How to Roleplay a Dragonborn?

[Eradis]

I am wondering just this: How do you roleplay different kinds of Dragonborn?
This can be either as a NPC or a PC adventurer. (ex.: A green dragonborn PC could be collecting Adventurers and this is why he joined a group... his group and he will go to extensive length to protect his living hoard)


EDIT: for setting purpose as it was pointed out to me, we can go with, but not limited to the stereotypical : "A Dragonborn is a descendant (distant or not so distant) from a dragon. Usually proud and honorable... to their own code."

Chromatic :

Black
Blue
Green
Purple/Deep*
Red
White


Gem :

Amethyst
Crystal
Emerald
Ruby**
Sapphire
Topaz


Metallic :

Brass
Bronze
Gold
Silver


Other :

Draconblood
Ravenite


What are your thoughts?


* Purple/Deep: I know those are not in the guides, but I always enjoyed the thought of seeing a Purple Dragonborn breathing a confusing mist to help her charm and manipulate her enemies. The Deep version is less to my taste, but replaced the Purple Dragons in 5e. In both cases, they probably would be night owls to reflect their ancestor's sunlight sensitivity.

** I put Ruby there only because a ruby is an iconic red gem. No particular reasoning behind it other than "it'd be cool to see a red gem dragon".

[strangebloke]

This is really setting dependent. Dragon born are, depending on lore, either victims of the slave trade or special servants of the dragons or a proud and martial people. And your dragonborn can be very different from the rest of course but they're going to be existing in a context

[Zhorn]

Agreeing with strangbloke; you would need to define what setting you are working with, or if a homebrew setting establish the origin of dragonborn.

Some settings use dragonborn as a stand-in for half-dragon humanoids in which you can lift from the colour coded dragon personalities and transplant them across 1-to-1 according to colour.

Others they are created slave-race without direct lineage ties who don't have a color coordinated personality typing and resent dragons or all kinds, and would be greatly disgusted if their personalities emulated them.


On the topic of ruby dragons, that would be akin to having platinum dragons. You can do it for your setting, not stopping you.
but to my understanding as far as dragon colouring goes ruby is unique to Sardior the same as platinum is unique to Bahamut.

[Unoriginal]

This is really setting dependent. Dragon born are, depending on lore, either victims of the slave trade or special servants of the dragons or a proud and martial people.

And they're often all three at once.

Created by dragons as the cheap draconic humanoid knock-off brand, and enslaved by said dragons until they broke out of slavery and established their proud, martial culture, but keeping enough ties with the dragons that many join dragon cults or the like.

[strangebloke]

And they're often all three at once.

Created by dragons as the cheap draconic humanoid knock-off brand, and enslaved by said dragons until they broke out of slavery and established their proud, martial culture, but keeping enough ties with the dragons that many join dragon cults or the like.

True! And there are even spicier versions out there. In elden ring, the draconic humanoids are people who hunt and eat dragons!

[Unoriginal]

True! And there are even spicier versions out there. In elden ring, the draconic humanoids are people who hunt and eat dragons!

Fun fact: some half-dragons are humanoids transformed after killing dragons, in 5e.

[Eradis]

This is really setting dependent. Dragon born are, depending on lore, either victims of the slave trade or special servants of the dragons or a proud and martial people. And your dragonborn can be very different from the rest of course but they're going to be existing in a context

I did not think of that! I will edit the main post accordingly. Thank you for pointing it out.

Let's go with the stereotypical : "A Dragonborn is a descendant (distant or not so distant) from a dragon. Usually proud and honorable... to their own code."

[strangebloke]

I did not think of that! I will edit the main post accordingly. Thank you for pointing it out.

Let's go with the stereotypical : "A Dragonborn is a descendant (distant or not so distant) from a dragon. Usually proud and honorable... to their own code."

Well, if pride and honor are the cultural/ethnic values, then you can pretty easily define your character around that. Maybe they're as proud and honorable as dragonborn come, and this makes them a high-handed blowhard even while they're still a good person. Or maybe they're a meanspirited windbag who's kind of obnoxious to be around. Or maybe they are very proud of their culture, but also self-aware and harboring doubts about how much its really worth. Or maybe you've got a cultural skeptic on your hands, someone who despises traditional dragonborn values and wants to shake things up. Maybe they're a dragonborn but they're actually a huge weeaboo for elves. :smallwink: