Friday, August 26, 2011

Blue Dragon

The watchword for blue dragons is mastery.  In previous editions of “the world’s most popular role-playing game,” blue dragons were masters of the desert skies.  Dragonlance held theirs to be the most successful Dragonarmy.  3.0/3.5.turned them into ceratosaurus-horned, burrowing, Earth-subtype brutes.  In Pathfinder, they’ve returned to the air.  But in every incarnation, blues have been absolute masters of their domain.  They are the most likely to have humanoid networks, the most likely to rule as lords (either openly or behind the scenes), and the most likely to have half-dragon offspring to further their aims.  Even their special abilities allow them to control the battlefield—destroying liquids, calling storms, mimicking voices, and even creating mirages of themselves.  But the most dangerous blue dragon is the one you don’t know you’re even fighting…or serving.  (It’s also the most common one.)

Through their servants, a blue dragon and a djinni fight a proxy war with a yearly test of strength and skill.  The annual games present an ethical quandary—the chaotic genie is good-hearted but an appalling cheat, while the lawful blue dragon, though a malevolent slaver, is a stickler for the rules.


A blue dragon has forced two young brass dragons into servitude, while a third hangs crucified by the wings in the fort of the blue’s seneschal.  The brass’s mother wants them rescued.

A new merchant consortium begins to dominate trade and government in the emirate of Yul.  They seem to be immune to the attentions of an increasingly active blue-sashed assassin’s guild, and to the gnoll packs that haunt the nearby wastes.  Close investigation reveals correspondence among the three groups, caches of lightning-infused weapons, and some half-dragon lieutenants.  Rumors of azure-scaled chimeras and lamias abound as well…

Pathfinder Bestiary 94–95
 

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