Dragon, Fire

Fire dragons are creatures of Chaos created in mockery of true dragons. This imitation extends so far as to cause these creatures to appear at all levels of development, from eggs to great wyrms. Fire dragons appear to be made of living magma, with obsidian scales and eyes like glowing embers.

Combat: These creatures have a claw/claw/bite routine. In addition, they can use all special physical attacks that dragons have, such as wing buffets, tail slaps, and so forth. They also have the fear aura of true dragons, at the same power as their apparent age level.

Breath weapon/special abilities: The breath weapon of a fire dragon is a cloud of sulfurous vapor that chokes and burns anything in its path, causing half damage if the target saves vs breath weapon. The touch of a fire dragon inflicts 1-8 hp burning damage to anything that does not save vs. spells, When in flight, fire dragons shed a steady rain of redhot embers that ignite all flammable material they touch (save vs. magical fire).

Fire dragons are immune to all fire-based attacks. On the other hand, cold- and water-based attacks inflict double damage. Holy water splashed on them inflicts 1-12 hp damage per vial.

Fire dragons are impervious to non-magical, non-blessed weapons, but magical, holy, or recently blessed weapons inflict normal damage. Acid attacks harm the fire dragon normally. Attack spells that are not fire-based also cause normal damage, although fire dragons have a base 10% magic resistance at birth, and this increases an additional 5% per increase in apparent age level.

Habitat/Society: Fire dragons are loners, gathering only when commanded to by Chaos, as during the Chaos War. They seem to form family groups at times but do not hoard treasure. They often serve as mounts for daemon warriors, and this is as far as they ever go toward cooperating with others.

Ecology: Like true dragons, fire dragons eat practically anything, including earth and stone. However, they much prefer flesh. Their bodies can provide magical ingredients for scroll ink for spells like fireball and protection from fire, while the hide can make fire-resistant scale mail, and the bones are useful for tipping wands of fire. Still, if wizards stumble upon some fire dragons before the Summer of Chaos, they would be well-advised to use these unexpected "resources" to make as many arrows of fire dragon slaying as possible.