Appropriate price of intact dragon skeleton?

[Jarmen4u]

Hey all, need some help.

Party just killed some weird undead version of a dragon we killed a while back, and its skeleton was left in perfect condition after we killed it again. We're thinking of selling most of it/all of it.

How much would this potentially be worth? Based on RAW, if necessary.

[Bullet06320]

Dragon Magazine 332 pg 48 has an article for the pricing of dragon body parts

[Jarmen4u]

I took a look through that, but it mostly had things like hearts/claws/fangs, not really something for an entire skeleton. Although it does help put it into some perspective.

Good thing we didn't accept the deal when that lady offered us 8000gp for the whole thing.

[Jarmen4u]

bump for great avarice! :smallbiggrin:

[Bad Wolf]

I think in Draconmicon there's a bit on making weapons out of dragon bone.

[RolandDeschain]

Your friendly neighborhood necromancer would probably pay dramatically more if it's completely intact....lol

[HurinTheCursed]

Agreed, it's probably worth a lot more as a monster but adventurers and necromancers sometimes have diverging opinions.

According to the Draconomicon, IIRC you can find 12 good fangs/claws make dragon blades, a few bones to make dragonbows and that's it. Your usual dragons have dragon blood to make potions and dragon skin to make armour/shield/cloak but not that much again. None of this is that impressive, selling it to crafters as material components for 1/3 of the complete item price wont make 8000 gold.

Not RAW, my character used dragon parts to make masterwork tools of intimidation, once again not worth much. Otherwise, it's a very fine meat, full of proteins but not for undead dragons.

[NomGarret]

8000 sounds like a good ballpark estimate. The trick you would run into is the market for a whole skeleton is decidedly smaller than the market for the component parts. Aside from super wealthy collectors and necromancers, I'd imagine universities would be the most interested party. They aren't likely to be overflowing with cash, so any deal is probably going to include library privileges or honorary degrees.

[ExLibrisMortis]

8000 sounds like a good ballpark estimate. The trick you would run into is the market for a whole skeleton is decidedly smaller than the market for the component parts. Aside from super wealthy collectors and necromancers, I'd imagine universities would be the most interested party. They aren't likely to be overflowing with cash, so any deal is probably going to include library privileges or honorary degrees.
M. Hobo Faculty of Necromancy, now open. Talk about generous alumni.

[Jarmen4u]

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I forgot to mention as well, the dragon was classified as "Old" at the very minimum. I'm not sure if that affects the price, but one of our party members says it does.

[Psyren]

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I forgot to mention as well, the dragon was classified as "Old" at the very minimum. I'm not sure if that affects the price, but one of our party members says it does.

It does because age impacts their size category, which impacts the quantity of bone available.

[HurinTheCursed]

According to the draconomicon, it doesn't affect quantity but size of available commodities. Dragonblood blood may be an exception.
Beneath medium size, size however matters when it comes it monetary value.

[Bronk]

Thanks for all the feedback so far. I forgot to mention as well, the dragon was classified as "Old" at the very minimum. I'm not sure if that affects the price, but one of our party members says it does.

I don't think the age matters so much as the size. The size determines how much of each type of armor you can get out of it, which other people have mentioned.

I was looking at the dragonbone golem as well, and that can either be large or huge, costs 60,000 gold to make, 5,000 of which is for adamantine wire to string the bones together. So, I guess, the max price of any dragon skeleton would be 55,000 gold minus the cost of the remaining golem materials, whatever that is.