Mixed dragons?

[Sqmach]

Just a random thought I had today, can dragons that aren't of the same type have offspring together? I sort of assume children from two different kinds of dragons are possible since dragons seems to be able to mate with almost anything to produce half-dragons, it would be weird if the only exception to this rule was other dragons. But then, what does the offspring look like, both from a fluff and rules perspective? Applying the half-dragon template to another dragon makes no sense, does the offspring just end up as one type or the other? Is this random or is there some other factor, like which is stronger? Pokemon rules, we go with the type of the mother? Maybe it ends up with mixed abilities?

Anyway, there might actually be rules for this somewhere and I just don't know where to look, but I figured you guys would have insight, as you always do.

[GreatDane]

I can't find any official rules for this.

Unofficially, I think this kind of mating is unlikely (especially for evil dragons, who often mate because they want their own species to continue). If it was relevant for a campaign, though, I'd either give the offspring a 50/50 shot of being either color (so you could have a group of copper and silver young adult dragons who constantly bicker), or homebrew a combination and make it an outcast/exalted. Probably would give the latter both/all breath weapons or something.

[Draconium]

Well I'm not aware of any official rules (which is understandable, if unfortunate, as to why there are none), I do have a friend who's homebrewed a couple of draconic hybrids. They're supposed be far more rare than a normal dragon (because of obvious reasons), but also strictly more powerful (because they're getting a combination of traits from the two parents).

... Although now that I think about it, if dragons can breed with anything, that would include each other. If an evil dragon is known for making a lot of half-dragon spawn (there are dragons that do that in official books), and they convinced another dragon of a different species to help them out with a Dragon hybrid experiment...

[BowStreetRunner]

"Half-dragon" is an inherited template that can be added to any living, corporeal creature (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
There is no reason you can't use a Dragon as the base creature when creating a Half-Dragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/halfDragon.htm). Red Half-Black Dragon anyone?

[Sqmach]

Possible, but then we still have to decide which half is dominant and which is added by template. Plus it seems weird that it would have two breath weapons, one of which doesn't scale, and the stat increases don't really make sense.

Edit: Meant to say its weird one of the weapons doesn't scale, I actually like it having both. Though it might be a good idea to make them on the same cooldown so its not too powerful.

[Grim Portent]

Possible, but then we still have to decide which half is dominant and which is added by template. Plus it seems weird that it would have two breath weapons, one of which doesn't scale, and the stat increases don't really make sense.

Edit: Meant to say its weird one of the weapons doesn't scale, I actually like it having both. Though it might be a good idea to make them on the same cooldown so its not too powerful.

Hybrid vigour is a decent way to explain the stat boosts.

[Sqmach]

Hybrid vigour is a decent way to explain the stat boosts.

True, sort of like how a Liger ends up gigantic in real life. By that comparison, might want to make the result sterile too. Mostly a fluff thing, but would mean you'd only ever meet something with two types mixed max, not four or more (how much of a dragon type does one require for a breath weapon?).

Edit: And since it came up, are there stats for a Liger anywhere? or a Tigon? An example of a known hybrid beast might be a good place to start for hybrid dragons, rather that slapping on a template meant for things normally less powerful than dragons.

[Ruethgar]

A distant relative is all you need for a breath weapon via major dragon bloodline.

I made a near rainbow dragon before, need to find that.

Edit:
Major Red Dragon Bloodline
Draconic Class Copper(or Orange if your DM lets you come up with something to match the Dragon Compendium beast)
Dragonwrought Gold(or Yellow if allowed)
Half-Dragon Class Green
Half-Dragon Template Blue
PF Trait Purple Scales or Dragonpact with a Deep, Shadow, or Purple dragon.

Because you are a True Dragon you could Dragonpact for Copper with yourself(circumventing the initiation limitation via Aspect of the Wolf or similar) then rebuild your Draconic or Half-Dragon levels while keeping the pact. This means you only need Dragonwrought and Draconic to get the rainbow scales. Or just prismatic if you want to be cheap about it.

[Shalist]

Seems relevant, from the Planescape Survival Guide (http://planescapecomic.com/110.html):

http://i702.photobucket.com/albums/ww30/123456laughs/bestparty.jpg
http://i702.photobucket.com/albums/ww30/123456laughs/dragonname.jpg

[Thurbane]

Half-Dragon Dragons are a definite thing (although MM/SRD and Draconomicon seem to be in disagreement): http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eo/20070401a

[Meepo_]

Well, everyone knows that bronze dragons were created when a copper dragon bred with a tin dragon.

[Thurbane]

Well, everyone knows that bronze dragons were created when a copper dragon bred with a tin dragon.

:smallbiggrin:

So that would make Brass dragons a Copper dragon/Zinc dragon hybrid?

[Meepo_]

:smallbiggrin:

So that would make Brass dragons a Copper dragon/Zinc dragon hybrid?

Yes. This is why steel dragons aren't that common: there just aren't enough carbon dragons anymore to mate with the iron ones.

[BowStreetRunner]

Yes. This is why steel dragons aren't that common: there just aren't enough carbon dragons anymore to mate with the iron ones.
Would a diamond dragon work?

[Meepo_]

Would a diamond dragon work?

That's what happens when a carbon dragon uses dark magic to teleport 100 miles beneath the underdark.

[daremetoidareyo]

Asterinion, the ancient Elven ScholarMage's, Notebook p.247

27th Bloodmoon, 6427

The Scholarly expedition set out as soon as the Bearfang Mercenary party reported the death of the Rogue of the Venerable Brass Dragon, Blitiox's Demise. The party Cleric stated that the upon communion with Bahamut via some divine manisfestation, that Blitiox had "gone rogue" and "traded in terrible secrets" and they had to kill her, by divine blessing of Bahamut. The Scholarly party returned with a sahuagin hide tome of text labelled, "Diary of a weakling elf" in a chest that was adorned with woodcarvings, the largest of which seemed to label the contents, in archaic draconic, "intruder's spoils." With the journal was a collection of minor magical items that would only be useful to weak and small humanoid adventure seekers; e.g. gloves of minor magical enchantment, or ugly broaches of natural attacke. The book was strange. The book was written in an ancient elven dialect, which was strange considering that so few dragon's ever learn our language. That is why we learn theirs. But the book was a collection of sorcerous instruction detailing how to destroy developing dragon young, in the womb. I had never read such meticulous notekeeper and knowledge of dragon anatomy. Material components consisting of some now extinct trees are noted. What a curious tome?



Asterinion, the ancient Elven ScholarMage's, Notebook p.459


13th, Larethon's Passing, 6453

The old silver dragon benefactor of the Brynn Kingdom, Dermiot, visited today. The chimera plague was finally settled once and for all. I had chance audience with the brilliant sky mistress near sundown. After sharing some magical tinkering tips, I inquired as the strange findings of Blitiox's hoard. Dermiot looked disturbed. Downright Viscious. Dermiot demanded to see the book. Demanding fearsomely for me to translate all of the elven for her. She shrilly whispered something under her breath. My faltering Draconic roughly translated it as "Witchly? cattle disturber". When I finished translating the tome, she cursed, "Clever idiot wrote that down in elven, knowing that none of us could read it!” She demanded ownership of the tome, saying that it never belonged outside the dragon race. I gave it to her and she destroyed it in front of me. Tossing it in the air and shattering it with the force of her ice breath. She gave me a stern warning to “Pursue this no further, if you value what CAN be your long and content elven life.” This puzzles and scares me.



Asterinion, the ancient Elven ScholarMage's, Notebook p.659


9th, Coldnigths, 6534

The Brynnish Royal Society of Academic Pursuits is hosted by the Court for only 3 more weeks. What an amazing collection of human beings. The younger unhumble one was prattling on about these reports and drawings of various dragonkind of the far off continent. It is well known that dragons, particularly the evil ones can be quite prolific breeders. It’s a process the gnomish holistic doctors and illusionists call, the “Vanity Scourging”: When the sentient species of the world that don’t necessarily have to bear the costs of giving birth, they can sometimes find that they rather enjoy the feeling of inflicting their likeness upon the world as a sort of incontrovertible domination. Black, White and Red dragons are known for it. Anyways, in these pamphlets, there are pictures of three more species of chromatic dragon, yellow, orange and purple.

The little magic gems that these men had were amazing little contraptions using dwarven rune-sight and ancient primitive stone magics. They recorded everything that a was reflected on the largest facet. They would tap the rune twice, and the largest eye would shine, which they then use to record pictures in real time, storing an illusion on it of the same length as it shines. They can tap and whistle and it shuts off, ending the illusion. The thing is, they use these crystals to record images of animals and beasts that are encountered on the lost continent. And I still can’t believe what I saw. I saw each of these animals in the flesh. Further, one of the the gems held, what I think is the solution as to why the ancient brass dragon Blitiox had an elven journal about dragon reproductive biology in her hoard. On this gem was a recording of a metallic pink wyrmling fleeing from a settlement of orcs that had set upon it with highly mobile ballistae. As it fled, it bellowed smoke that crept like fog on one party of orcs that paralyzed them, like a silver dragon, as well as both a blast of ice, like a silver dragon as well as a blast of fire. I know what your thinking, SPELLS. But this clever bastard took a spy glass with two additional panes of crystal wrapped in it, and enchanted the glass and crystal panes with arcane sight, detect magic, and truesight. He then recorded what he could see by holding it in front of the gem’s recording eye. They demonstrated this innovation yesterday. So obviously, we witnessed a silver dragon/red dragon crossbreed. Of course a red dragon would try to dominate any metallic dragon genetically.

I am currently hiring messengers to all of the elven academics in the land to see if there is any knowledge or stories of other crossbred dragons. If I remember correctly, in my childhood, I remember some old wives tale about such a thing. I have a small sum of personal savings that I have been using for such ventures.

Anyway, it occurred to me, that given evil dragon reproductive proclivities being what they are, there would need to be a sort of antidote to such things. And so female dragons invented it. But I imagine that such a process was frowned upon by the great dragon kings of good. And it was the chaotic of the dragon kind that kept this information, stored away in forms that would not entrouble them with other dragons. It strikes me that some metallic dragon dragons took it mighty unkindly dragon kind to have this power over all possible offspring. What if it fell into the wrong hands? Fearing retribution for this knowledge, Blitiox wrote this stuff down for herself, and disguised it in a dummy chest.



Asterinion, the ancient Elven ScholarMage's, Notebook p.701


19th, Bloodmoon, 6610

I spoke to a young Brass dragon today. He was a companion of some raging half orc barbarian freedom fighter. Her common name was Witchin’ Kamaroh. In a brash decision, I brought up the topics that Dermiot warned me about. I’m old. And I’ve had the foresight to write all my brilliance down, so if anyone needs me for anything, they can just look up my indestructible notebooks. Anyway, I told Witchin’ about the old elven spell book and Blitiox and the journal. I figured that she’d appreciate the culture anyway. Witchin’ laughed at me. “Silly elf, that is ancient knowledge, us young dragons, since we’re all naturally sorcerous, we just find that we are gravid, we just polymorph into something that is sterile. Like a mule. Bing bang boom. No more vanity scourge problems. You can’t tell a dragon what to do and expect all of them to obey the spirit of your words HAHAHAHA”

I then asked about the mixed dragons. She told me that she’s only seen a few, and they all share their mother’s features as a base, and it seems like the parentage of the father supplies what I’ll call a “template”, a suite of additional powers and likenesses to the paternal line.

I guess that explains a little about mixed dragons.

[DigoDragon]

The old 2nd edition Draconomicon had some notes about different dragon types producing mixed offspring. It seems to be something left as an exercise for the GM.

[TypoNinja]

There is no reason you can't use a Dragon as the base creature when creating a Half-Dragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/halfDragon.htm). Red Half-Black Dragon anyone?

This is actually the solution my group decided on. Offspring are the type of mom, and the "half" of dad.

[Bullet06320]

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/ebooks/d20/slayer-s-guides/the-slayer-s-guide-to-dragons.html
Slayers Guide to Dragons 3rd party, written by Gary Gygax
has rules for mixed breeds of dragons

[Uncle Pine]

Applying the half-dragon template to another dragon makes no sense

So how does a half-red dragon gelatinous cube make more sense than a half-gold dragon steel dragon? As for which half to use for the template, roll 50/50 or rule that the less powerful dragon is added as a template (so breeding a white dragon and a gold one would produce a half-white dragon gold dragon).

And you can totally have dragons with multiple halves, both mechanically and as far as fluff goes: in the former case you can just add the template multiple times, in the latter Savage Species has rituals you can use to get more templates.

[Sqmach]

So how does a half-red dragon gelatinous cube make more sense than a half-gold dragon steel dragon? As for which half to use for the template, roll 50/50 or rule that the less powerful dragon is added as a template (so breeding a white dragon and a gold one would produce a half-white dragon gold dragon).

And you can totally have dragons with multiple halves, both mechanically and as far as fluff goes: in the former case you can just add the template multiple times, in the latter Savage Species has rituals you can use to get more templates.

First, half-dragon gelatinous cubes don't make sense, but that is another issue. But the main issue is that the offspring aren't really half dragon, they are 100% dragon. With the template they end up strangely superior to both parents. I can see the argument for them being moderately better, perhaps gaining the immunities and breath weapons of both types and the best stats of either type. Getting a straight boost to everything just because one parent is a different kind of dragon is odd. Why should a half-blue white dragon be inherently better in all aspects than a pure red? For that matter, aren't all pure breed dragons half dragons too by this logic? Shouldn't that pure red dragon by a half-red red dragon?

As for adding multiple halves, there is a point where things just stop making sense. While I accept that there are rules for adding templates by magic, the original question was about natural crossbreed offspring, not something with a template magically stacked onto it by fluff or something just mechanically given it. A 3/2 of 4/2 dragon might be possible using those methods, but doesn't make sense by breeding the dragons. If we were achieving the mix by templates, we'd need something like a 1/4 dragon template, which still doesn't deal with the issue of such a template not taking into account when the base creature is the same type as the main creature.

[FocusWolf413]

Asterinion, the ancient Elven ScholarMage's, Notebook p.247

27th Bloodmoon, 6427

The Scholarly expedition set out as soon as the Bearfang Mercenary party reported the death of the Rogue of the Venerable Brass Dragon, Blitiox's Demise. The party Cleric stated that the upon communion with Bahamut via some divine manisfestation, that Blitiox had "gone rogue" and "traded in terrible secrets" and they had to kill her, by divine blessing of Bahamut. The Scholarly party returned with a sahuagin hide tome of text labelled, "Diary of a weakling elf" in a chest that was adorned with woodcarvings, the largest of which seemed to label the contents, in archaic draconic, "intruder's spoils." With the journal was a collection of minor magical items that would only be useful to weak and small humanoid adventure seekers; e.g. gloves of minor magical enchantment, or ugly broaches of natural attacke. The book was strange. The book was written in an ancient elven dialect, which was strange considering that so few dragon's ever learn our language. That is why we learn theirs. But the book was a collection of sorcerous instruction detailing how to destroy developing dragon young, in the womb. I had never read such meticulous notekeeper and knowledge of dragon anatomy. Material components consisting of some now extinct trees are noted. What a curious tome?



Asterinion, the ancient Elven ScholarMage's, Notebook p.459


13th, Larethon's Passing, 6453

The old silver dragon benefactor of the Brynn Kingdom, Dermiot, visited today. The chimera plague was finally settled once and for all. I had chance audience with the brilliant sky mistress near sundown. After sharing some magical tinkering tips, I inquired as the strange findings of Blitiox's hoard. Dermiot looked disturbed. Downright Viscious. Dermiot demanded to see the book. Demanding fearsomely for me to translate all of the elven for her. She shrilly whispered something under her breath. My faltering Draconic roughly translated it as "Witchly? cattle disturber". When I finished translating the tome, she cursed, "Clever idiot wrote that down in elven, knowing that none of us could read it!” She demanded ownership of the tome, saying that it never belonged outside the dragon race. I gave it to her and she destroyed it in front of me. Tossing it in the air and shattering it with the force of her ice breath. She gave me a stern warning to “Pursue this no further, if you value what CAN be your long and content elven life.” This puzzles and scares me.



Asterinion, the ancient Elven ScholarMage's, Notebook p.659


9th, Coldnigths, 6534

The Brynnish Royal Society of Academic Pursuits is hosted by the Court for only 3 more weeks. What an amazing collection of human beings. The younger unhumble one was prattling on about these reports and drawings of various dragonkind of the far off continent. It is well known that dragons, particularly the evil ones can be quite prolific breeders. It’s a process the gnomish holistic doctors and illusionists call, the “Vanity Scourging”: When the sentient species of the world that don’t necessarily have to bear the costs of giving birth, they can sometimes find that they rather enjoy the feeling of inflicting their likeness upon the world as a sort of incontrovertible domination. Black, White and Red dragons are known for it. Anyways, in these pamphlets, there are pictures of three more species of chromatic dragon, yellow, orange and purple.

The little magic gems that these men had were amazing little contraptions using dwarven rune-sight and ancient primitive stone magics. They recorded everything that a was reflected on the largest facet. They would tap the rune twice, and the largest eye would shine, which they then use to record pictures in real time, storing an illusion on it of the same length as it shines. They can tap and whistle and it shuts off, ending the illusion. The thing is, they use these crystals to record images of animals and beasts that are encountered on the lost continent. And I still can’t believe what I saw. I saw each of these animals in the flesh. Further, one of the the gems held, what I think is the solution as to why the ancient brass dragon Blitiox had an elven journal about dragon reproductive biology in her hoard. On this gem was a recording of a metallic pink wyrmling fleeing from a settlement of orcs that had set upon it with highly mobile ballistae. As it fled, it bellowed smoke that crept like fog on one party of orcs that paralyzed them, like a silver dragon, as well as both a blast of ice, like a silver dragon as well as a blast of fire. I know what your thinking, SPELLS. But this clever bastard took a spy glass with two additional panes of crystal wrapped in it, and enchanted the glass and crystal panes with arcane sight, detect magic, and truesight. He then recorded what he could see by holding it in front of the gem’s recording eye. They demonstrated this innovation yesterday. So obviously, we witnessed a silver dragon/red dragon crossbreed. Of course a red dragon would try to dominate any metallic dragon genetically.

I am currently hiring messengers to all of the elven academics in the land to see if there is any knowledge or stories of other crossbred dragons. If I remember correctly, in my childhood, I remember some old wives tale about such a thing. I have a small sum of personal savings that I have been using for such ventures.

Anyway, it occurred to me, that given evil dragon reproductive proclivities being what they are, there would need to be a sort of antidote to such things. And so female dragons invented it. But I imagine that such a process was frowned upon by the great dragon kings of good. And it was the chaotic of the dragon kind that kept this information, stored away in forms that would not entrouble them with other dragons. It strikes me that some metallic dragon dragons took it mighty unkindly dragon kind to have this power over all possible offspring. What if it fell into the wrong hands? Fearing retribution for this knowledge, Blitiox wrote this stuff down for herself, and disguised it in a dummy chest.



Asterinion, the ancient Elven ScholarMage's, Notebook p.701


19th, Bloodmoon, 6610

I spoke to a young Brass dragon today. He was a companion of some raging half orc barbarian freedom fighter. Her common name was Witchin’ Kamaroh. In a brash decision, I brought up the topics that Dermiot warned me about. I’m old. And I’ve had the foresight to write all my brilliance down, so if anyone needs me for anything, they can just look up my indestructible notebooks. Anyway, I told Witchin’ about the old elven spell book and Blitiox and the journal. I figured that she’d appreciate the culture anyway. Witchin’ laughed at me. “Silly elf, that is ancient knowledge, us young dragons, since we’re all naturally sorcerous, we just find that we are gravid, we just polymorph into something that is sterile. Like a mule. Bing bang boom. No more vanity scourge problems. You can’t tell a dragon what to do and expect all of them to obey the spirit of your words HAHAHAHA”

I then asked about the mixed dragons. She told me that she’s only seen a few, and they all share their mother’s features as a base, and it seems like the parentage of the father supplies what I’ll call a “template”, a suite of additional powers and likenesses to the paternal line.

I guess that explains a little about mixed dragons.

Incredible. That's probably the best way you could have answered the prompt.

[Uncle Pine]

About the matter of having a half-X half-Y half-Z creature, I think that when you stack multiple half- templates their names should be treated as just names. A half-minotaur half-ogre halfling isn't 3/2 characters, but it does mean it inherited the blood of 3 different creatures. You're right if you think the writers should've added a clause saying that stacking multiple halves progressively reduces the denominator (1/2, 1/3, 1/4, etc.) but alas they didn't.

Now, why adding dragon blood to a different dragon make it better? And why adding red dragon blood to a red dragon doesn't (let's ignore the fact that you can actually make a half-red dragon red dragon)? Maybe it's because adding a different kind of blood to a dragon lets it function in different ways. I mean, it doesn't work like that in the real world, but magic is weird. If you breed a halfling and a red dragon, maybe the offspring is better not because dragon blood is inherently better but because it can function both as a halfling and (partially) as a dragon. This would mean that a half-red dragon white dragon isn't stronger than a pure white dragon because the former is more of a dragon than the latter, but because the half-red one can survive in situations in which a red dragon would work better than a white one.

[Xervous]

That's what happens when a carbon dragon uses dark magic to teleport 100 miles beneath the underdark.

Or perhaps they went off to meet royalty, specifically a Queen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWdLt3Afjrg).

[Ruethgar]

Also note that a half dragon is not necessarily the offspring of a dragon and another creature but rather can be a few generations away before being diluted to Draconic or a bloodline.

[Thurbane]

Or perhaps they went off to meet royalty, specifically a Queen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWdLt3Afjrg).

That's just crazy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0sw2CgysWY)!

[DrKerosene]

The Effigy Master PrC doesn't have much of a "Handbook", but it's main trick is to make a construct imitation of some creature, technically with free LA too. The main effigy example I saw had every half-dragon template stacked with a horribly long run-on sentance of other templates too.

I would add the "multi-headed" and half-dragon template to a base-dragon four times, and make an Effigy mini-Tiamat, add more heads if you want to pretend it's a hydra.

I'm pretty sure there is an legendary two-headed red dragon, and I'm confident there is a WotC "unusual creature" article with half-dragon dragons too. I see no issue doing this mechanically, just the fluff might be hard to explain.

[ksbsnowowl]

I'm planning to do this soon. I've actually had the idea in mind for over a decade, but it's only just now that I'll be applying to the adventure I had in mind, and actually run the thing for a group.

I generally use the smaller dragon race as the base creature, and add Half-(stronger dragon type) to that base. That way the stats generally end up somewhere in the middle of the two.

I also give the creature both breath weapon types, and change the 1/day Half-dragon template breath weapon into a 1/day energy admixed version of the two breath weapons. So the crossbreeding of a red and black dragon would result in a Half-Red Dragon Black Dragon that could use both a line of acid and cone of fire breath weapon (all running on the same recharge roll), and once per day he could do a cone of acidic fire that would deal the damage of the greater breath weapon (fire), but be half acid and half fire.

The only thing to watch out for is to make sure the difference in breath weapon dice doesn't get too out of whack. The fire breath weapon above would be too strong for a base black dragon's CR, so boosting the end creature's CR by 1 wouldn't be a bad plan.