A question about dragonspawn

[Skyrender]

I was looking through the forums and ran across several mentions of the white dragonspawn template, which eventually pointed me to the Dragonlance Campaign Setting and the Bestiary of Krynn.

In the description of the natural armor bonus for dragonspawn in the Bestiary, it says increase it to +7 (or +10 if the base creature is a dragonspawn), or the base creature's natural armor bonus, whichever is higher. This seems to specifically indicate you can apply the template more than once to the same creature, such as a white/black or blue/sea dragonspawn (a strange idea, but you can also technically have more than one type of lycanthropy, so I'll let it pass). Moreover, it says the template is acquired, but the description of dragonspawn in the Dragonlance Campaign Setting specifically indicates they breed true, implying it's also an inherited template. On top of all this, a couple of pages later is the dragonspawn abomination template, which it says MUST be added to any dragonspawn other than those created from a base creature other than a human or half-elf (and sometimes even half-elves get it, too!).

So my question is this: human dragonspawn (let's say black) has a kid with an elf dragonspawn (let's say white/abomination). Does the resulting half-elf black & white dragonspawn also get the dragonspawn abomination template?

[lylsyly]

DCS does not say they breed true, maybe your thinking of Draconians in the same book. DCS is also a 1st party book while the Bestiary is third party. According to Bestiary any race but human or half elf that gets turned into a dragonspawn gets the abomination template, not both.

[Skyrender]

Actually, the place I got the bit about them breeding true was one of the sites I went browsing through before I got to the DL books. In a wiki relating to the dragonspawn in the Forgotten Realms, it's mentioned in passing that dragonspawn breed true. That seems to be where I read it. Still, according to that site, it's pulled from an entry in MM4 (where they're apparently renamed the 'spawn of Tiamat' to remove the Krynn-specific origin story). So that makes it officially WotC stuff, doesn't it?

[lylsyly]

if it's from mm4 then yeah, it's 1st party. of course your table can allow anything it wants. Also the spawn of tiamat in mm4 are generic whereas the DCS is setting specific. Now you've got me curious, I'll have to pull out the books and compare the two ;-D

The reason I brought up the whole 1st vs. 3rd party thing was because we typically allow LA plus 2 or 3 for free at our table and everytime I brought up (any race but human or half elf) dragonspawn someone would always point out that I couldn't do it because they would be Abominations (never mind that I would say in sources allowed all 1st party only).

[ShurikVch]

According to Bestiary any race but human or half elf that gets turned into a dragonspawn gets the abomination template, not both.
On the contrary:

(thus, if a dwarf were to be spawned by a red dragon, it would use aspects of both the red dragonspawn and abomination templates)



(never mind that I would say in sources allowed all 1st party only).
For the "1st party only", we still have the older variant of Dragonspawn template in the Dragonlance Campaign Setting

[Skyrender]

Yeah, except that doesn't include the sea dragonspawn, can only be applied to humanoids or monstrous humanoids, and it results in a monstrous humanoid, instead of a dragon. It doesn't even mention granting the augmented subtype for humanoids. It also predates the creation of the dragonblood subtype, which it absolutely should grant (assuming we keep it as a monstrous humanoid).