Dragon, Metallic, Gold

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. A gold dragon frequently assumes human or animal guise and usually will be encountered disguised.

At birth, a gold dragon's scales are dark yellow with golden metallic flecks. The flecks get larger as the dragon matures until, at the adult stage, the scales grow completely golden.

Gold dragons speak their own tongue, a tongue common to all good dragons, and 18% of hatchling gold dragons have an ability to communicate with any intelligent creature. The chance to possess this ability increases 5% per age category of the dragon.

Combat: Gold dragons usually parley before combat. When conversing with intelligent creatures they use detect lie and detect gems spells to gain the upper hand. In combat, they quickly use bless and luck bonus. Older dragons use luck bonus at the start of each day if the duration is a day or more. They make heavy use of spells in combat. Among their favorites are sleep, stinking cloud, slow, fire shield, cloudkill, globe of invulnerability, delayed blast, fireball, and maze.

Breath Weapon/Special Abilities: A gold dragon has two breath weapons: a cone of fire 90' long, 5' wide at the dragon's mouth, and 30' wide at the end or a cloud of potent chlorine gas 50' long, 40' wide and 30' high. Creatures caught in either effect are entitled to a save versus breath weapon for half damage.

At birth, gold dragons have water breathing ability, can speak with animals freely, and are immune to fire and gas. They can also polymorph self three times a day. Each change form lasts until the dragon chooses a different form; reverting to the dragon's normal form does not count as a change. A gold dragon's natural form has wings. However, they sometimes choose a wingless form to facilitate swimming, gaining the higher swimming rate listed above. A gold dragon in any wingless form can fly at a speed of 6 (MC E).

As they age, they gain the following additional powers:

Young: bless three times a day. Juvenile: detect lie three times a day. Adult: animal summoning once a day. Mature adult: luck bonus once a day. Old: quest once a day, and detect gems three times a day. (This allows the dragon to know the number and kind of precious stones within a 30' radius, duration is one minute.

The luck bonus power of mature adults is used to aid good adventurers. By touch the dragon can enchant one gem to bring good luck. The gem is usually one which has been embedded in the dragon's hide. When the dragon carries the gem, it and every good creature in a 10' radius per age category of the dragon receives a +1 bonus to all Saving Throws and similar dice rolls, cf. stone of good luck. If the dragon gives a gem to another creature only the bearer gets the bonus. The enchantment lasts three hours per age category of the dragon, plus 1-3 hours. The enchantment ends if the gem is destroyed before its duration expires.

Habitat/Society: Gold dragons can live anywhere. Their lairs are secluded and always made of solid stone, either caves or castles. These usually have loyal guards: either animals appropriate to the terrain, or storm or good cloud giants. The giants usually serve as guards through a mutual defensive agreement.

Ecology: Gold dragons can eat almost anything, however, they usually sustain themselves on pearls or small gems. Gold dragons who receive pearls and gems from good or neutral creatures will usually be favorably inclined toward the gift bringers, as long as the gift is not presented as a crass bribe. In the latter case, the dragon will accept the gift, but react cynically to any requests the giver makes.