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

Whoops! Wrong brown dragon.

There we go!

Hey, been a while, hasn’t it?

Well, after we’ve done the Chromatics and Metallics both, you’re probably wondering how many more dergs D&D could possibly have left to throw at us.

As it turns out, D&D’s remarkable tendency to whore out and reiterate a concept until the original luster is long gone doesn’t exclude its titular handsome reptiles. We ain’t scratched the fucking surface of this giant gay lizard iceberg.

And good thing, too, Gosh only knows what would happen if I ran out of quick, easy material to bang out posts about.

The Flight of Dragons Cartoon, Part 1

The Flight of Dragons cartoon is a fascinating hot mess.

Now, to be perfectly clear, I’m going to spoil the entire plot. This essay assumes you’ve seen the film in question, and if you haven’t, go give it a watch! It’s far from perfect, but it’s an interesting enough film that I had to write down my thoughts on it.

To give all this some context, I’ll briefly recap the history of this strange film.

Peter Dickinson had been on a train, looking at the cover of the Earthsea Trilogy, when he wondered how the hell something so big could fly, especially with such little wings. He came up with the same answer then and there that nature had come up with for us millions of years ago back on VolRei: dragons fly using lighter-than-air gas (or just burning said gas, in our case), necessitating our enormous size.

Not quite chubby enough to fly, but what would I know?

Well, he let that idea ferment a little, and came up with a theory for how the dragons presented in folklore might have really existed on Earth. His agent saw the end result, and sent it to a publisher. A few publisher-mandated extra pages later, and we got the speculative evolutionary text known as The Flight of Dragons.

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

I'm certain I've seen this guy on a metal album co- wait, did I already say that? *checks* Not exactly, at least not in THIS series.

Alrighty, Silver Dragon time, here we go!

Silver dragons are kind and helpful. They will cheerfully assist good creatures if their need is genuine. They often take the forms of kindly old men or fair damsels when associating with people.

Silver dragons are known to turn into silver foxes on occasion.

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.

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

Doesn’t he just look jolly?

For the record, I’m still working on the rest of the UHoG series, but when you have to write a blog post that’s nothing but a bunch of reviews of dad games, I think you can understand my lack of enthusiasm.

I’m sure there’s an ACAB joke you guys can make, but you’ll want to save it for later. Possibly a lot later, but trust me. It’ll be worth it.

Copper dragons are incorrigible pranksters, joke tellers, and riddlers.
Prankster + D&D 2e = Oh Gosh’s fucking beer gut.

Yes, it’s the “Just a prank, bro!” dragon, in all his glory.

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

The sexy overbite is sadly marred by the wall-eyed face and weird spiked nostrils.

Bronze dragons are inquisitive and fond of humans and demi-humans.

“Inquisitive” is almost never a good sign, when 2e is involved.

They enjoy polymorphing into small, friendly animals so they can unobtrusively observe humans and demi-humans, especially adventurers.

So, they’re pretty much they’re pretty much the squirrels you see in any given overhead shot of our characters in a forest. No, seriously, look at any of those scenes again; those fuckers? Secretly bronze dragons.

Bronze dragons thrive on simple challenges such as riddles and harmless contests.

Just don’t challenge ‘em to a peeing-for-distance contest. The local wildlife will avoid that place for weeks.

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

The top of this guy’s head looks like either a roast chicken, or a pair of asscheeks.

Awright! And now, we’re FINALLY done with those motherfucking gem dragons. Hope the door didn’t hit ‘em on the way out.

I could take this opportunity to make a joke about this next batch of dragons being “METAL AS FUUUUUUCK”, but given what I know going in, we’ve already left the only dragons who’d fit that description behind.

Brass dragons are great talkers, but not particularly good conversationalists.

As an autistic person, I identify way too goddamned much with that statement.