why aren't there Yellow Dragons?

[da newt]

Anyone know why the chromatic dragons are White, Black, Green, Blue, and Red but there are no Yellow, Orange, or Purple Dragons? (or grey or pink) Yellow is a primary color - why didn't it get any love?

Or are they out there in the cannon somewhere?

[Cygnia]

2ed had yellow dragons...

[RogueJK]

There were yellow, orange, purple, pink, and gray chromatic dragons starting back in AD&D. Brown too. Most/all of these were introduced either in Dragon Magazine or in the Draconomicon.

Some of these were carried over into 3E/4E, but most didn't make it all the way to official 5E (yet).

[Coeruleum]

They are out there in the canon, just not commonly-used. Even if they weren't, you could make them up, since there's no rule you can't make up things for your D&D world. I like making up things for my D&D world. I also don't tend to be a huge fan of Forgotten Realms, though I'm not telling other people they have no right to play it, I just tend to not like the light tone or how static it feels like the world is, and many worlds have completely different dragons than the standard red, green, white, black, and blue in the first place. I do like using those though, but maybe with changes, since I feel like it makes perfect sense to have a red dragon be a fire dragon, and a green one be more earth-based, and a white one be ice-based, and the habitats like having storm-based blue dragons live in the desert while black dragons live in a swamp make a lot of sense too, but I'm probably not going to have those be the be-all and end-all of dragons in a world I DM. Heck, those won't be the only dragons that are those colors just like bluebirds aren't the only blue birds. Maybe the green-colored dragon is an emerald dragon or a plant dragon instead of a green dragon.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Anyone know why the chromatic dragons are White, Black, Green, Blue, and Red but there are no Yellow, Orange, or Purple Dragons? (or grey or pink) Yellow is a primary color - why didn't it get any love?

Or are they out there in the cannon somewhere?

Because they declared themselves metallic dragons and called themselves gold.

[Phhase]

Those colors are reserved for NetHack.

[Sigreid]

They exist, the cowards are just really good at hiding. 🤪

[Chronos]

Yellow dwagons have a battlecrap attack instead of a breath weapon, purples have a thunder breath weapon, and pinks have an entangling bubblegum breath weapon. Sheesh, don't folks remember anything?

[Cygnia]

Also, I think purple got renamed as deep dragons in 3.5 and beyond

[hamishspence]

4e recast some of the older dragons.

Deep dragons became purple dragons (in 3e, they were two separate species, and purples were in Dragon Magazine only)
Fang Dragons became grey dragons (and gained a breath weapon)
Sand Dragons and Brown Dragons were two separate species in 3.0 but for 4e, a new Brown Dragon was created that was mostly Sand Dragon.

[NeffariasBredd]

4e recast some of the older dragons.

Deep dragons became purple dragons (in 3e, they were two separate species, and purples were in Dragon Magazine only)
Fang Dragons became grey dragons (and gained a breath weapon)
Sand Dragons and Brown Dragons were two separate species in 3.0 but for 4e, a new Brown Dragon was created that was mostly Sand Dragon.

I thought Fang Dragons drained something when they bit you, but had no breath weapon? Was that a 4E thing? They didn't up till 3.5E.

[hamishspence]

Yes, they drain CON with a bite instead of having breath weapon - yes, this was true all the way through 3.5 - the replacement of drain, with breath weapon, was a 4E thing.

[Quietus]

Yellow dwagons have a battlecrap attack instead of a breath weapon, purples have a thunder breath weapon, and pinks have an entangling bubblegum breath weapon. Sheesh, don't folks remember anything?

That's a deep cut, and I appreciate it! Poor Erfworld....

[Jervis]

Yellow dwagons have a battlecrap attack instead of a breath weapon, purples have a thunder breath weapon, and pinks have an entangling bubblegum breath weapon. Sheesh, don't folks remember anything?

Keep in mind a lot of people started with 5e and never bothered to look back to other editions. IMO that’s why a lot of 5e house rules, homebrew, and design talks are pretty questionable. A lot of problems 5e has were addressed in other editions, to varying degrees of success mind you, and people without that context either reinvent the wheel or try something that people who played earlier editions will tell you didn’t work then and probably won’t work now.

[Dungeon-noob]

Keep in mind a lot of people started with 5e and never bothered to look back to other editions. IMO that’s why a lot of 5e house rules, homebrew, and design talks are pretty questionable. A lot of problems 5e has were addressed in other editions, to varying degrees of success mind you, and people without that context either reinvent the wheel or try something that people who played earlier editions will tell you didn’t work then and probably won’t work now.

It's a joking reference to the Erfworld comic that used to be hosted on GitP as well.

[deljzc]

I think old Dragon magazines had additional metallic dragons as well. I remember a Crystal Dragon? And Shadow Dragons.

Believe me, if you go back 35 years, you will find just about every dragon imaginable.

[hamishspence]

I think old Dragon magazines had additional metallic dragons as well. I remember a Crystal Dragon? And Shadow Dragons.

Believe me, if you go back 35 years, you will find just about every dragon imaginable.

Crystal dragons (and the other 4 common Gem Dragons) all made it into 5e, albeit rather later than some of the others (in the Fizbans book).

Shadow dragons received a bit of a makeover for 5e in the MM, becoming a template rather than a dragon type. Annoyingly, it's mutually exclusive with the dracolich template - so you can't have shadow dragon dracoliches, even if there were adventures in old books with them in.

[LudicSavant]

Keep in mind a lot of people started with 5e and never bothered to look back to other editions. IMO that’s why a lot of 5e house rules, homebrew, and design talks are pretty questionable. A lot of problems 5e has were addressed in other editions, to varying degrees of success mind you, and people without that context either reinvent the wheel or try something that people who played earlier editions will tell you didn’t work then and probably won’t work now.

It’s not from other editions, it’s from the Erfworld comic on this site!

[Thane of Fife]

Anyone know why the chromatic dragons are White, Black, Green, Blue, and Red but there are no Yellow, Orange, or Purple Dragons? (or grey or pink) Yellow is a primary color - why didn't it get any love?

Or are they out there in the cannon somewhere?

There sort of is a purple dragon - the Purple Worm. Before Dungeons & Dragons (even before Chainmail), Gary Gygax wrote a series of pieces for the Diplomacy variant fan magazine Thangorodrim about the "Grayte Wourmes." This included the red dragon, the green dragon, the blue dragon, the white dragon, the black dragon, and the purple (or mottled) dragon. Most of these look much like they do in D&D today, with their signature breath-weapons. But between those articles and Dungeons & Dragons, the purple dragon, which was flightless, seems to have morphed into the purple worm.

[Sigreid]

I think old Dragon magazines had additional metallic dragons as well. I remember a Crystal Dragon? And Shadow Dragons.

Believe me, if you go back 35 years, you will find just about every dragon imaginable.

Old Dragon Magazines were pretty awesome with all kinds of unofficial but usually well thought out options and lore. And now I don't even know if it's still a thing.

[Leon]

Yellow dragons have yellow bellies so...

[Jervis]

It’s not from other editions, it’s from the Erfworld comic on this site!

Yellow dragons are also on older editions IIRC. I think the old lore is that they were born from Tiamat’s younger sister

[Kane0]

Actually it would be a neat twist if the metallic colors are what yellow, orange, brown and grey originally were (or still are).

[LudicSavant]

Yellow dragons are also on older editions IIRC.

Yes, but the comment you were replying to was about Erfworld.