Useless wings stretch wide to embrace the world (Dragon Class)

22 Jun, 2026

(Art by Noah Hush)

The Kobold and His King

All dragons begin as tiny, feeble creatures, which humans and other uneducated beings call "kobolds", as if they were some sort of goblin, but which they know as "newts".

They are short, standing 3 feet tall at most, with a short tail and a crest atop their head, sometimes confused for small horns.

Kobolds live in broods hatched by their dragon progenitors, though these parents are absentee, and their children act out. They are often used as slaves by their elders - the Dragonewts - trained to hunt small game and serve. Many are angry at the world - wouldn't you feel the same?

Kobolds are often unable to procure armour, relying on their hardy scales (as Leather). Their weak arms can but inflict half the usual die in damage. Even their carrying capacity is slashed by half.

Their stronger ones, called Kobold Kings, are but newts with bigger crests and arms than their brethren, often standing a foot taller and having harder scales (1 point better than Leather). They deal the standard die in damage and tend to be bullies.

All kobolds, as all members in their family, can see in the dark; they need to be able to tend to the eggs, for kobolds don't truly die - not in the way you or I might. Whenever a kobold dies, its body is discarded and its soul instantly returns to the egg from which it hatched originally. After a couple days, out comes the exact same kobold, memories and personality intact, although the pain of what it feels like to die never truly goes away. Many do not even realise they are on the Path of the Dragon.

At some point, a kobold dies, and when its egg hatches, another creature comes out.

Dragonewts

Crudely referred to as "Lizard Men" due to their tall stature, these resemble kobolds except they stand 7 feet tall, their tail reaches to the ground, and their faces lengthen into a dragon-like beak. Their thick scales harden further (as Chainmail) and their crest also runs down their back.

Dragonewts are even further along on the Path of the Dragon, and therefore they can't simply reincarnate. Whenever a Dragonewt dies, either it comes back as a Kobold, or (2 in 6 chance) as a Demibird - a huge, flightless bird, often used as a mount by their dragonewt brethren. They are fearless and carnivorous, and need to live out their natural lifespan as a Demibird before they can go back to the Path.

The only ones who can be free from this form are those who seek to leave it. Most, however, enjoy their time in the sun as "the big ones" in the brood.

Pseudo-Dragons

One day, the Dragonewt sheds its human-like form for the final time, and a new one takes shape inside its egg. A small thing, perhaps the size of a large dog, scurries out of the egg. Its tail is long and has a stinger, its arms extended down from its body rather than from the sides of a trunk. And then the creature feels something on its back. Joyously it hops - once, twice, and finally it takes flight for the first time, feeling the wind in its face and noticing how small it is against the sky. It must grow to fill it.

These "pseudo" dragons are hatchlings, and their bodies aren't made to hurt others, but rather to protect itself. Its scales are veritable dragon scales - AC 2 - and their senses become so keen as to be able to see the invisible. It should, since it can also become invisible as a chameleon, having 8 in 10 chances of passing undetected to anything unable to sense the invisible as they can. On top of this, magic only works on them 35% of the time - they use this same number for any saving throw.

Pseudo-dragons can bond with someone else, they have to if they want to survive. Once bonded, they can extend their magical resistance to that person and transmit all it can see or hear to them up to a distance of 240 feet. Their mouths cannot form words, but they can communicate meaning through a limited form of telepathy, an ability all dragons retain.

It can be vicious, however. Blindingly fast, the pseudo-dragon stings with a +4 to hit, and any creature struck by its tail must save versus poison or go into a state of seeming-death for 1d6 days. There is a chance the creature will actually die equal to its resistance to being resurrected.

When a pseudo-dragon dies, it either comes back as an iguanodon or a pteranodon, depending on how moral its behaviour was. Once that creature lives out its natural lifespan, or is hunted, it returns once more as a pseudo-dragon and is back on the Path.

The Dragon

Eventually the dragon grows once more, and for the final time, for nevermore will it be small.

It crawls out of the egg already huge for its standards, at 24 feet long. It can see just as well in light or darkness, anything invisible or hidden can be detected within 10 feet per point of HP they possess, and they are finally grown.

Dragons do not gain Hit Dice. Instead, they start out at 6 HD and, instead, gain hit points per HD, starting at 3 HPHD (and thus 18 HP) and growing as they gain experience. Instead, the dragon can grow in HD by amassing wealth and a hoard, often bringing it back to the brood it hatched from and laying its own eggs next to those of its parent. For each 10.000 gp value in its hoard, the dragon gains 1 HD and grows 6 feet, following this progression, and gaining more attacks:

• 24' long - 1d4 / 1d4 / 2d8

• 30' long - 1d4 / 1d4 / 3d6

• 36' long - 1d4 / 1d4 / 4d4

• 42' long - 1d4 / 1d4 / 5d4

• 48' long - 1d8 / 1d8 / 3d10

• 54' long - 1d8 / 1d8 / 6d6

Once the dragon has 4 HPPD it has enough presence to strike a primal fear in the hearts of those who see it fly overhead, as such:

1. All creatures under 1 HD, as well as herbivores untrained for war, will flee in panic for 4d6 turns.

2. Creatures with 2 or fewer HD must save versus magic or be paralyzed with fear as above.

3. Creatures between 3 and 5 HD must save versus magic or receive a -1 penalty at everything.

4. Creatures with 6 or more HD are unaffected.

5. The creatures receive a +5 to their saving throw when the dragon has 4 HPPD, this bonus goes down to +3 at 5, +1 at 6, and disappears for dragons of 7 and 8 HPPD.

Dragons don't have Saves or magical resistances. Instead, they roll 1d10 to hit equal or under their current Hit Die.

On top of it, dragons are attuned to magic, and have a chance of being able to learn spells like a magician, starting at 10% when they have 3 HPPD and increasing by 20% (and rerolled) for each HPPD gained after that. They are able to learn spells up to a level equal to their current HD minus 5.

The dragon also finds it can blow hard, and something else blows with it. Roll 1d8 for its breath, which it can use 3 times a day; follow the guidelines of D&D for the details:

1. Acid spit

2. A bolt of lightning

3. Sleeping gas

4. Fear gas

5. Poison gas

6. Fire

7. Cold

8. Paralysing gas

In the event it dies, the dragon turns into a randomly determined dinosaur, hatched a few days later from its own brood, and it will spend a long time indeed staring longingly at the sky, missing the breath in its throat. Once it returns as a dragon, if it can reclaim its hoard, it regains all of its HD, otherwise it must begin again from 6.

The only true way to kill a dragon is to destroy its egg, a crime which marks any who do it as Dragonslayer - feared by men and dragon alike.

Being creatures that do not require sex for procreation (and indeed do not even understand the impetus for it) does not mean that dragons cannot love. However, much like their instinct to own the sky, the dragon wants to become its lover. If it be any creature, the dragon becomes able to change its shape into that one, but if it be another dragon, they can embrace tenderly and become one with one another - the necks of the lovers sharing their very same body as a hydra.

However, the Dragon is ravenous. It lords over the dragonewts and kobolds it can find, who serve as sources of food, since the dragon must eat double their length in rations per day, otherwise it has a 1 in 6 chance per day that it falls into a deep slumber. Once it sleeps atop its hoard, its former allies are pretty much sure to desert it, taking the eggs someplace else. While asleep, the dragon can bend its mind here and there as if it were astral projecting, but it cannot stir itself on its own - it must be awoken. And no one in their right mind would do such a thing.

Whenever it slumbers, the dragon dreams of an endless sky full of stars for them to fly in - a sky they cannot own, that they do not feel like they have to own. Once more they find themselves small, smaller than ever before in the pale opalescent glow of that endless breadth beyond all beyonds, yet they are happy.

It is said that if you look up at the right part of the sky during the correct time of the year - either midsummer, when their hot breath is felt by all, or midwinter, when it is desired most urgently - and strain your eyes as far as they will go, you too can see flickering dots, weaving from in and out of a star.

Every so often one of those dots fall from the sky. Go look for it, climb tall mountains and cross wine-dark oceans if you need to. What awaits you is a miracle, an egg produced from the dreams of all creatures who look up at the sky and wonder. It won't hatch, but in your death bed, surrounded by family or perhaps alone in a perilous place, once your mind is becoming dark and your vision is gone, there it will be: a crack.