Not all the intelligent beings that travel the wild spaces of the multiverse are humanoids,
quite a lot of them are not and they really need to get more attention in 5th edition
Dungeons & Dragons, so today, let's settle back, go grab yourself a tasty beverage, we
are about to get deeply nerdy as we learn all about the Dracon, the dragon centaurs
of Spelljammer.
In print the Dracon first made their appearance in the 2nd edition sourcebook, Spelljammer:
AD&D Adventures in Space, Lorebook of the void, written by Jeff Grubb and published
in 1989.
Essentially all of the information on the species is covered here on couple of pages,
but, there is so much depth to them, they are really interesting as individuals and
as a culture.
The location of their homeworld is a bit of a mystery, though it has been described as
"dry and arid, dominated by grasslands and desert terrain, with shallow seas and an inclement
climate."
the planet has a single moon and it does seem that, not only are the Dracon's highly cautious
and reluctant to talk about their homeworld, it may be that they actually travelled so
far across the multiverse from it that they have forgotten where it actually is or this
theory may just be something they have invented to further protect their planet.
Physically a Dracon is a large centauroid being with a body shaped more like a Brontosaurus,
its four feet are flattened like those of an elephant, it has a long, agile tail, the
torso of a humanoid with six fingered hands and the head of a dragon.
Their skin is also an elephant-like grey and fairly durable, they do have claws on all
six digits on their hands, but the claw on their fully opposable thumbs are long, wickedly
sharp and absolutely used in combat, in practice, their unarmed strikes do 1d4 plus their strength
bonus worth of damage, but they can choose if it is piercing, slashing or bludgeoning
damage depending on what kind of striking technique they are using.
They are active during the day and are herbivores, they prefer a rich variety of foraged fresh
herbs, plant shoots, some soft tree barks, basically any form of fruit or vegetable and
they can subsist on bales of dry hay if they have no other option.
They just find grasses quite bland and hard to chew, they are a refined and civilised
species that prepares their food, much like we do, over time their cuisine has resulted
in their own vegetarian foodstuffs that are packed with nutrients and flavors they enjoy,
and far from needing to eat huge amounts of plants every day, they just tend to snack
between a couple of more substantial shared meals each day, they prefer to have these
large meals with company and they don't tend to drink a lot, coming from quite a dry world,
they only need as much water as you or I. Dracon clothing and equipment is well made
and always fit to allow them to run as unencumbered as possible, they are deceptively fast over
open ground and can have a tendancy for flight rather than fight in most emergencies.
This behavior is considered normal for them, but Dracon who spend a lot of time around
humanoids gradually take on more aggressive reactions as they conform to the social norms
around them.
Their individual need and entire society is based on being a member of a herd.
Its extremely rare to find a dracon living all by themselves, they actually become sickened
by it and prolonged solitude can result in significant mental trauma, in rare cases,
even death.
The instinctual drive to be a part of a herd can often see the Dracon try to create a new
herd as best they can, even including other species or they may consider the entire crew
of their spelljamming vessel to be their herd, for example.
The typical structure of the Dracon herd reflects their innate desire for order, civility and
tradition, this is also evident in the way they speak, they have their own language,
they fluently speak draconic and they do speak common, but usually with a heavy accent and
in each language they tend to be very formal and favor ornate phrases, mainly this is due
to the way they handle disputes and such in their herds, but more on that in a moment.
Dracon herds are family based and the lineage and age of each individual is highly important,
the leader, or Kaba of the tribe is always to oldest Dracon in the herd, they regard
this as a duty and something of a burden and it's fairly rare for a dracon to act in a
deceptive way to attain any leadership position, the same doesn't hold true for non-dracon
members of the herd though.
A dishonest person could falsify evidence of their age and just step into a leadership
rule with little fuss from the dracons, though it does carry with it quite a bit of risk,
and that is due to the way Dracon handle disputes.
In the case of two herds coming together with one purpose, the very first order of business
is always to determine which is the older Kaba, and that individual becomes the leader
of the entire, combined group.
Ritualistic behavior and ancient traditions are central to their culture and so is the
art of the duel, dracon's challenged to a duel in the formal way are obligated to accept,
though the individual challenged does get to choose the weapon, the place and time,
but, the challenger chooses the conditions for victory, be it to the death, first blood,
surrender and so on.
Duels are normally fought with either their natural claws in their own form of wrestling,
polarms, or with a thin bladed long sword that they would normally use in combat.
Before any combat the dracon is expecting, they perform a ritual as they don their suit
of well made plate armor which covers their torso and the front of their body.
They also employ large throwing darts in combat, and reserve another favored weapon, the polearm,
to more ceremonial tasks and very formal duels.
Other species are not really expected to obey the customs of the duel, but the dracons will
still respond to a challenge from another race, with the condition that no extraordinay
innate advantage of the other species is used, such as a mind flayer mental blast or the
use of magic, toxins and so on.
Along with the Kaba, the herd normally includes the Shalla, a high priest and advisor to the
kaba and healer of their people, in any herd with over thirty members, there will be an
additional Shalla for each extra 30.
Dracons have only relatively recently appeared from somewhere far off in the vast prime material
temporal manifold (to borrow a phrase from Matt Colville there) but they have always
kept things pretty friendly with the likes of humans, elves, dwarves and particularly
lizard folk, their many encounters with draconic beings always leaves them somewhat awestruck,
particularly being in the presence of a True Dragon, they see themselves and other beings
with six limbs to be completely normal and all the four limbed species to be ... well...
they informally refer to them as the deformed or disabled, including lizard folk and dragonborn,
though they are acceptably normal looking enough to be invited into their herd fairly
commonly.
They have some odd views on other species, for instance they consider the endless variants
of the Tyrant (or Beholder and their kin) race as being comical in appearance and they
have a hard time taking them very seriously, they just tend to laugh at the beholders even
as they gallop or sail away from them, one reason for this is that the dracon love to
play a sport quite similar to football and the Beholders resemble the ball they play
with.
They absolutely hate the Neogi and there is strong evidence that their species has encountered
the Neogi long ago as the dark goddess of their religion is a spider-like evil tempting
deity who snatches children who stray too far from their herds.
The rest of their divine pantheon, called "The Herd of Ub-Kalla" all travel together
through the multiverse together.
Its a particular honor when any herd leader is referred to as the Ub-Kalla, the highest
praise a dracon can bestow apon another being.
The rest of their pantheon is similar to the many gods of the dwarves, elves and humans.
Dracon often find it a bit confusing what the differences between these races are, which
can lead to them being both accidentally, and quite deliberately offensive.
They really don't know that much about the history of any of those races unless they
take a particular interest to find out, but, among the herd, their focus is on tradition,
custom and ritual, they don't tend to be overly curious and take great comfort in the routines
of their culture and the sense of connection and belonging it all gives them.
They get along quite well with Centaurs, though that culture is far too chaotic for their
more lawful temperament, intelligent individuals can be of any alignment of course and you
do get the occasional rebellious Dracon who actually enjoys immersing themselves in other
cultures and just going with the flow.
Dracon are strong and they have sharp senses, they can easily keep pace with a galloping
troupe of Centaurs and even master the very large and powerful bows that the centaurs
use, while the centaurs benefit from learning the ancient martial arts of the Dracon and
their use of darts and the halberd.
While only a few Dracon have ever reached the world of Toril, they are present and can
be encountered in such places as Calimport, the Dock in Kara-tur and visiting far flung
and barely explored lands far from the continent of Faerun.
They intensely despise all spiders and if they happen to encounter the Drow of Menzoberanzan
and their Demon spider queen goddess, things are absolutely going to turn ugly, very quickly,
they will also have a big problem with Aranea, those intelligemt spellcasting giant spiders
who still dwell on the borders of Calimshan and many other dark and secret woods.
Out in space, the old spelljamming vessels originally built by the Dracon on their home
world presumably, resemble ocean going sailing vessels such as the galleon, but modified
to accommodate the crews large size.
When they need to find a new vehicle, it is most often a modified Hammership design.
This suggests to scholars that the Dracon only recently discovered spelljamming and
just converted their clunky old sea vessels in order to go out from their home planet
to explore.
Nobody knows when exactly that started, or how long they have been travelling and exploring
ever since, but one thing is for sure.
Dracons watch the behaviour of true dragons very carefully.
They consider true dragons to be messengers of their own pantheon's will.
Dracon are well adapted to dry conditions, but are not particularly well adapted to the
intense heat and cold of an open desert, however, they are a very smart species, having an average
Intelligence attribute of 14 and with lots of experience with different worlds they can
figure out how to survive in most conditions.
On the dracon's own world, the weather is kind of atrocious, so they consider the weather
on other worlds to be quite pleasant, though they swear the the fast growing grasses that
flourish in large parts of their homeworld can never be matched by any grasses from other
worlds.
As player characters, the large size and centauroid form of the dracon makes them powerful, but
their culture and instincts temper that power considerably, they are not brutes and not
monsters, they are fiercely loyal to their herd and their friends outside of their herd.
While their culture tends to consist of mostly lawful good-aligned Dracon, they can be of
any alignment, though lawful neutral and lawful evil are more common than any chaotic or true
neutral alignments among them.
Dracon raised outside of their own culture certainly exists but whatever culture they
are raised in, they will always tend to embody the norms for that culture, thanks to their
instinct to conform to the herd.
I hope we do see an updated version of the Dracons for 5th edition spelljammer, but for
now, my name is AJ Pickett and I will be back with more easy-listening RPG Lore for you,
very soon.