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Greater Fun with Lesser Dragons

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Design: Adam Daigle and Mike WelhamDevelopment: Wolfgang Baur, John Ling, Jr., Justin Sluder, and Stefen Styrsky

Editing: Christopher BodanGraphic Design: Carrie Winters

Cover Artist: Kieran YannerInterior Artist: Hugo Solis

Book of Drakes© 2011 Open Design LLC

OPEN DESIGN LLCP.O. Box 2811

Kirkland, WA 98083www.KoboldQuarterly.com

Open Design, Midgard, Zobeck, and the Open Design and Midgard logos are trademarks of Open Design LLC. The feats text, drake spells, and drake magic items in Chapter 2 and the monster text in Chapter 3 are open content. All other material—including but not limited to art, place and character names, character and setting descriptions, background, and new creature descriptions—is Product Identity. Reproduction of this book in any manner without express permission from the publisher is prohibited.

Compatibility with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game requires the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game from Paizo Publishing, LLC. See http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG for more information on the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Paizo Publishing, LLC does not guarantee compatibility, and does not endorse this product.

Pathfinder is a registered trademark of Paizo Publishing, LLC, and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility Logo are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC, and are used under the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility License. See http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/compatibility for more information on the compatibility license.

Welcome to the Book of Drakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3chapter 1: ecology of the Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 First Drakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Drake Classification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Drakes and Dragons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Drakes in the Midgard Campaign Setting. . . . . . . . . . . 6 Ten Drakes of Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8chapter 2: players anD Drakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Drakes as Companions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Drake Feats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Alternate Class Abilities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Drake Tamer (Alternate Class) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Master of Drake Forms Prestige Class . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Playing Drakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Drake Spells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Drake Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26chapter 3: game masters anD Drakes . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Alehouse Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Ash Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Candle Drake (Lantern Dragonette) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Crag Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Crimson Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Deep Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Dream Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Gear Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Glass Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Mist Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Moon Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Pact Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Paper Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Plumed Drake. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Prismatic Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 River Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Sewer Drake. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Song Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Steam Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Tor Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48Building Drakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 Feature Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Sample Drake: Vine Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

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Welcome to the Book of Drakes

Welcome to the Book of Drakes

Despite being in the name of the world’s most popular roleplaying game, dragons are a tough subject to deal with. In fact, I don’t even like dragons all that much.

Wait. Hear me out.I’m a big fantasy RPG geek. How can I not like dragons? That’s like

saying I don’t like rock & roll. Thing is, I only like some rock & roll. Some songs gets played out on the radio so much that I could go the rest of my life without ever hearing them again. Give me the weird, indie, club act stuff over an arena show any day. I like underdogs. I like that underdogs feel like they have to step up and prove something but at the same time have a level of self-comfort that comes from knowing they’ve carved out their own niche.

Dragons started out in RPGs ranked by colors and metals and age groups. They were scary—terrifying—and their piles of gold and strange magical treasures made them perfect targets for adventurers. That said, dragons rapidly became more than mindless monsters. They are ancient creatures saturated with magical and physical power, scheming forces of evil that mastermind world-sweeping events. Anecdotal evidence tells me that dragons have wiped out more parties than any other creature in the history of the game.

Dragons and dragon-like creatures appear in nearly every real-world culture’s mythology, which makes them, and the heroes who fight them, a cornerstone of the fantasy stories and games we love. So, okay, I guess I do like dragons. What I don’t like is when they get too diluted. For a while a few years ago, dragons appeared in everything. They hung out in taverns, advised adventurers, and seemed to breed with everything in the universe.

So for a while, I shelved true dragons and focused on lesser dragons. Lesser dragons (drakes, faerie dragons, and wyverns) can interact with

adventurers without diminishing a true dragon’s power. Lesser dragons are not epic, they don’t grow in power as they age or live long lives terrorizing the countryside. As powerful and magical creatures without the baggage associated with true dragons, lesser dragons can play smaller roles in a campaign without cheapening their true cousins.

Over the last couple years, Mike and I designed a handful of drakes for Open Design projects and for Monday Monster features on the KoboldQuarterly.com website. (A couple of those slunk into this book.) We were thrilled when Wolfgang accepted our pitch for this book, because it gave us the chance to build on one of our shared interests in a world we have loved and supported for years.

While we tied these drakes into the Midgard setting with suggestions for where and how to use them, all of the components of this book work fine in any setting suitable for dragons. Of course, not all of these components need to appear in the same campaign or setting. Think of the list of drakes as possibilities. There are twenty drakes fully statted up in this book and thorough guidelines to create your own, but there’s no real reason they all need to exist in the same place at the same time. You get to choose the level of dragon saturation in your game. This books supports a single monster picking of PCs from the darkness all the way up to an extravagant draconic world, even an all-dragon group of PCs.

We intended this book to have something for everyone. There’s a chapter for players, a chapter for game masters, and enough flavor, mechanics, and options to serve the many nuances of fantasy roleplaying possible with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

We hope you enjoy the ride.Adam Daigle and Mike Welham

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The library’s main door burst open. A grim woman stumbled coughing from the thick cloud of ash billowing in the entrance, and she firmly barred the door. Phinneus darted over to check his visitor for wounds and his precious books for damage.

“Are you all right, miss...?”

“Havers,” she coughed while watching the door. They could both hear bellows of rage from outside.

“First run in with one of our ash drakes?” Phinneus inquired, inspecting her well-worn weapons and armor. “You must have been

expecting a fight, I’d imagine.”

Imogene Havers shifted her spear to her left hand and flexing her right. “I didn’t prepare well enough, evidently.”

“Then fate has been doubly kind to you, young lady. Not only have you found shelter from that unpleasant creature, but you’ve also found the foremost drake expert in Zobeck.” The front door shuddered, and his grin faded. “Let’s wait him out, shall we? My candle drake Cambermere can pour us some tea, and we can discuss anything you’d like to know about drakes, Miss Havers.”

Chapter 1: Ecology of the Drake

Chapter 1: Ecology of the Drake

At the Library of Phinneus the Sage: An Interview to Understand Drakes

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Ecology of the Drake

First Drakes

M idgard scholars acknowledge the pseudodragon as the first true drake. The creatures regularly appeared to travelers over the centuries, enigmatically finding the

one person among any group worthy of aid. In time, arcane spellcasters realized the value of these creatures as companions, leading to a proliferation of them at a wizard’s side or nestling on his shoulder. Other pseudodragons settled in large cities like Zobeck and served the same role as cats, though they eliminated more powerful nuisances than rats, such as gremlins, imps, and even the stray goblin or kobold.

As pseudodragons spread, people initially referred to them as “common drakes.” Pseudodragons, naturally, rejected any notion of being “common” and insisted on a better name. Those arcane spellcasters who took the creatures as familiars called them “familiar drakes,” while households graced by their presence named them “house drakes”.

Once pseudodragons became an accepted feature across Midgard, other drakes appeared, almost as if the “house drake” heralded the arrival of this completely new class of creatures. It seems as though explorers and scholars discover new drakes every year, each apparently tied to some common theme, whether geographical features, prevalent materials, or even abstract ideas. While many drakes have been classified and studied, many—such as the creatures listed below—remain a mystery other than their “theme”.

“The library drake is a personal favorite, as you might imagine.” The noise outside the front door subsided. “He seems to have given up on us, Miss Havers.” Phinneus breathed a sigh. “Would you like me to continue anyway?” Imogene sipped from her cup and nodded.

Drake ClassificationScholars divide drakes into three major classifications: esoteric, geographic, and material. Esoteric drakes, the strangest group, embody some idea or experience that many civilizations share: performance, brokered deals, dreams, even life and death. Despite their close association with—and friendly demeanor toward—humanoids, these drakes have the most alien outlook, more like someone obsessed with a single thought.

Geographic drakes embody the features of the area they inhabit. Befitting the size and majesty of the terrain they represent, these drakes tend to grow larger than other drakes. Additionally, they have the most typically draconic attitudes, only tolerating those who choose to live in harmony with the land the drakes call home.

Finally, material drakes represent common manufactured objects found in civilization: ash, gears, paper, steam, and so forth. A drake’s associated material reflects on its general attitude toward other creatures with which it shares space.

“The not-so-friendly ash drake perfectly represents an unwanted side effect

of manu-” Phinneus started. A rustle from the chimney

preceded something solid landing in the fireplace and a giant cloud of ash washing into the room. Imogene’s spear flew past Phinneus. The drake in the center of the billows shrieked and thrashed until Imogene stepped over, grasped the spear haft, and finished the job.

She wore a thoughtful expression as she removed

her weapon and began to clean it with a ragged cloth.

“Interesting.” She glanced at Phinneus in and unsettling way as

she returned to her chair. “I’m curious about these creatures now. How do they differ from true dragons?” She smiled, and Phinneus found the expression distinctly discomforting. “Please, do be thorough.”

Drakes and DragonsDrakes are unquestionably draconic creatures, with a reptilian appearance, wings, tail, scales, and a breath weapon. They also share many draconic protections, such as natural armor or immunity to paralysis and sleep. The similarities end there, though. Drakes age and mature differently, reaching their full size at a specific age that differs among sup-species. Drakes lack dragons’ inherent magical abilities. Other than a few scattered exceptions, they do not benefit from spell resistance or damage reduction either. Also, a drake’s alignment is not so rigidly fixed by species.

Drakes have a more personal connection to humanoids than true dragons. Whereas chromatic dragons actively enslave or exterminate humanoids, and even the majority of metallic dragons prefer not to deal with such lesser creatures, drakes find their very existence tied to humanoid ideas and materials. The diversity of drakes seems both dependent on and reflective of humanoid cultures and psychology. Name a concept and an associated drake likely exists. Without humanoids, some scholars postulate, there would be no drakes.

Drakes mostly avoid their more powerful cousins. Some true dragons take on drakes as attendants, treating the creatures as help, or even worse, as pets. Most drakes—with strong egos of their own—find

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30 Drake Treasures Sheet music from an opera penned two millennia ago.1. Perfectly round natural onyx stone.2. Eggs from which birds 3. teleported out in lieu of hatching. Flawed sapphire with cracks matching river and 4.

tributary paths. Seven-toothed gear.5. Rack of peryton antlers.6. Battle-worn helmet with pristine plume.7. Bottled lightning.8. Wooden dragon marionette.9. Glowing fragment of a falling star.10. Stuffed flumph.11. Bottle of ale from acclaimed brewmaster.12. Maple leaf pressed in a book on the subject of smithing.13. Tooth from an Old red dragon.14. Tombstone, the features of which have worn away over time.15. Functioning kidney in a jar.16. Sheet of handcrafted vellum.17. Charred remains of a toy bear.18. Patchwork quilt crafted for a small pet.19. Treaty signed by two nations that no longer exist.20. Active beehive.21. Book of children’s riddles containing the key to an 22.

ancient cipher. First rock striking bottom in a landslide.23. Double-headed copper piece.24. Otherwise worthless crystal that holds a tiny rainbow 25.

when exposed to the sun. A work with at least three translations contained in the 26.

same work. Set of ribbons, all different discrete lengths in units of 27.

measure no longer in use. Steel folding fan.28. Suicide note attributed to an ancient emperor.29. Dagger used to assassinate a famous assassin.30.

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this treatment offensive. More often than not, the lesser dragons meet their demise at the claws of the greater dragons, mostly chromatic dragons, who loathe what they see as a mockery of their majesty.

Metallic dragons react almost as negatively, but they usually drive off the offending creatures rather than slaughter them. Drakes would seem to make excellent lieutenants or minions for an old dragon. The drake’s whimsical nature rapidly proves irritating, however, and the drake quickly gets bored working for a creature that often sleeps for months at a time.

Geographic drakes directly oppose true dragons most often, but even with their great size, they can only handle a young dragon one-on-one. Smaller drakes often have good success by making daring raids into lairs to swipe whatever treasures they can carry.

Drakes gather treasure with a different mindset than true dragons. While the larger geographic drakes accumulate treasure much like their cousins do, they disdain objects other than those produced in their realms. Material and esoteric drakes might fancy glittering gems and jewels, but they prize obscure treasures above all others, especially those associated with civilizations, such as the items listed in the sidebar.

“Does that sufficiently differentiate drakes from dragons?” Phinneus nervously inquired.

“Just enough. I need to keep my eyes open for such creatures. They’re clearly quite different than dragons, but still.” She regarded the dead creature in the ash pile for a moment.

Phinneus felt a spark of hope. “Well, if you have no more questions, then...”

“Just one more.” Phinneus’s heart sank. “Drakes live so close to people, it makes me wonder. Tell me what you can about drakes in Midgard. If any ally themselves with the Dragon Empire, I’d like to know.”

Drakes in the Midgard Campaign Setting

Drakes bring malice and whimsy to every land. Diverse creatures, drakes adapt to varied landscapes and circumstances. Many drakes prefer living close to civilization, sometimes dwelling openly in cosmopolitan cities or stealthily hiding in the outskirts of society. This depends on the particular type of drake.

The mischievous alehouse drake appears mostly in the central and slightly northern regions of Midgard. Large cities in the domains of Dornig, Krakova, and Magdar typically have at least one such creature. Even across the Neider Strait in Trollheim, alehouse drakes choose a drinking hall to champion, though their more whimsical cousins consider these dour drakes far too serious.

A gang of ash drakes live among the chimneys of Zobeck’s foundries, though they are much more rare and solitary throughout the rest of Midgard. More feral and ferocious ash drakes live near active volcanoes. The caldera of Kyprion houses a number of ash drake communities, some warring with each other over ash deposits, as does the steep cone of Kammae Stroboli.

Serving as companions to scribes and familiars to arcanists, candle drakes and lantern dragonettes have spread wide throughout Midgard. Since for years the largest known colonies inhabited the Margreve Forest, some believed they originated there. However, recent reports place the helpful creatures in great numbers in the Magocracy of Bemmea as well as the Dragon Empire, leading many scholars to doubt previous claims.

Crag drakes blossom like dangerous parasites in any mountain range. In central Midgard, dwarves fight back the appetites of crag drakes in the Ironcrag and Cloudwall Mountains. To the east, the population of crag drakes surges in the Dragoncoil Mountains, adding to the danger found in that massive range.

Ferocious packs of crimson drakes inhabit forests within the Western Wastes, often venturing eastward on rampages. Sometimes these stay to make new dens in other wooded regions in Midgard. Several disturbing reports from the Western Wastes claim a number of crimson drakes are working with a tribe of goblins, but no organization has yet confirmed this.

Deep drakes take their name from the lightless depths they inhabit. The highest concentration of these creatures yet found lies near the Ghoul Imperium, and only rarely do these creatures venture near the surface.

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