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THE STONE DRAGONS

Page 2, By Kelly Pedersen

Marble Dragon

Marble dragons are aesthetes, loving fine art, and espically marble sculpture above all things. They prefer to allow others to see the art, so will often take people into their lairs. At birth, a marble dragon is colored a rich ivory color. It gains stripes of rose, green, blue, purple, black, and yellow as it ages. The pattern of this marbling is unique for each dragon, and can be used to identify them. At birth, marble dragons can speak their own tounge and the tongue common to all stone dragons. Also, 17% of hatchlings can communicate with any intelligent creature. The chance to possess this ability increases 5% for eve age category.

Combat: Marble dragons always try to lure opponents away from their lairs, so as not to damage the lair and the statues contained within. Once far enough away from the lair, the dragon will use its breath weapon. Once it has turned a few of the opponent's limbs into stone, it will fight physically. The dragon usually does not go too far from its lair, however, because the intruder might have friends that would try to sneak around while the dragon was busy.

Breath Weapon/Special Abilities: A marble dragon's breath weapon is a blast of petrifaction, which turn something that it hits into marble. A person must save vs. petrifaction for half. The blast does damage because it turns portions of the body into marble, shutting them down. Usually these are things like blood cells, or small pieces of skin, but if a person takes more than twenty points of damage at one time from the breath weapon, they must make a save vs. paralyzation or have one of the following things happen:

(d100)
1-25 lose a point of Constitution for 1d4 weeks
26-50 lose a point of Strength for 1d4 weeks
51-75 lose a point of Dexterity for 1d4 weeks
76-80 lose a point of Intelligence for 1d4 years
81-85 left hand turns to stone
86-90 right hand turns to stone
91-92 left leg turns to stone
93- 94 right leg turns to stone
95-96 both arms turn to stone
96-97 both legs turn to stone
98-99 all limbs turn to stone
00 whole body becomes stone
It should be noted that if a person dies from the damage caused by the breath weapon, they automatically become entirely stone. A marble dragon uses its spells and special abilities at 8th level.

At birth, marble dragons are immune to petrification, and they can cast passwall at will. As they age, they gain the following powers:
YOUNG: detect statues three times a day. This allows the dragon to know the location and composition of all stone statues in a five mile radius.
JUVENILE: animate object twice a day. This is most often used on the poorer statues the dragon posses, or on victims of the dragon's breath weapon, to guard the lair when the dragon is away.
MATURE ADULT: repair building once a day. This is used by the dragon to repair its lair if it is damaged.
VERY OLD: speak to statues once a day. This allows the dragon to speak to any statue, and the statue will tell any knowledge it has gained, using the senses it was carved with. For instance, a statue carved blind could not tell of what it has seen.
GREAT WYRM: invulnerable stone once a day. This makes any amount of stone up to 100 cubic feet invulnerable to stone shape, rock to mud, or any other type of spell that changes the shape of the stone, and to physical change, for one week.

Habitat/Society: Marble dragons prefer to live in buildings made of marble. They will look for relatively new abandoned buildings, because they think that the better the condition the building is in, the better it looks. They will never try to force out people already living in the building, because that might damage the building. If they cannot find a marble building, they will find a cave and use their breath weapon to turn it and everything in the immediate area into marble.

Marble dragons prefer marble statues to any other treasure. They are willing to pay large amounts of gems and coins to purchase statues. However, marble dragons do not think that only they should look at a statue. Usually they allow anyone who asks nicely to look at their treasure. A small gift is usually appreciated as well, especially if it is a statue. Marble dragons are still jealous of their hoard, however. They usually keep the statues in several different areas of their lair, so that if someone tries to steal the statues, they won't get them all. They also accompany anyone looking at the statues. The rest of the treasure will usually be kept somewhere in a back room. Marble dragons do not display people who have been turned to stone by their breath weapon, as they consider these to not be real statues. Marble dragons get along with other marble dragons well, even letting them see their statues, but they are always watchful for an attempt to steal one. Marble dragons are not enemies of any other dragon, and sometimes even live with a gold dragon that lives in a marble building.

Ecology: Marble dragons will eat anything, but they apparently consider polar bear a delicacy, and hunt them every time they can.

Basalt Dragon

Basalt dragons are intellectuals, who enjoy coming up with answers to the problems of mortal society, then convincing mortals to try their ideas. If the solutions are wrong, they aren't too worried, considering mistakes to be part of learning.
At birth, basalt dragons are bright red, the color of lava. As they age, black patches develop and spread. By the time they reach Very Old, they are entirely black. However, they are a very glossy black, by which they can be told from black dragons.
At birth, basalt dragons can speak their own tongue, and the common tongue of stone dragons. 18% of hatchlings can also communicate with any intelligent creature. The chance to possess this ability increases 5% each age category.

Combat: Basalt dragons prefer to let the environment take its toll on attackers before it uses its own abilities. It will often set traps as well. One of its favorites is a narrow bit of land between lava pools that it can collapse when people walk on it. Once the intruders have been damaged by the dragon's hostile environment, it will use its breath weapon and spells, then pick off the survivors physically.

Breath Weapon/Special Abilities: A basalt dragon's breath weapon is a jet of lava 90' long and 5' wide. Someone struck by the lava can save vs. breath weapon for half damage. A basalt dragon uses its spells and abilities at 9th level.
At birth, a basalt dragon is immune to the effects of heat, fire and poisonous gas, and can walk on lava as if it were solid ground at will. As they age, they gain the following abilities:

YOUNG: breath lava at will. This allows the dragon to breath lava as if it were air.
YOUNG ADULT: summon lava Memphis once a day. This allows the dragon to summon and control a lava mephit. Usually the dragon orders the mephits to guard its treasure while it is gone. It always insists that the mephits stay away from groups of people, because that might change their conditions, making the dragon's theories invalid.
OLD: mass charm once per day. This is usually used to get groups of people to try out the dragon's ideas for society.
GREAT WYRM: stop eruption once per month. This allows the dragon to stop an erupting volcano from erupting. This is usually used to prevent the destruction of a group of people the dragon has been observing.

Habitat/Society: Basalt dragons live in the craters of active volcanoes. They love playing in lava pools and basking in hot springs. Their eggs are also immune to heat, so they lay them in shallow lava pools, where the hatchlings can swim to the surface to breath. Basalt dragons get along quite well with other dragons, although silver and gold dragons occasionally object to their using people for experiments in society. A basalt dragon will always try to find a volcano reasonably close to a settlement. They are often friends with the people there, because the dragon will usually rescue the people from a problem that would otherwise be fatal. The dragon, of course, does this so that he or she can continue to observe the settlement. A basalt dragon's greatest joy is to see one of their ideas catch on and spread through society.

Ecology: A basalt dragon can eat anything, but it prefers meat, espically the meat of elemental fire-kin creatures.

Granite Dragon

Granite dragons are immensely curious. They believe that their mission in life is to record as much of the history of the world as possible. They will frequently be encountered in a humanoid form, listening to tales and finding things out. At birth, a granite dragon's scales are dark gray. As it grows, a few of the scales turn crystalline, like mica, and patches of red and green develop. By the time the dragon is adult, its scales look like granite with patches of lichen. At birth, granite dragons can speak their own language, the language of all stone dragons, and 30% of hatchlings can communicate with any intelligent creature. The chance to possess this ability increases by 5% each age category.

Combat: A granite dragon will engage in combat only if its memory crystals are threatened. It considers any other involvement to be altering the course of history, and will use any means to avoid it. If they are defending their hoard, they will first use spells, physical attacks, and special abilities to destroy the intruders, before using breath weapons, because the breath weapon could damage the memory crystals.

Breath Weapon/Special Abilities: A granite dragon's breath weapon is a cone of gravel and large boulders, that is 80' long, 20' wide at the end, and 5' wide at its mouth. The stream always contains a large quantity of gravel and 1d8 large boulders. These boulders, when they reach the end of the cone, bounce three times. The scatter diagram should be used to determine where they bounce to. Once a boulder leaves the cone, it does 1d8 points of damage if it hits something. If a person is hit by a bouncing boulder, they can save vs. breath weapon for half damage. Inside the cone, the boulder's damage is part of the damage caused by the breath weapon. The gravel disappears when it reaches the end of the cone. A creature hit by the breath weapon can save vs. breath weapon for half damage. A granite dragon uses its wizard spells and special abilities at 10th level, plus its combat modifier. Because of granite dragons' devotion to history, they are always in good favor with the local gods of history and knowledge. Because of this, they are granted priest spells by those gods as if they were priests of 11th level, plus their combat modifier. Note that the gods can only grant spells from spheres to which they have access.

At birth, granite dragons are immune to any enchantment/charm spells, and petrification. They can also cast store memory once per week. This allows them to store a copy of their memory in a gem. The gem must be worth 100 gp's for each month of memory stored. A granite dragon can access this stored memory at any time, even if the memory gem is not one that dragon has created. A granite dragon can also allow another intelligent creature to access this memory, but they must be in contact with the creature when it attempts to access the gem. As they age, granite dragons gain the following powers:

YOUNG: polymorph self three times a day. Each change in form lasts until the dragon chooses a different form and reverting to their normal form does not count as a change.
YOUNG ADULT: know history once a day. This allows the dragon to know the basic history of a person (name; where, when born; parents; major events; status), object (who made by; where made; major events; object's function), and buildings (when, why, by who built; major events).
MATURE ADULT: comprehend languages at will, legend lore once a day.
OLD: teleport without error once a day.
GREAT WYRM: conjure earth elemental once a week. This allows the dragon to conjure a 16HD earth elemental to guard its treasure. There is no chance of the elemental breaking free.

Habitat/Society: Granite dragons love recording history. They try to find out everything they possibly can, and store it in their memory crystals. Since the entire history of a world is usually unreasonable to collect, most granite dragons concentrate their efforts on one part of history, one race, or one area. When a granite dragon nears its time of death, which they can sense, they will mate once more. They will keep one of the hatchlings, and give their hoard to the hatching. This insures that their life's work will not be lost when they die. Because of this practice, some hoards of memory gems can take up caverns the size of a city.
Granite dragons like to share their knowledge. They will allow anyone who asks access to their memory crystals, and help them find things. Granite dragons get along with most good and neutral dragons, but they fear and hate evil dragons, because evil dragons would steal the memory gems because they are gems. Basalt dragons often ask to view the granite dragons memory crystals, in hopes of finding inspiration for their continual search to improve mortal societies. Granite dragons use their polymorph self ability to take on the form of creatures they they want a history from. They often spend years in one shape, learning all they can. They will eventually change back to a dragon, in order to transfer what they have learned to memory crystals. However, they will make sure to do very little or nothing to affect the people that they study, as they consider this to be wrong.
Ecology: Granite dragons will eat anything, but they usually eat what the form they are presently in eats.

Kelly Pedersen

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