Draconomicon (1990)

Customs and Social Mores: White Dragons

Whites are the least intelligent species of western dragon, and their behavior shows it. They have very little in the way of either foresight or planning, and their memory is rudimentary and capable of recalling only physical events, not abstract concepts. There’s one exception to this: They remember offenses against them, and they have a very well-developed sense of vengeance.

Unlike other dragon species, whites mate purely for pleasure. If offspring arise from this activity, so be it, but this isn’t the goal of the activity. Should the female become impregnated, the male instinctively stays around to protect her. Once the eggs hatch, however, the two creatures go their separate ways. The hatchling dragons follow one or other of the parents, and the older dragons do not object to the young tagging along. The parents feel no obligation to protect the young, however, and so the offspring must learn to fend for themselves immediately. (The infant mortality rate for white dragons is rather high.)

The time at which young dragons leave their parents and strike out on their own varies wildly. Some leave almost immediately, while others remain for a century. In the latter case, the parent usually drives the offspring away, sensing that it may soon become a rival. (And the parent is sometimes right. There have been cases recorded where a young dragon has killed its parent for the older dragon’s hoard.)

White dragons have been described—by other dragons—as “the thugs of dragonkind” and as being “about as subtle as volcanoes.” Even those lucky whites that can communicate with an intelligent creature rarely have thoughts worth communicating.

Sightings: White Dragons

As might be expected from their color, whites dwell in frigid lands where snow and ice continually cover the ground. Although whites are sometimes found among the snowcapped peaks of the more southerly mountains, these are usually young—and somewhat unwise—individuals that frequently fall prey to adventuring companies from the civilized lands. The majority of the whites live in far northerly climes, well away from concentrations of humanity.

Reproductive Habits

The less intelligent dragons— blacks and whites—seem to have no taboo against inbreeding, or perhaps no knowledge of its significance. For this reason, blacks and whites often suffer the consequences of inbreeding: numerous infertile eggs and congenital problems (both physical and mental).

Rogues

As with humans, demihumans, and humanoids, the alignment of dragons reflects not instinctive behavior but an intelligent choice about how the creatures respond to the world. Certainly, dragons raised in a society with a strong alignment are probably going to share that alignment, but there’s no law of nature that prevents a dragon from changing its alignment. (In fact, the consequences of changing alignment are considerably less for a dragon than they are for a human or demihuman. Dragons progress in power depending on their age, so they suffer no direct ill effects from a voluntary alignment change.)

Dragons that voluntarily change their alignments are referred to as “rogues,” and they’re very rare indeed. Rogues have decided for reasons of their own that they don’t go along with the world-view common to dragons of their species.

Rogue chromatic dragons are even rarer than rogue metallic dragons, but they do occur. A young red dragon might be sickened by the suffering that its older relatives are inflicting on innocent victims. After much soul-searching, it might flee to an isolated area where it can live on its own terms (Chaotic Neutral alignment), or it might try to work to prevent or reverse damage caused by others of its kind (Chaotic, Neutral or even Lawful Good, depending on how it went about this task).

In the case of Chaotic Evil dragons becoming neutral or good, their kin respond to them in exactly the same way they would to any other dragon of that alignment: hatred and attack if the rogue intrudes on their territory, general indifference otherwise. Lawful Evil dragons might consider retribution against the rogue, but only if the rogue posed some kind of danger to them or if they saw some potential gain in it.

Dragons and the Ecosystem

White dragons are notable exceptions in these matters. These creatures seem to have no concept of population management; they feed until an area is totally cleaned out of prey. When this happens, they’re forced to look elsewhere for food. “Elsewhere” often means another dragon’s territory, which leads to violent battles between the creatures. Lack of food also sometimes causes whites to head south from their frigid homes and feed in more populous areas (often those already inhabited by man).

This insensitivity to the ecosystem and their place in it probably explains why the active and dormant phases for white dragons are both about two decades long. Without the long and frequent hibernation periods, the creatures would deplete their environment to the point where they couldn’t survive.

Rearing Dragons

Some ambitious PCs might come up with the idea of acquiring a freshly-hatched dragon and rearing it as a pet, friend, or guardian. While there’s nothing innately wrong with the idea, there are some potential problems.

When dragons hatch, they have a strong imprinting instinct that seems to be common to almost every creature. In other words, they consider the first creature that they see after emerging from the egg as their parent, and will— initially, at least—consider themselves to be of the same race as that creature. (Human jesters sometimes go to the trouble of incubating ducks’ eggs just so they can be present at the hatching, and have the ducklings imprint on them. From then on, the ducklings follow the jester around as though the human were their mother… much to the amusement of spectators.)

There’s a significant problem here, however. Even the dumbest white dragon is much smarter than a duck. The imprinting instinct is a short-term thing for dragons, intended to help the hatchlings survive the first month or two of life in a hostile world. After that, their innate intelligence takes over.

Dragons mature mentally at about twice the rate of humans, which means they attain their full share of intelligence and wisdom at about ten years of age. (They’re still potentially very naive, of course, since their experience of the world is highly limited.) Long before this point—probably before they reach the age of five—the effect of the imprinting vanishes, and they’ll have realized that they’re quite different from their “parent.” How the relationship progresses from here depends on both the treatment the dragon receives and on the nature of the dragon.

Good dragons appreciate kind, respectful, and humane treatment, and feel some indebtedness to whoever provided that treatment. No matter how good the treatment has been, however, the dragons never feel blind loyalty (it’s an intelligent creature, after all, quite possibly more intelligent than the people rearing it).

The relationship between a well-reared good dragon and its foster parent closely parallels that between a human parent and child. The relationship can be close or distant, warm or stormy, depending on how closely the world-view of the parent matches that of the dragon (with respect to alignment, particularly). A Chaotic brass dragon in a Lawful environment will quickly begin to chafe at the discipline, while a gold in a Chaotic environment will quickly feel the need for a more organized climate.

No matter how closely alignments and outlooks match, however, the dragon eventually feels the need to leave home and make its own way in the world. Again, depending on how close the relationship was during the dragon’s formative years, the on-going relationship between parent and dragon can range from close friendship and mutual respect to complete indifference or even antipathy.

Evil dragons are a completely different story. As soon as the dragon is old enough to recognize its true nature—perhaps five years of age—it starts looking for ways to manipulate the relationship to suit itself. This is true no matter what the alignment of the parent. The dragon quickly starts pushing the limits of any discipline enforced upon it.

Evil dragons don’t respond well to the good and respectful treatment relished by their good kin. Evil chromatics would see this as weakness in their parent, and it would tempt them to take over as soon as possible. These dragons respect strength and power, and won’t attack parents who are obviously much more lethal than they.

This is particularly true for Lawful Evil blues. They will willingly follow and learn from an evil-aligned parent, as long as that parent remains more powerful than they. As soon as they see the balance shift, however, they’ll try to take over. They won’t kill the parent if they can avoid it, but they will expect the parent to accept them as the master from that point forward.

Chaotic Evil chromatics feel no loyalty or indebtedness to anybody. The first time they’re reasonably sure they can manage it, they’ll turn on their parents, kill them, and take everything of value.

The behavior patterns and abilities of unintelligent creatures are mainly instinctive (with some exceptions such as species-specific songs or calls]. This isn’t the case with intelligent creatures, such as humans, demihumans, or dragons. The vast majority of abilities and behaviors must be learned from their parents.