing these chowderheads, though, I’m suspecting the latter.

They share much the same territory as brasses; thus the species occasionally come into conflict.

Presumably not with the same level of hate crime-like viciousness on the part of the brasses, given they’re not mentioned in the brass writeup. Actually, they’re not mentioned anywhere else in the book, almost as if their addition was an afterthought.

Yellows are solitary, selfish creatures that form no close bonds with any other creature, including other yellows. They are highly territorial; the only time they’ll let another yellow into their territory is when it’s a member of the opposite sex, and the dragon is in the mood for mating . . . which is actually quite rare.

Ah, yes, 90’s-enforced heteronormativity! Given that this is supposed to be the FGR, that’s incredibly ironic. I like to imagine that the whole “they rarely mate” thing is, as someone on the forums suggested, entirely a matter of the “sages” not wanting to repeat the lurid details of all that gay dragon sex.

I can picture it now:

Sage: Good GODS, how do you avoid getting sand in there?!
Yel. Dragon: Now, why would we do that? The grittiness in there makes it even better!
Sage: But… But won’t that dry you out? Do you not use lubricant?!
Yel. Dragon: And make his ass soft? You people are weird.

Immediately after mating, the dragons separate. The mother raises the offspring, but won’t go out of her way to protect them from attackers. The young dragons usually leave home before they reach the juvenile age category.

So the dads are all deadbeat and the moms are Karens, got it. I wonder if they named the Yellow Bastard after these guys.

The main enemies of yellow dragons are brasses, who will actively hunt and kill the smaller creatures.

Oh, well nevermind, it turns out that brasses are even worse to them than they are implied to be with blues. How the hell is actively going after someone smaller than you without provocation remotely a “good” thing? ABAB, is all I’m saying.

Ecology: Although able to eat anything, yellows favor fresh meat… preferably still kicking.

To be fair, something squirming as it goes down your throat is a pretty great feeling.

(Demi)humans are considered a delicacy, as are the unhatched eggs of brass dragons. (Yellows rarely get to enjoy this latter feast.)

I strongly dislike the “both sides” angle this book is trying to push. Them going after your young doesn’t justify you going after theirs. Or, you know, hunting them down and killing them for existing.

This has zero to do with the Yellow Dragon, but it's on the same page, soooo...

And on that note, that’s the last of the new dragon species entries in the Draconomicon! Now it’s time to return to your usual scheduled MM posts.