...excerpted from Dragons: The Great Beasts, dating from approx. one hundred years before the beginning of the Feudal Age, and purporting to be a copy of a document nearly four hundred years older. Many scholars today scoff at it, declaring that it is a hoax, as the text asserts that the subject matter is completely factual. Little is known about the original author, one Ilandro, of the Northern Forests.

Introduction: Being a Brief Summary of the Nature and Appearance of Dragons

Dragons come in two basic categories: elemental and chromatic (or color-based).

Chromatic dragons come in a variety of hues. Red, black, gold, brown, etc., are found. Breath weapons come in five varieties: fire, ice, lightning, poison, and acid. Predictably enough, the five most commonly known chromatic types are the red, white, blue, green, and black dragons.

Color in a chromatic dragon stays mostly uniform, with only very subtle variations found around the eyes, nostrils, and jaw. Lairs can be found just about anywhere there is a decent cave system, though chromatic types with fire and ice breath weaponry tend to lean more toward cave systems near volcanoes or glaciers, respectively.

All chromatic dragons are built the same: head, sinuous neck, large muscular main body with four strong legs, and a tail almost as long as the neck. Wingspan averages two and half times the dragon's length. Average length ranges from 50 to 70 feet, depending on age. These dragons are the "common" type, or more accurately, more likely to be encountered.

As for breath weapons, it has been observed that roughly one hundred yards is the range of a chromatic dragon’s breath, and one chromatic dragon (a red), observed in extended battle with many mages and warriors, used his fire breath a total of nineteen times in less than one hour, each blast turning a section of ground roughly twenty feet by thirty into a partially melted state of lava. White dragons have been observed freezing slightly larger areas, while poison, acid, lightning breath have been more difficult to determine the strength of said weapons, observers having been variously melted to slime, blasted to pieces, or dieing from toxins in very short order.

Elemental dragons come in five types only: ice, fire, wind, water, and earth. Unlike the chromatics, which are all uniform in body type, elemental dragons vary widely one from another. The ice dragons are most similar to their chromatic cousins, having a sinuous neck and tail, strong bodies and a similar wing span. However, the ice dragon is leaner than the chromatic, being more lithe than muscular. Ice dragons are also possessed of a bluish sheen, much like deep ice when exposed to strong sunlight. Overall length patterns closely follow the chromatic scale, though ice dragons age much more slowly. The fire dragon shares some similarities with their counterparts the ice dragons, yet there are significant differences. A fire dragon will never exceed fifty feet in length. Their body form is very thin, nearly skeletal, and their wings follow in the same vein, and actually seem too small to allow for flight. Their coloring is red with sooty black highlights at the edges of their scales. Wind dragons are without legs completely, the only appendages they have being their two wings, each stretching more than three times their full body length away from their spines, and a tail. Lengths are difficult to determine, the wind dragons never touching land in all the years they live. Wind dragons are all in shades of blue, white, and gray, allowing them to blend in with the sky itself. Water dragons appear similar to the crocodile, possessing no wings at all, though they grow to a total of sixty feet in length. Their legs are slightly longer than they would be on a crocodile of the same size, with extended digits nearly human in appearance despite the claws, though they are fully webbed. Colors have been observed to be all shades of the seas. Earth dragons are the smallest known type, and the only type to be completely without any breath weapons at all. Far from being disadvantaged by this fact, an earth dragon is so heavily armored that nothing observed has proven sufficient to pierce their scales, and more than one earth dragon has been observed slipping into active lava flows to avoid confrontation without harm. Length rarely exceeds twenty-five feet, the largest seen having been only twenty-eight feet and some few inches in length. In regards to their armoring, it has been noted that earth dragons, even when half grown, will already exceed thirty tons. One full-grown earth dragon (at twenty-three feet, seven inches) tipped the scales at more than eighty-three tons.

Elemental dragons, in contrast, are not as territorial nor as vicious as their chromatic cousins. While they do maintain a certain area claimed as their own, for those varieties that have a set lair, they are rarely more than is required for basic sustenance, whereas the chromatic dragons will claim tracts of land that would encompass full quarter of the landmass of Toisian. Their lairs are always found in relation to the element they are; i.e. an ice dragon will always nest within a glacier, fire dragons within active volcanoes, etc. Earth dragons are found in the depths of cave systems, and water dragons will not nest in a river less than a mile across and three deep, or a body of water less than a hundred miles square. Wind dragons have no lairs; being creatures of the air itself, they hatch, grow, mate, and eventually die, never touching the lands beneath.

Elemental dragons are also possessed of unique breath weapons. Unlike their chromatic cousins, whose breath weapons peter out at roughly a hundred yards, elemental dragons are far more powerful (though they cannot maintain the same level of output for the same amount of time). Ice dragons generate such an intense wave of cold that the air for three hundred yards will liquefy (approx. temp: -260º to 270º C). Fire dragons have roughly the same range. The temperature of a fire dragon's breath averages out around 6000º C (the approximate temperature of the surface of the sun). In contrast, the red dragon's fire breath only reach a third as far and tops out at a thousand degrees. Wind and water dragons have less a breath weapons than an ability. Being shy creatures, their breath is more focused on creating a distraction to allow them to leave the immediate area. A dragon will breathe, and there will arise a small windstorm, gusting strongly, and forcing all in the area to shield themselves instinctively. When the winds pass, and those present are once more searching for the dragon, it will be nowhere to be seen. The water dragon’s ability creates swells in the water of great size, frequently capsizing any nearby vessels. At the very least, the occupants of such a vessel will be far more concerned with keeping it above the waves, and will lose the dragon as it dives away. Water dragons are, however, quite dangerous when their young are threatened. One instance does stand out, of a young water dragon who came within ten miles of shore, and was speared by whale hunters thinking they had made the catch of their lives. The angered mother speared the ship with a focused blast of water, and trailed the few survivors to land, where it expended its fury in the form of a tsunami, destroying the village whence came the hunters.

Personalities of the individual dragons vary from group to group. Though it can safely be said that chromatic dragons will most likely attack those who have wandered into their paths. Elemental dragons are far more even tempered; as has been noted, wind and water dragons are more likely to leave the area than remain. Earth dragons are slow of temper, and have been observed to mostly ignore the passage of humans through their lairs, with the noted exceptions of when the humans in question chose to attack the dragon. Fire dragons will give off short warning blasts to interlopers, and only bestir themselves for an attack if their lairs are being raided. Ice dragons have been noted to be almost aloof of those near their lairs, though they are far more active about intrusions than either earth or fire dragons. Ice dragons will not tolerate intruders in their homes. Avoidance of such areas is advised.

As for the lairs themselves, while some few chromatic breeds (notably the red, white, and gold varieties) do maintain heavy loads of precious stones and metals in their lairs, the remainder will only have a modest store in comparison, several types (earth and water, frequently ice as well) will have either no precious metals at all or what little they do have will be in secondary lairs visited only infrequently (on the order of once every two or three hundred years). A fire dragon’s small hoard would be secreted within a cave system sealed away by lava flows, through which no human could ever pass unscathed.

The heavy book titled Beasts of Myth and Legend was closed gently, respecting the age of the text. Nielin Gage stood from the table in the great Library and headed for the door, shaking his head as he went. How like a human, to not even mention that it was ice and fire dragons who passed all this along in hopes that humans would be more likely to leave them alone. Ilandro always was a bit prissy. And calling us "myths and legends?"