Dragon, Brown

Description

* see description below

Brown dragons are urban. They love to spend time in human or humanoid cities and have been known to spend a large portion of their entire lives occupied in the power struggles of a single city. Older lawful good ones can often be found in the company of the hierarchies of cities. They are extremely sociable, and seek human(oid) contact often.

The size and color of a brown dragon's scales hardly change as they age, but become harder and thicker. They are born with a dull born color to them, but this soon changes to a rich, chestnut brown, almost auburn. It is thought that brown dragons evolved in deciduous forests. However, they have left the forests to come to the cities, because of their great love of company. Once in the cities, the brown dragons found they had a great affinity for the profession of wizardry. They spend a large portion of their lives with mortals in mortal form.

Brown dragons have their own tongue, speak either the good or evil dragon tongue, and 20% of hatchlings have the ability to communicate with any intelligent creature. The chance to possess this ability increase 5% per age category. They are taught common soon after they are born.

Combat

Brown dragons have one obsession, they love magic. This love of magic often manifests itself in combat, as they will use spells and magic items to deceive and destroy opponents. While they do not seek combat, they will defend their possessions with utmost ferocity. Often when they are in combat, their opponents have no idea what they're fighting, only that it's a powerful magic-user. The brown dragon will revert to its dragon form only when use of its breath weapon becomes absolutely necessary. Since browns often spend many decades establishing personalities, they dislike revealing their true form. As they get older, browns become extremely good researchers into the nature of magic; they always have a few unique magic items and spells around. (Hell, what would you do with 1400 years?) At least one of these items will lower its armor class. It will make heavy use of these items in combat. Due to their intelligence browns love illusions and will spend months perfecting one. They tend to use illusions and mind effecting spells in combat.

Breath Weapon: The brown dragon has one single breath weapon, a cloud of caustic gas, similar to mustard gas 50'long, 40' wide, and 30' high, save for half. This cloud is heavier than air so it takes 2d4 rounds to dissipate and will seek lower ground. Any creature exposed to the gas for more than 1 round will continue to take damage from it. In addition, more than a single round of exposure requires an additional save versus paralyzation, or be paralyzed (and continue to take damage).

The brown dragon casts spells and uses its special abilities at 12th level plus its combat modifier (A great worm is a 24th level spell caster). Like the gold dragon, the brown will seek formal training in magic (obviously) and will maintain spell books, libraries, etc. They always have useful spells, although they favor mind effecting ones. At birth brown dragons have several abilities, the first and most important is a form of non-detection. This non-detection allow them to move freely around town without fear of someone with true seeing spotting them. Brown dragons in human form are virtually undetectable by normal or magical means. They can polymorph self three times per day and changes back to natural form are not counted. They are immune to gas and acid, and will almost always have some form of protection from other types of elemental attack. As they age they gain the following powers:

Habitat

Now here's where it get's interesting brown dragons are magic-users and like to live in cities. What does this mean as a species? Well, they do not accumulate treasure and lie in it like most dragons do. Most brown dragons will have a period of adventuring (might be interesting to let a player play one of these, eh?) that they use to accumulate wealth and items and spells. They will often be apprenticed by their parents to a well known magic-user of the area for training. The evil members of the species have been know for killing their master after they have finished learning from them. The greatest of these evil dragons are said to have been pupils of the great liches including Vecna. However, most mages never find out that some of their most promising pupils have been dragons.

The family life of brown dragons is interesting. A pair will mate for life, yet be apart from each other for long, long periods seeking knowledge and adventure. However, when a pair has a child they usually go to a town and set themselves up as rich merchants to offer their child the best of human training, this training is supplemented by the parents themselves, of course. The parents will usually have a large estate for the dragon to roam, protected by the wealth and power that these dragons usually command in cities. Most good browns will usually have several favors owed to him by a large portion of the populace as they tend to be most helpful. The young dragon will quickly become acclimated to the dual life it leads and are usually very successful young members of their adopted societies. (Imagine one of these joining a gang, many adventuring possibilities here). After the mated pair have seen their child educated to the point where they think it can take care of itself, they separate, to continue their researches and adventures. These dragons while being very studious also have an adventuresome streak in them that makes them excellent, if cautious, party members.

The individual brown, when not with a mate, will seek to establish itself as a leading citizen of the city its in. They will often be known as playboys, taking human lovers. They maintain most of their wealth in the form of gems and jewelry, and will go out of their way to acquire magic items. They will seek to establish someplace safe in the cities, as well protected as they can make it, either themselves or with help. They will know if another brown is in town, and will meet them. If enough browns are in town they will have a convention to discuss the latest news and discoveries.