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Monster Profile: The Blue Dragon
[22-Mar-2007]
I have been in the company of dragon slayers. And
while I might regale you with heroic tales of a grand victory over a
malicious black wyrm, I honestly believe that a more sobering story
will be more instructive. My first encounter with a dragon is something
I will never forget. My companions and I were exploring an old fortress that was being slowly swallowed by the desert. At one point, some of us began to feel unsettled. As we walked on down a dusty stone corridor, the hair on my head began spreading out in all directions and would not lie down. The muscles on the back of my right arm began twitching every couple of seconds and would not cease. Static electricity permeated the air around us, and a deep snort from deeper in the fortress brought these disconcerting feelings home. We rounded a bend and, gazing through a doorway at the end of the passage, I caught sight of brilliant blue scales. A massive head then dipped down and a pair of baleful gleaming eyes pierced through me. A fear gripped me so tightly that I was barely able to turn away. I pressed my forehead against the wall of the passage and slumped heavily into the stone. The dragon disappeared from view, and the hand of my paladin friend on my shoulder revived me a great deal, but when my head was clear, I knew the only thing to do was to turn back. Luckily, the dragon was only toying with us, knowing we would spread word of him and more potential victims and riches would be drawn to his new lair. As we turned and left, I swore I heard a deep rumbling laugh. The blue dragon is certainly among the most intelligent and dangerous of the dragons. In combat, a blue dragon uses its breath weapon, a powerful line of lightning, with lethal precision and has fearsome bite and claw attacks. Along with the universal dragon qualities, like immunity to sleep and paralysis, blues have immunity to electricity. Like all dragons, blues gain spell resistance and their draconic frightful presence once they become young adults. They generally prefer to dwell in arid desert areas and often use hallucination inducing spell-like abilities to confound trespassers in their jealously guarded territory. While my brush with that mighty blue dragon had an incredible impact on me, all dragons are impressive in their way. They can possess great power, high intelligence, and even beauty, but often along with these, deep in the hearts of many are extreme malevolence and greed. From nobility and honor to wickedness and brutality, dragons embody everything that we humanoids know is in ourselves, except in them, all these things seem somehow more impressive. I’m sure this is why so many dragons think themselves superior to all other beings. This inherent diversity among dragonkind certainly adds to their mystique and adds to the challenge of fighting them. Aside from knowing the nature of the various breath weapons and immunities, planning for a battle with a dragon is extremely difficult. And the older a dragon gets, the less prepared you can hope to be when you finally meet her. You must do your best to prepare for anything.
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