A red dragon's predators.

[cartejos]

The description for red dragon's mentions that it hides out until it can defend itself from predators. What kind of predators would exist in mountains for them? Giant Apes, Giant Eagles, and Bugbears might be all I can think of looking through related monsters.

[TristanS]

Silver and gold dragons, paladins, wizards? Maybe Githyanki?

[Peelee]

Adventurers.


Silver and gold dragons, paladins, wizards? Maybe Githyanki?

Silver dragons are pretty good apex predators. :smallamused:

[MesiDoomstalker]

A lot of various forms of Giants reside in mountainous regions. Even if some are individually weaker than a young (not Young) Red Dragon, they usually operate in groups/tribes/villages/what have you. Far more than a single whelp can handle at once if they get it in their head to hunt it.

Also, I see little reason that a (unrelated) Red Dragon wouldn't take issue with a Red Dragon of significantly lower power in their territory and attempt exterminate a potential rival before it could ever truly threaten it.

[Mechalich]

Red dragons prefer warm mountains. That includes volcanic mountains, and mountains surrounded by tropical forest or desert. Fire and Storm giants also prefer the same environment and are likely to be a major threat to young dragons. Powerful airborne desert predators include Lammasu and Sphinxes, which are likely to attack young dragons to prevent future competition.

[Biggus]

Roc and Chaos Roc.

Also, there's a creature in the ELH which specialises in hunting dragons, even adult ones: https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/sirrush.htm

[redking]

For a great wyrm there are no creatures that prey on them. As others have pointed out, there are plenty of creatures that can defeat younger dragons.

One potential "predator" of dragons are humanoid gourmands with a taste for dragon meat. Dragon meat surely goes for a premium price in the human(oid) markets. Dragon meat makes men virile and attractive to females (and so on). Young dragon meat is tender, so the predation on the young dragon population is extreme, meaning that there are few old dragons.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Basically, an adult red dragon has no predator on the Material Plane except good dragons, and they mostly clash because the red dragon started it. Smaller ones are mostly the prey of giants and behirs. Behirs are specifically engineered to take down dragons (in the lore at least) and hate them with passion. They mostly live on hills, but would gladly climb up a mountain if it meant killing baby dragons. Also, I can absolutely see war trolls used by humanoids to kill dragons, as they are quite strong, used to mountains and fire doesn't bypass their regenerations.