#white dragons

[the-emerald-wyrm]

A Young White Dragon that’s trans-coded iykyk

[here-be-descriptions]

The Singing Dragon, from “Endless Ocean: Blue World.”

“The singing dragon will watch over the queen’s treasure as in the ancient pact.

My children, if you desire the queen’s treasure, which was buried with her,

take the Dragon Flute and offer it to the three suns of morning, noon, and night.

Only then will the singing dragon appear and open the door to the treasure.”

“This is the pure white whale seen in the ruins in the Cavern of the Gods. Although it looks like a small humpback whale, it is in fact an unknown species. It might even be a descendant of the whales that the Okeanides once controlled...”

“[The Song of Dragons]

Whale song is composed of repeated, altered, complex patterns of sound, so if the Song of Dragons is whale song, how can it be the same all over the world? One theory holds that whales have their own ''civilization.'' Killer whales in the same pod have similar hunting techniques, and all the humpback whales in a pod use the same scales for singing, so perhaps the Song of Dragons is a song so old it was passed down from ancient times and transmitted to whales everywhere.”

[mask-knife-is-buggys-wife]

My Mandarin is absolutely abysmal but I know enough that it makes me laugh when the demon henchmen talk because it's very "THIS IS MY BAD GUY VOICE I AM A BAD GUY TALKING." Kind of voice. The Chinese equivalent of "ITS DA FRIGGIN BAT!!"

[pluttskutt]

@ieppiq psssst

[honourablejester]

Just on the topic of things that mildly bug me from D&D 5e, I just wanna talk about white dragons for a bit?

I really love white dragons. They’re in my top three dragon subspecies, along with greens and golds. I especially adore the thing about their memory:

“Though only moderately intelligent, white dragons have extraordinary memories. They recall every slight and defeat, and have been known to conduct malicious vendettas against creatures that have offended them.” […] “A white dragon's flawless memory means that it knows how it came to possess every coin, gem, and magic item in its hoard, and it associates each item with a specific victory.” (Monster Manual)

As you can tell from things like Miirikjilinth, a homebrew white dragon NPC of mine, I love the potential worldbuilding implications of their memories. The arctic dragons, holding the oral history and memories of whole regions safe inside their minds. Now, granted, most whites are far too antisocial for that, but it’s still such a fantastic potential about them.

But. Right there in that quote is the thing that bugs me: though only moderately intelligent.

Why are white dragons written (and statted) as the dumb ones? They’re the ‘smallest, least intelligent, and most animalistic of the chromatic dragons’. Even Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons, despite lightening up on things like morality and alignment for chromatics, continues to hammer this point: “I enjoy an animated debate... just not with a white dragon. Impossible and ignorant, all of them. The air must be different in their arctic latitudes.” (Fizban himself). And the stats bear this out. White dragons have the lowest mental stats of any dragon, the only adult dragons that have an Intelligence of less than 10. They’re literally the only dragons to have a minus modifier to a mental stat. And it kind of kneejerk annoys me?

Now. Some of this could be me attaching too much value to numbers for intelligence. And there is an argument that whites are intended to be essentially the barbarians of the dragon world. Their emphasis is on hunting, combat, living off the land, being remote and antisocial and far from civilisation. Which, I do get that. But.

Barbarians are a player class, and a choice a player makes on what stats they can afford to dump. White dragons are a race of beings. Well. A subspecies of an intelligent species of beings. And with that in mind, having the entire subspecies be glossed as ‘bestial’, ‘animalistic’, and ‘the least intelligent’ of all their kind feels … weird.

The dragons that choose to live away from civilisation, that choose to live off the land, that prefer treasures taken from their natural environment (“However, in their remote arctic climes, the treasure hoards of white dragons more often contain walrus and mammoth tusk ivory, whale-bone sculptures, figureheads from ships, furs, and magic items seized from overly bold adventurers.” MM), that don’t like to have to talk to people that often, those dragons are dumb and animalistic. Despite the fact that their memories are basically the equivalent of the Keen Mind feat (which increases INT) but with recall for centuries rather than months.

Intelligence in D&D measures ‘mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and the ability to reason’. Four of the five INT skills are about memory rather than the ability to think on your feet (which, granted, might be a whole other argument). The basic ability descriptions repeatedly emphasis memory (‘a character with low Intelligence might speak simply or easily forget details’ PHB). Like, this might just be me, but I feel like a ‘flawless memory’ should give them a higher INT score than 8? Is it meant to be supernatural memory and fully divorced from their actual brain? Explain please.

I don’t know why it bugs me that much. It could just be because they’re one of my favourite dragons, and I’m annoyed that they’re widely described as being dumb as bricks just because they’re not one of the civilised sorts of dragons. Their WIS and CHA scores are also the lowest of any adult dragon, at 12 each, and while CHA makes sense considering they’re the most antisocial dragons, given their emphasis on hunting and perception and ambush, you’d think they’d at least get a better WIS score too. IDK, I just feel like you could give the adult white statblock, the ‘representative sample’ of their kind, at least the same mental stat spread as blacks and brasses (INT 14, WIS 13, CHA 17)? Maybe reverse the WIS and CHA scores, because, again, antisocial, plus hunters with good perception.

Anyway. Apologies, very random grumble that may, possibly, be some of my own biases (and favouritism) cropping up. But. The description does make me feel weird, and kneejerk protective of my vicious, feral, incredibly long-memoried white dragon beloveds.

[thegoodmorningman]

There's a proverb that goes, "The Truth lies in proverbs."

[fisitronsflame]

We played this oneshot and I drew our characters.

 https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1086-free-d-d-adventure-fight-as-dragons-and-explore-a

[jennifercrowart]

My version/look for D&D white dragons!! Calcryx in the Sunless Citadel is a white dragon wyrmling :~) cute lil baby but very deadly..........