Half-Dragon Lifespan?

[Doctor Despair]

For the purposes of world-building, I'm trying to find a dragon-adjacent creature with a very long (1000+ years) lifespan. The gist is that the campaign is taking place in a demiplane isolated from the rest of the cosmology, and that, through excessive inbreeding of Dragonwrought Kobolds, a genetic throwback has occurred. I was considering just homebrewing some sickly off-brand dragon and calling it a Kobold-Wrought Dragon for the memes, but I decided to actually investigate doing something RAW for simplicity.

Does the Half-Dragon template have any mechanical effect on the base creature's longevity? Or is there a similar template that does?

[Remuko]

For the purposes of world-building, I'm trying to find a dragon-adjacent creature with a very long (1000+ years) lifespan. The gist is that the campaign is taking place in a demiplane isolated from the rest of the cosmology, and that, through excessive inbreeding of Dragonwrought Kobolds, a genetic throwback has occurred. I was considering just homebrewing some sickly off-brand dragon and calling it a Kobold-Wrought Dragon for the memes, but I decided to actually investigate doing something RAW for simplicity.

Does the Half-Dragon template have any mechanical effect on the base creature's longevity? Or is there a similar template that does?

I believe races of the dragon or the draconomicon says something about it. I'm pretty sure being half dragon extends life span a bit. Elves normally live ~750 or so years, but half dragon elves can live 1000+ iirc.

[Doctor Despair]

I believe races of the dragon or the draconomicon says something about it. I'm pretty sure being half dragon extends life span a bit. Elves normally live ~750 or so years, but half dragon elves can live 1000+ iirc.

I had done a cursory look in both books, but turned up nothing. Having returned to it, though, I found this passage towards the end of the Half-Dragon section:


A dragon’s life span is truly remarkable—it can live a millennium or longer, and even at the end of its life transform into a permanent part of the land or become ascendant and immortal. Half-dragons usually share the heritage of a less long-lived race and so might endure no more than a few centuries. Still, they are granted far more time than most, and those born of a dragon–elf union can challenge ancient wyrms for longevity.

Somewhat nonspecific, but maybe we can puzzle it out.

Metallic dragons can live as long as 4,400 years before reaching twilight, and chromatic dragons as short as 2,100.

A less long-lived race as the base creature results in no more than "a few" centuries.

Is that 2-5 centuries? Dragons live for thousands of years, so the math can't be as simple as splitting the difference. Great Wyrmhood comes as 1200 years, so arguably we could get a result of "a few centuries" by splitting the difference with the distance to that final age marker. Additionally, a dragon's maximum age is a function of its charisma score (adding either charisma score x50 or charisma score x100 to their maximum age). If we took this math and applied it to the base race, we could easily end up with an extra 1000-2000 years, especially considering the template confers +2 to charisma.

An elf (max age 750, average max age 550) can "challenge ancient wyrms" for longevity. Again, Great Wyrmhood comes at 1200 years, but that's a separate term. In fact, "Ancient" and "Wyrm" are separate age categories entirely, both falling underneath Great Wyrm. With that said, the range includes 800-1200 year-old dragons, so if elves naturally can live to 750, and they challenge these creatures for longevity, that seems to lend credence to the 50/100x charisma score method.

A Dragonwrought Kobold naturally can live to just over 300 years (as they only get 10x charisma added to their age). A level 1 Half-Dragon (metallic) Dragonwrought Kobold, then, with 23 charisma at venerable age, would have a maximum age of 2650. That's definitely enough. Heck, that'd be enough even dropping the Dragonwrought feat.

[Bad Wolf]

RotD states half-dragons usually live "no more than a few centuries." Elven half-dragons are said to challenge great wyrms in terms of lifespans, so presumably they can live for around 2,200 to 4,200 years (depending on the colour, I guess.)

ninja'd.