Here there be dragon...ish stuff

[D3agle93]

The party is about to enter a mage Tower that has been taken over by a mad mage and his crazed experiments, in the same style as Dragon Age Origins. His experiments are based on awakening inherent dragonblood in creatures, whether they are dragonblooded or not. As a result, the tower is being overrun with draconic and spellwarped creatures. I've applied those templates to several creatures that could logically be found in the tower, but I want some more variety.

I am already using both templates already mentioned, as well as the half-dragon for the boss. What I'm looking for is any draconic creatures or other dragon-esque templates. I've done some searching, but can't find a good list. Game is 3.5, with any book and dragon magazine available. Homebrew is discouraged, but 3.0 and Pathfinder can work if they translate well.

[Draconium]

Dragons do get a lot of love in this game - they're part of the name, after all - so I doubt anyone could list all the possible choices you have here without some serious time and effort put into it. However, I can at least think of a few off the top of my head that could be a good idea.

Dragonborn from Races of the Dragon. An LA +0 template(-ish-thing) that causes a creature to lose most of their natural abilities, but gain one of wings, a breath weapon, or draconic senses i exchange. Technically their fluff is that they are mortals that swore to serve Bahamut, but it wouldn't be difficult to reimagine them as normal creatures warped into a draconic form.

Dracotaurs from Monster Manual III. They're lesser dragons (as in, have the dragon type) that are built like centaurs - a quadrupedal body beneath a bipedal torso. I've always found them to be a rather interesting concept.

The various drakes from several books, notably the Draconomicon, are another fun choice. Lesser dragons that are usually, but not always, associated with some form of element. They aren't dumb animals, though IIRC, a lot of them do have rather low Int scores (around 8 or so), so they could make for varied encounters. My personal favorite would be the Temporal Drake (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20031122a), because it's abilities are just so much fun - for the DM. :smalltongue:

[Pyromancer999]

One can easily make use of the Draconic Heritage feats, Dragon-themed PrCs, Dragonpacts, Draconic auras, Class substitution levels, and other Dragon-themed material from Complete Arcane, Dragon Magic, and Races of the Dragon. You could also re-fluff Spellscales as a bunch of humans who had their dragonblood awakened. Additionally, have a bunch of Venerable Dragonwrought Kobold Sorcerers/Wizards around for even more fun.

If willing to use Pathfinder, there's a whole Player's Companion with Draconic archetypes and alternate Draconic bloodlines, along with some other stuff.

So, there is a whole bunch of material out there for this. Is there anything more specific you're looking for?

[daremetoidareyo]

half blue dragon rats, like 1000 of them, acting as if they are a single blue dragon, they even choose a name! Use the hive mind rules in the the BOVD p.34.

[D3agle93]

Dragon born are being used elsewhere in my campaign and one of the party members is a dragonwrought kobold, but the other suggestions I haven't heard of before. I will look into them.

Specifically, the reason these things are draconic is this mage performing a twisted ritual to turn them like their dragon ancestors. If the creatures don't have a dragon ancestor, they just become spellwarped, or transformed into a monster. What I'm looking for are either templates or dragon-like creatures that I could use, shifting the fluff to make them unnatural abominations. The dracotaur is very much in line with what I'm thinking.

[D3agle93]

half blue dragon rats, like 1000 of them, acting as if they are a single blue dragon, they even choose a name!

This... this has to be a thing in my game now.

[John Longarrow]

Toss in some Dragonfire Adepts. Especially ones who's race would otherwise not be seen as draconic.

Nothing like facing off against a Dwarven warrior in heavy armor, only to have them vomit acid all over you!

[daremetoidareyo]

Can we get a CR ceilling? What is the maximum power CR that you're working with here? Also, Can you describe why the experiments without ancestors become warped abominations?

Is it because the souls of dragon ancestors are so powerful that they can reach through time and space manifest positive breeding outcomes through magic? Which implies that there are other entities associated with souls and dragonblood that the dragon ancestors are protecting their progeny from.

Which is a scary idea.

Think about it. Invisible soul-based creatures, just waiting beyond some spiritual veil for dragonblood that is unprotected by an ancestor making it into a lifeform about to receive a soul. For context, that's the kind of thing that Night Hags know about and are a little afraid of.

Maybe these are a magiphagus race. Oooh. Better yet, imagine that between the veil of life and death and time and space, that there is an ecosystem of creatures. The closest relevant word that describes these denizens is Mold.

In this nether space, molds grow all over the tendrils of magic that weave existence together. But seeing as how the immutable laws of nature take hold whenever an entities compete for resources, these molds adapted and eventually figured how to feed off of soul energy in this space to better self propogate. And a resource rich situation in the netherspace is soul fission (the act of blending the inherently magical essence of dragonexistence with other flesh material capable of housing a soul).

So there are these creatures from the inbetween space that are hungry for magical energy to fuel their growth and power. And here comes your mad wizard, soul fusioning left and right! So now, the nethermolds have a plan; propagate whatever is making this feeding situation happen that is making them so powerful

The entities that become spellwarped creatures are the manifestations of these nethermold creatures attempting to breach the planes. From there, they hope to discover a way to harvest more soul-fusion using dragonblood.



Let me hunt through some books...Consider the half farspawn template from lords of madness for elite monsters.


These spellwarped critters

[D3agle93]

Party is level 8, but they're somewhat overpowered. As for the reasons...

In my campaign, there is intense animosity between arcane and divine mages. The instigating mage is convinced that dragons are the original source of arcane magic, and is seeking a way to access the ancient dragons' primal magics. Unfortunately, his attempts are weakening the boundaries between the planes, causing ethereal, infernal, and abyssal forces to corrupt his victims. Each ritual he performs spreads this corruption and destroys his mind more and more. His end goal is broadcasting the ritual across the surrounding kingdom, resulting in a regional planar break. Fortunately, a group of good aligned spirit dragons are limiting the damage, but the best they can do is give the party time.
Since the ritual is specifically calling to dragon forces, the victims end up draconic rather than fiendish

[kuhaica]

Could adapt some of the Spawn of Tiamot from the MM4 to suit your needs. A few of them gave me some ideas for games I'm going to be running. And could give some cool inspiration

[Echch]

You could throw a Ravenous Young Adult White Dragon at them. Give it all the metabreath feats, because the special ability gained via Ravenous allows them to breathe 3 times in a row before the recharge time kicks in.

[D3agle93]

You could throw a Ravenous Young Adult White Dragon at them. Give it all the metabreath feats, because the special ability gained via Ravenous allows them to breathe 3 times in a row before the recharge time kicks in.

Where is Ravenous from?

[daremetoidareyo]

Party is level 8, but they're somewhat overpowered. As for the reasons...

In my campaign, there is intense animosity between arcane and divine mages. The instigating mage is convinced that dragons are the original source of arcane magic, and is seeking a way to access the ancient dragons' primal magics. Unfortunately, his attempts are weakening the boundaries between the planes, causing ethereal, infernal, and abyssal forces to corrupt his victims. Each ritual he performs spreads this corruption and destroys his mind more and more. His end goal is broadcasting the ritual across the surrounding kingdom, resulting in a regional planar break. Fortunately, a group of good aligned spirit dragons are limiting the damage, but the best they can do is give the party time.


So we're looking at CR 14 max?

Two things come to mind, both from the dragonlance campaign setting: Draconians and the Dragonspawn template.
The dragonspawn template can be fun to put on an anthropomorphic critter (savage species), So why not choose anthropomorphic giant squid? And I mean if we're being weird, you can make it a tauric something/draconic anthropomorphic giant squid.

Spell warped Draconians can give you some potent sentient opponents.

[Echch]

Where is Ravenous from?

It's Dragon Magazine #313. I also forgot to mentio that a True Dragon counts as a Dragonblood-Subtyped creature and can thus use the regular [Breath]-feats as well.
If you intend to use this idea, it's best to have the the White Dragon open up by surprising them: Have it lob an Entangling Extend Spread Heightened Lingering Maximized Clinging Breath Weapon at them at a DC of 23 (if you give the dragon a +4 Con item, make that 27), dealing (assuming they failed their saves) 15 cold damage when it hits, another 15 the next round and an additional 1d6 for 1d4 rounds, all while they are entangled. The next two attacks will probably be made without Entangeling, thus dealing 30 damage the round the breath hits them and for 30 the next round.

[Ruethgar]

Could adapt some of the Spawn of Tiamot from the MM4 to suit your needs. A few of them gave me some ideas for games I'm going to be running. And could give some cool inspiration

Dragonspawn and Dragonspawn Abominations from KoK are the 3.5 version of Tiamat spawn. Dragonspawn Abomination is also a perfect templat to add to some beasties that are magical mutants, they have a chance for extra limbs and tentacles as well as more powerful options like +7 effective sorcerer spellcasting levels on a +1 LA.

[Inevitability]

half blue dragon rats, like 1000 of them, acting as if they are a single blue dragon, they even choose a name! Use the hive mind rules in the the BOVD p.34.

Wouldn't it be much more practical to just make a half-blue dragon rat swarm?