Non-D&D Fantasy with Diverse Draconic Breath Weapons

[adso]

It seems to me that there's a disconnect between D&D and other fantasy literature in dragons' breath weapons. I can't think of any other fantasy world in which dragons run the gamut of elemental types, does anyone have any suggestions? I'm considering making all dragons breathe fire (and remove most spellcasting) as standard practice to align better with typical fantasy portrayals of dragons, reserving powerful spellcasting and alternative energy types for more powerful/specialized dragons.

[Anxe]

There are a few examples of Dragon-like ancient Greek monsters breathing poison or acid.

[Khedrac]

In Britsh and Norse myth dragons are as likely to have a posion gas or no breath weapon as fire.

Unsurprisingly given that Tolkein was a Norse scholoar, some of Middle Earth's dragons had posion gas as their "breath weapon", also, it's clear that some dragons' breath was hotter than others so that suggests that not all are necessarily fire of the non-poison gas dragons.

As for removing spellcasting, take a look as Xovinataal dragons. Poison is very traditional for dragons, but so is some degree of magic (e.g. just aling to Tolkein#s dragons and meeting their eyes is just asking to be enchanted - see Glaurung in the tale of "The Children of Hurin".

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah, poison is possible older than fire for dragon breath, and at the very least had mythological credentials.

It also allows you to justify a few others, such as sleep and slow gas. Depending on how far you're willing to stretch it maybe even cold breath (which is likely breathing a has or liquid with a very low temperature, and as such a very specialised breath weapon). Some modern portrayals of dragons even justify fire breath as a flammable gas and ability to create a sparkm


That said, dragons breathing fire is iconic in the same way that vampires dying in sunlight is. It's what everybody thinks of.


I would suggest getting rid of the colour coding before getting rid of alternate breaths, or at least making it more subtle. Dragons, or rather drakes to specify the Western flying snake/lizards and not other mythological creatures which had the name applied to them, are much more likely to be presented as selfish, evil, cruel, or even animalistic (which is the original portrayal) than they are to be breathing fire.

[Beleriphon]

The Chinese dragon (long or lung) in general could breath a wide variety of effects. Water and mist/fog were common, controlling the weather was another one (so you have lightning right there).

[Isikyus]

The Temeraire series has most common dragons with no breath weapon at all. Fire, lightning, and other types of breath exist, but are rare.

Generally they consider fire-breathers more powerful, but that's a side effect of the rest of the setting (lots of wooden ships), rather than due to how dragons work.

[Azuresun]

A Song of Ice & Fire has ice dragons that breathe cold in the backstory (and I think in a short story set in the world).

[Osuniev]

The (now offline) Erfworld webcomic had dragons (sorry, dwagons) breathing poison, soundwaves, etc... Although of course that was very much D&D inspired.

The poison breathing and fire breathing make some kind of physiological sense, I always imagined fire dragons actually spit flammable gas, so poisonous gas isn't such a stretch.

[Tanarii]

Palladium FRP / multiverse. Warhammer FRP. Runequest Glorantha.

[Pauly]

In Japan you can start with Godzilla/Gojira who has Atomic breath. From there most anime dragon are depicted as atomic breath type weapons, but you still see fire poison and electricity used, but I”m not sure if that is due to DnD influence or not.

Eastern Mythos doesn’t ascribe dragons as having breath weapons as a built in class feature. They are more a learned magic skill, and not unique to dragons.

[Composer99]

The various sorts of dragons in the Wings of Fire stories appear to have a variety of breath weapons.

[Celestia]

The Dragon Prince has lightning-breathing storm dragons. There are probably other types of dragons, too, but we haven't seen them yet.

[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: reminder to everyone to restrict topics to non-D&D fantasy sources, as per the OP, and not real-world mythological sources.

[Khedrac]

Palladium FRP / multiverse. Warhammer FRP. Runequest Glorantha.

I'm not aware of any Gloranthan dragons with non-fire breath weapons? I am not sure if true dragons even have breath weapons (who needs a breath weapon if you are miles long) and I think all dream dragons breath fire...

[KillianHawkeye]

The Final Fantasy games various elementally-themed dragons in them, but it was pretty heavily influenced by D&D originally so that's no surprise.

[Telok]

I recall Rolemaster drakes as being elemental draco-forms with the appropriate breadth of breath attacks.

[Lilapop]

Warcraft universe, actually. Green is poison/acid (nature damage), bronze is sand (arcane damage), blue is frost. Red and black use fire breaths.

Skyrim has at least frost and fire.

[gloryblaze]

Spyro has elemental, color-coded dragons (and Spyro himself is a special purple dragon that can use all the elements). At least in the Legend of Spyro series. Pretty sure this is at least somewhat true in default lore, too.

[NigelWalmsley]

Tarkir (from Magic: The Gathering) has five types of dragons, each with its own breath weapon. Ojutai dragons breath ice, Silumgar dragons breath acid/poison, Kolaghan dragons breath lightning, Atarka dragons breath fire, and Dromoka dragons breath light.

Generally speaking, while I would support consolidating down to just the Chromatic dragons, I don't think going any further than that is really appropriate. The existence of Pyroclastic or Ruby dragons is kind of stupid, but it's not uncommon to have multiple kinds of breath weapon.

[Garimeth]

It seems to me that there's a disconnect between D&D and other fantasy literature in dragons' breath weapons. I can't think of any other fantasy world in which dragons run the gamut of elemental types, does anyone have any suggestions? I'm considering making all dragons breathe fire (and remove most spellcasting) as standard practice to align better with typical fantasy portrayals of dragons, reserving powerful spellcasting and alternative energy types for more powerful/specialized dragons.

In my homebrew setting, which I use for 5e, I made colors and breath weapons based on diet and regions, and I made the "lightning" an underwater AOE. I also leaned more heavily into acid and poison as a result of their eating and subsisting on minerals and rocks in addition to meat. I also, like you are considering, left spell casting to be the provenance of older more powerful dragons I left localized regional and lair effects based on their environment pretty early in the age progression.

I think I kept: fire, poison, acid spit, lightning (underwater or flying only, not a line that shoots horizontal to the ground), and a "thunder" roar that can inflict deafen, and maybe a sand one that can inflict blind. worth mentioning, my setting is desert and ocean.

The result I saw was when the party had to interact with a dragon, they were MUCH more cautious, cause they knew they had to throw out most of what they knew from the MM. My players enjoyed the two sessions that revolved around the dragon and the nearby village.

I, like you I think, thought the numbers and variety were silly given how rare I wanted dragons to be and the type of fantasy I wanted to show.

[Imbalance]

Skyrim has at least frost and fire.

Variations of those two and force are common. The life draining ones are a bit of a rarity. Skyrim dragons' attacks are less like "breath weapons" and more like their tongues work in the same way as wands from Harry Potter. The undead one even summons other undead when he shouts.

[Lord Torath]

How to Train Your Dragon has multiple types. Most breathe fire, but some breathe flammable gas, and others breathe frost.

[Batcathat]

How to Train Your Dragon has multiple types. Most breath fire, but some breath flammable gas, and others breath frost.

I haven't watched that movie (I suppose I should get around to it, I've heard good things) but do they really have both dragons breathing fire and dragons breathing flammable gas? Seems like a lot of overlap (though I suppose it might make sense from an evolutionary standpoint, with the flame breathing ones having evolved a built-in lighter).

[Lord Torath]

I haven't watched that movie (I suppose I should get around to it, I've heard good things) but do they really have both dragons breathing fire and dragons breathing flammable gas? Seems like a lot of overlap (though I suppose it might make sense from an evolutionary standpoint, with the flame breathing ones having evolved a built-in lighter).

There's two-headed dragon where one head breathes the gas, and the other head ignites it. You want to throw your bucket of water on the sparking head, not the "gassy" head.

The 'reference manual' in the movie also lists a bunch of other dragon types, some which breath steam or poison or other things.