Dragon Hatchling

Red dragon hatchling

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I ran out of cons I really like, but it just irks me a little bit after read anothers comment that if was just R and a rare, it would be so much better. I agree, and now it feels less of a card when I think if they just would've done a cycle of 1 cost rare creatures, for each color, that would've been a shoe in But still, the thought of a hatchling being a rare is laughable, like a Hobbit being a drillseargent. You just can't take it serious. Last edited by Stoogeslap: Rollback Post to Revision RollBack.

Dragon Hatchling Doll Frame

Yeah R at a higher rarity would have certainly been awesome for this card. That said, at common he's definitely a fine man and should lead to some decent drafting. This is a very swingy card, which a perfect card for red. Can eat up all your mana plus a Gut Shot, or can simply give damage a turn.

It might be fun in pauper actually. I had an idea I tried to make work for some time, and Hatchling seems to be a perfect fit. I write for Channel Fireball now! Read my CFB articles here. Read my Dies to Removal articles here. Read the definitive Red Deck Wins Primer here.

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Currently broadcasting Boros Burn in Standard. Want to play better magic? The characters got their hands on some Black Dragon eggs. The PCs put out the thought that if they got the eggs to hatch, they could raise the dragons to be "good". First we'll define the word canon so we're clear about what we're discussing as it applies here, I'll leave out definitions that don't apply:. With those definitions established, I'll be citing the Monster Manual for 5th Edition, which is based upon the Forgotten Realms setting.

The pertinent reference comes from the Monster Manual on Pg. This section covers the instincts that govern a chromatic dragons behaviour. I'm not going to bother pasting it here because the title alone sums up their drive, and the text simply expands on it. Chromatic dragons are united by their sense of superiority, believing themselves the most powerful and worthy of all mortal creatures. When they interact with other creatures, it is only to further their own interests.

They believe in their innate right to rule, and this belief is the cornerstone of every chromatic dragon's personality and worldview. Trying to humble a chromatic dragon is like trying to convince the wind to stop blowing. To these creatures, humanoids are animals, fit to serve as prey or beasts of burden, and wholly unworthy of respect. On top of that, the main header on the page titled Dragons also covers this pertinent bit emphasis mine:. However, true dragons fall into the two broad categories of chromatic and metallic dragons.

The black, blue, green, red, and white dragons are selfish, evil, and feared by all. So, by canon alone, no, they can not be converted to good. Basically, it's like trying to convert a demon or devil. You could let them do it, you're the DM. Consider what the nature of the creature is though. Is it likely to be successful? What kind of problems are they going to experience?

How are they going to deal with the backlash when the dragon eats it's first person or destroys a farm with it's breath weapon? You'd have to do a lot of work to tidy it up, but there's actually a section on rearing eggs on page How it becomes good looks like a journey , which is where the fun is in a role playing game. There is support for this in the published rules. For some creatures good or evil is a choice, for some it is natural to be of one alignment more than any other; for some other creatures good or evil is a part of their essence.

For many thinking creatures , alignment is a moral choice. Humans, dwarves, elves, and other humanoid races can choose whether to follow the paths of good or evil, law or chaos. The evil deities who created other races, though, made those races to serve them. Those races have strong inborn tendencies that match the nature of their gods. Most orcs share the violent, savage nature of the orc god, Gruumsh, and are thus inclined toward evil. Even if an orc chooses a good alignment, it struggles against its innate tendencies for its entire life.

This shows that moral agency is available for intelligent creatures, even if it is difficult to change inborn tendencies. Your black dragon could as an intelligent creature have as much success as an orc or half-orc in overcoming its inborn evil. The details can be worked out between the DM and the players in terms of how the change happens.

Dragons compare favorably to orcs, half-orcs, and PC's as intelligent creatures. Between Charisma and Int scores, young and wyrmling dragons should be capable of changing alignment when given motive and opportunity. Dragons don't treat Int as a dump stat! How much effort are the player characters willing to invest in this project to raise a black dragon, from birth, to overcome its inborn evil tendencies?

Komodo Dragon Hatchling: Big Pic - Seeker

Alignment is an essential part of the nature of celestials and fiends. If it somehow ceased to be lawful evil, it would cease to be a devil. While the Monster Manual entry on Black Dragons establishes their general nature as evil, the rules leave an opening for a chromatic dragon to be other than evil. The alignment specified in a monster's stat block is the default. Feel free to depart from it and change a monster's alignment to suit the needs of your campaign. If you want a good-aligned green dragon or an evil storm giant, there's nothing stopping you. At least by this rule, green dragons, and by extension other chromatic dragons, are not inherently evil.

Good ones can exist, though this doesn't address whether they can be made good simply by being raised well, as other factors could come into play. So, while it is canon that a creature can turn out contrary to the general alignment of it's species, there are no guarantees that it will in your particular case.

One of those actions might be hiring a sage to so some in-game research. Or find some metallic dragons and ask them, if anyone would know, it would be them. I think the idea of raising a black dragon kind of charming. As long as it doesn't happen in my neighborhood. Just remember, your kids and your pets are never as cute as you think they are. It's up to you.

In my Greyhawk campaign, orcs and black dragons are unalterably evil; in my Judges Guild campaign, they are not and although no PC has ever encountered a good orc a neutral black dragon has featured. Similarly the 1e MM says that alignment is "characteristic" of the monster, which leaves some options. The danger of making all alignments flexible is that it risks losing flavour.

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Drow, for example, have become something of a running joke because there seems to be more good-alignn exiled rebel drow than there are actual evil drow despite the fact that they're supposed to be renowned for their evilness. It's become a cliche. None of which changes the fact that the DM is the last word and can do it any way that suits the nature of their particular world. Nor that DM discretion is canon. Monster Manual entries in some perhaps even most, nowadays editions frequently state that a creature's alignment is "Always [x]" or "Usually [y]", and may also contain things like "Any good" etc.

For those creatures labelled "Always chaotic evil", it seems to me that this "Always" is interpretable as being an intrinsic characteristic of the creature, rather than a product of its upbringing, whereas "Usually" denotes more flexibility, perhaps implying that the creatures in question are more prone to making a personal choice early in life. This in turn is not to say that an intelligent creature, born to chaotic evil, cannot decide later in life to turn from that path and become good.

A strictly defined alignment anything other than "neutral" implies an understanding of the moral consequences of one's actions, and, beyond a certain point, denotes a choice to behave in a moral or immoral way. Is the mountain lion who drags off a small child to feed itself inherently chaotic evil? No, it is an amoral predator with a defined alignment of neutral. It lacks any innate capacity to judge its own actions and perceive them as "wrong" — such a concept does not exist for the mountain lion, but the same cannot be said of a dragon beyond a certain age. But right off the bat the rules seem to imply an intrinsic and pervasive evil in the species as a whole, quite possibly from birth, as racially encoded in the DNA as the dragon's wings are.

And, to continue with the analogy, an older dragon can always choose not to fly, but it will still be born with wings. A seagull, on the other hand, cannot ponder and reflect on its abilities and make a conscious decision that it shall never fly again.

It just flies — because that's what it does; it is part of its very nature, like the murderous mountain lion. So, a grey area in the canon I feel. My take on this is, admittedly, a bit of a judicious interpretation of RAW, but at the end of the day the DM is judge, jury… and of course executioner. The creature is born with the indicated alignment. The creature may have a hereditary predisposition to the alignment or come from a plane that predetermines it.

It is possible for individuals to change alignment, but such individuals are either unique or rare exceptions. It is inherently evil, but can be somewhat raised to be good DMG, Bytopia, optional rule: Pervasive Goodwill, pages Aside from just ruling it as such, I saw this question elsewhere I think on gitp, asking about whether handle animal could be used to raise a dragon to be good.

If you take the creature to the plane of Bytopia and stay for 1d4 days after it fails a DC10 wisdom throw its alignment will change to either Neutral or Lawful good whichever is closer, therefore Neutral Good permanently There are spells to detect the value of a creature's good-evil score; there are items that affect or require certain ranges of values; there are areas that are beneficial and inimical, depending on a creature's value.

There are planes dedicated to particular values on the good-evil scale. Creatures from these planes are good or evil, as appropriate, by nature. Even more, they cannot change their nature. A fiend is always evil. A celestial is always good.

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A modron is always neutral. On the Prime plane, however, creatures get to choose. It is one of the things that differentiates Prime planes from Outer planes. In other words, not all goblins are evil. Whether or not this applies to dragons is up to the GM. In the Forgotten Realms, dragons are not native to Faerun - they fell to the ground many thousands of years ago. One could argue they are descended from extra planar creatures, so their alignment is locked into their nature. One could also argue they came from another Prime plane, so nurture plays a part. Many of the player races are described as having alignments of either good or evil, or lawful or chaotic, but there many examples both in game and in official novels of unique individuals bucking the trend in spectacular fashion.

Dragons are highly intelligent creatures, often more than the typical player races. This intelligence in my opinion gives them the capacity to learn, to break instincts and, more importantly, choose their own path. It's tempting to look in the Monsters Manual and declare that all Black Dragons are the same. But such rare and powerful creatures should be every bit as unique as any player race. With all of these instincts which its "parents" keep scolding it for following; parents that it cannot help but feel are somehow inferior.

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