"Coloured dragons and their special powers?" Topic

Lately I have been wondering about the origins of the fantasy gaming trope where dragons of certain colours are associated with certain environments and have certain special powers and breath attacks – for example red dragons breathing fire and being rather resistant to fire-based attacks themselves.

This seems to have appeared in both RPG and miniature gaming rules at least since 80's, and has been strong enough to label some of their dragons as red/blue/black etc. dragons during the years – even though the dragons came unpainted and the customer was free to paint it however he wanted.

But what are the origins of this trope? I am aware that it was at least prominently present in D&D rules, but since that game tended to borrow plenty of influences from all sorts of sources, I am left wondering if the designers borrowed the concept from some earlier source.

I hope some of the older posters around might have some insights into this.

As far as I know. It began with D&D. Tolkien has Ancalagon the Black, but other than size, I don't think there was anything unique about him.

There were a handful of types of dragon in original 1974 D&D. Classifying them by color and distinctive breath weapon appears to have been a D&D invention. Here's a quote by Gygax:

link

"Some 'historical' references spoke of dragons as 'serpents' with poisonous breath. There were mentions of dragons of green colour. Thus, it was a simple matter to add the green dragon that exhaled a cloud of poisonous gas, chlorine gas having a green colour. Oriental mythology included many colours of their particular form of dragons, and the mahjongg game has three sets of different tiles named dragons—green, red and white. Having played that game since I was a boy, how could I ignore the white dragon? So what form of breath weapon went with that colour? Snow and cold, of course. So another breed of dragonkind was created. After some contemplation, I added the blue colour, as that could well represent lightning, and there was a spell in the rules covering just such an electrical bolt. Acid breath seemed another reasonable form of attack, black represented that well, and thus the fifth kind of malign race of dragons was born. All five were based on the most common European depiction of the 'fire drake', of course. This was because the base game they were devised for assumed a quasi-medieval environment, similar to that of the European fairy-tale paradigm. That ended the near-complacency of would-be dragon slayers. No longer could a single set of defences and attacks apply when a dragon was known to be on the loose. Better still, one only glimpsed was still likely an enigma, for its colour, weapon and vulnerabilities could be anyone of five different sorts."

—Gary Gygax (1938–2008), Slayer's Guide to Dragons (2002)

As far as I know coloured dragons made their first appearance in the first edition of D&D. I think they are the product of the imagination of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

And yet, after all these years, we don't have the Rainbow Dragon (though I guess Tiamat sorta counts, and colors are evil in D&D anyway).

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Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum Dragons are good.

I always though D&D dragons were underpowered.

I also always told my players that color wasn't not a guaranteed match between the books and the campaign.

Yes I think it pretty much an invention of D&D and the creative genius of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The interview above posted by Minimo was quite informative.

I am not so certain that dragons are underpowered in D&D as players tend to come well equipped to take them on. I made dragons a rare thing to encounter in my games and when you did even the young ones were cunning and cleaver. They know they are powerful but also know that there is a reason their numbers are small. I also assume my dragons are extremely intelligent and will of course be able to speak the language of mere mortals. The dragons I run also know when the battle is not going their way and take flight if still able or do something to give them space in order to retreat and fight another day.

Thanks for the comments, I especially appreciate that quote provided by miniMo. So apparently it was an original idea by the D&D authors, and became a popular concept pretty soon.

Speaking of dragons, how influential were the Melnibonean dragons in forming modern fantasy tropes? Their venomous breath does not seem to make much of an appearance, but the idea of elite units of dragon riding knights seems to be pretty popular in various settings.

So, D&D dragons are the My Little Pony of Dragon kind?

Given the size of a giant Hexapedal lizard, compared to an elephant's strength, getting batted aside by a dragon limb should do well more than 1D8 damage.

Read "Self Defense for Dragons, Give 'em a fighting chance" by Gregory Rihn in Best of the Dragon Volume III.

In AD&D DM guide it advised Red Dragons be 1-8/1-8/3-30 for claw, claw, tail attacks. The relatively pathetic Black Dragon was 1-4/1-4/3-18.

Given the "average" well-equipped mid to high level PC party that goes after a Dragon's Lair (buffed by NPCs, scrolls, and potions,) it is amazing that dragons are not on an endangered species list.

Considr:

An old school (2nd edition AD&D or earlier) consisting of

2 x Fighter (1 Human, 1 Dwarf)

1 x Ranger

1 X Mage

1 x Cleric

1 x Thief

1 x multi-class Elf

discovers the following lairs –

1) Castle on a Crag haunted by Vampires

2) Cavern Complex with Demons resident

3) Dragon in cave/lair

Which one has has the lower risk to reward ratio?