Primeval Dragons (3.5e Monster)

Dragons have populated the material plane and the realms beyond for untold ages, long before even the most early of mortal races rose up from the primordial dregs and harnessed the power of language and script. Since the great majority of dragon lore predates contemporary civilization by hundreds of millennia, most knowledge of these powerful creatures has never been written down, and subsequently forgotten or descended into obscurity. The most ancient and reclusive of dragons live out their untold millennia of life away from mortal eyes, or hibernate the ages away underground or at the peaks of the tallest mountains. Many great exemplars of dragonkind never even set foot on the material plane, dwelling on the far reaches of elemental, outer, or even more obscure planes where mortals, in their limited power and potential, never learn of their existence. And perhaps they should treasure their ignorance, for even the oldest and most powerful of chromatic and metallic dragons, that require an alliance of the greatest mortal heroes and villains of the time to slay, pale before the might of the Old Ones. These types of dragons that inhabited the world during ancient times, interwoven into the very tapestry of Creation itself, and heralding change, birth and death, creation and destruction on massive scales, are known only to the greatest of mortal minds as the primeval dragons.

While the chromatic and metallic dragons embody a theme and a shared moral stance, the category of primeval dragon is broad indeed, as is the range of their alignments. Primeval dragons are intertwined with the energies, elements and axioms of creation, whether it be earth, water, fire, air, energy, or such broad and undefinable concepts as life, death, time, magic, or aether, or any combination of these things. A complete list of these conceptual bases is impossible to give, and the primeval dragons are many and varied.

Some mortal scholars believe that primeval dragons may have been extensions of the Gods, tools to fit a particular purpose in the cycle of life and death. Others believe that the Old Ones – the original primeval dragons of their kind – carry a sliver of divine power themselves, that their progeny descended from. Known for a fact by these rare individuals however, is that the oldest and most powerful of these dragons possess demigod-levels of strength and power.

Primeval dragons are ‘semi-epic’ dragons. The first six age categories (wyrmling – adult) are considered non-epic, whereas the last six age categories (mature adult – great wyrm) are epic.

Physiology and Combat
Primeval dragons are surprisingly different from their contemporary kin, both physically and mentally. It is unknown exactly where and when primeval dragons evolved into the chromatic and metallic strains known today, but the Gods are theorized to have played a hand in it, since there never have been any findings of dragons in the intermediate stage of evolution between the two. It is also theorized that chromatic and metallic dragons may have resulted from cross-breeding between different species of primeval dragons, although nothing is known about how primeval dragons reproduce.

Primeval dragons are overall more robust and hardy than their modern kin, with segments of subdermal and interorganic cartilage and scale formations interwoven with the powerful muscular and skeletal structures, arrayed to protect vital organs from damage. Like modern dragons, primevals have immense lung capacity and possess a draconis fundamentum – the organ that regulates and provides energy for breath weapons and certain bodily functions. Where primeval dragons differ is that they have vital organ redundancy; many possess a second and third heart, smaller than the primary and framing the draconis fundamentum on either side. Depending on the species of primeval dragon, it may or may not have rudimentary gills to allow breathing underwater, or even additional organs that can process a substance other than air or water to breathe. Primeval dragons have much stronger bones and muscles than even chromatic and metallic dragons, but their physiology, and especially their bones, are also denser.

The greatest physical difference between primevals and contemporary dragon species is their number of limbs. While chromatic and metallic dragons possess four legs with a feline body form and two wings, primeval dragons only have rear legs, with their front legs contained within the ulna draconis of their wings, making them more akin physically to wyverns than modern true dragons. As such, when they are grounded and on all fours, their wings are spread across the ground. Their claws extend from the point at the cusp of each wing where the ulna meets the metacarpis – the massively elongated primary digits that support their wings when unfurled. A primeval dragon’s front arms are solid and powerful, and braced by the alar onecranon for increased power and lift when taking flight. The scapula that supports the wing structure is much bigger than that of modern dragons, covering a larger portion of the ribcage and moving along the curve of the ribs while in flight. For much greater wing strength, the bone structure of the metacarpals and alar phalanges is denser and wider, and support structures fashioned of highly pliable yet strong cartilage deposits within the wings cross-connect adjacent metacarpals much like organic struts. As such, while their lack of forelegs prevents primeval dragons from leaping into flight or take a running start like a modern dragon, this much stronger wing structure allows primeval dragons the stupendous feat of taking vertical flight from their perch, or hovering in mid-air. Their much more powerful wings and tougher bodies allows them to attain much greater speeds in flight, and gives them the maneuverability to take with ease sudden turns that would stress a modern dragon’s wing bones to the point of breaking.

Primeval Dragons and Aging
Primeval dragons age very slowly, even much more so than their chromatic and metallic counterparts. A primeval dragon goes through his twelve age categories five times slower than ordinary dragons, and will then go to live on for a number of years equal to 200 times its Charisma score plus 200 times its Constitution score before the twilight stage of its life sets in (for more information about dragons and aging, see the Draconomicon). Unlike ordinary dragons, a primeval dragon may live in its twilight stage longer, only needing to make a DC 20 Constitution check every ten years. See the below tables for primeval dragon age progression and prime life expectancy for each primeval dragon species.

Natural Weapons
A primeval dragon has the same natural weapons as a modern dragon; a bite (primary), two claws, two wings, and a tail slap, including special attacks like crush and tail sweep. Their lack of independent front limbs means they cannot make claw and wing attacks at the same time, allowing them less attacks on a full attack than chromatic or metallic dragons. To compensate, all of a primeval natural weapons are more powerful (see table below). A primeval dragon's space and reach is the same as that of regular dragons.

Natural attacks function as normally for dragons, except as noted below.

Claw: While still secondary attacks, a primeval dragon’s claws deal the indicated damage plus the dragon’s entire Strength bonus. A primeval dragon cannot make claw attacks while in flight.

Wing: The primeval dragon can slam opponents with its wings when flying. When used while flying at speed, a primeval dragon’s wing attacks automatically Bull Rush the target at the indicated check modifier. The dragon must choose between claw or wing strikes for each forelimb while making a grounded full attack.

Tail Sweep: Huge primeval dragons can also perform a tail sweep, at a radius of 20 feet.

Movement Speed
Primeval Dragons are generally slower on land than their modern counterparts, due to the lack of independent forelegs, but they are much faster and more maneuverable flyers. A primeval dragon's base land speed is 40 feet. Defer to the individual dragon's statistics block for information about their flight speed.

Breath Weapon
A primeval dragon's breath weapon is a supernatural ability that functions like the similarly named ability of modern dragons, except for the following differences. Unless noted otherwise, a primeval dragon may project its primary breath weapon in any shape it wishes unless noted otherwise, including line or cone. The length of a primeval dragon’s line or cone is half again as long for each size category as those of a modern dragon. In addition to cone and line, primeval dragons have the following breath weapon shapes available to them.

Blast: The dragon builds up its breath into a ball in its maw, and discharges it like a blast with a range of Long (using twice its age category as the effective caster level for range indication, as if it were a spell). Upon reaching its target or a hard surface, the blast detonates in a spherical explosion with a spread radius of half the length of its cone, (rounded down to the next multiple of 5).

Sweep: The dragon focuses its breath into a beam, and sweeps it across the ground. It may affect as many five foot squares of ground with its sweep as that its line breath weapon is long, dealing breath weapon damage and/or effects to any creature caught within the sweep. The sweep need not to be straight, and the maximum range of this ability is up to the length of its line breath weapon. The dragon must either be airborne or on elevated terrain to perform a sweep with its breath weapon.

Primeval dragons always have at least one breath weapon. Their primary breath weapon deals damage as per the breath weapon column in the statistics table of heir individual entry, and they may have one or more secondary breath weapons that create different effects.

Frightful Presence
A primeval dragon’s frightful presence has twice the effect range as the frightful presence of a modern dragon. Furthermore, the maximum number of Hit Dice at which affected creatures become panicked is 3 plus the primeval dragon’s age category, instead of 4. The duration of the fear effect is 6d6 rounds.

Spells and Powers
Primeval dragons are closer to the ancient roots of magic, and as such have a varied range of spellcasting that differs from species to species. All primeval dragons cast spells as one or more particular spellcasting or psionic classes, and sometimes both, gaining bonus spells and/or powers and an increase in save DC for a high score in the relevant ability.

Damage Reduction
All primeval dragons, from newborn wyrmlings to the oldest of wyrms have damage reduction. The type and magnitude of the damage reduction differs from type to type. If the youngest age categories of a particular species of primeval dragon sports damage reduction/magic, it will have damage reduction/epic from a later category onwards.

Immunities
Primeval dragons always have multiple immunities, and are always immune to their own breath weapons, as well as the energy type their breath weapon deals. Primeval dragons with an elemental subtype like Fire or Cold will not gain vulnerability to the opposing element.

Power Resistance
A primeval dragon has power resistance equal to its spell resistance.

Senses
A primeval dragon’s blindsense goes out to 100 feet, and its darkvision out to 200 feet.

Hover
All primeval dragons have the Hover feat.

= Species of Primeval Dragons =

Below is a list of all recorded primeval dragons and their statistics. See their individual article pages for an example statistics block.