Amber Dragon [Neutral]

An amber dragon's hide is thick and bark-like, dull gray to deep brown, set off by eyes of rich amber. A horned prow about a foot long juts from its face, and its feet end in curved, scythe-like talons.

Being small, it grants opponents +4 on saves against its fear aura. Its soft, cartilaginous teeth make biting useless, so it stabs with its beak-like prow instead, backed by two scything claws when cornered. It shuns fights where it can, but it casts every spell a druid can, which makes up for its modest physique.

The breath is a cone of scalding, sticky sap, 30 feet long, widening from 1 foot at the mouth to 50 feet at the far end. The sap sets within 1d4 rounds into a resin shell that pins its victim. Someone who saved vs. breath weapon can break out with a successful Strength check. Anyone else is locked in solid and gets a single bend bars attempt at -15% to escape.

Up to 3/day the dragon can magnetize a foe. On a failed save vs. breath weapon the effect lasts 3d4 rounds; a successful save halves that, rounded down. The victim cannot accurately throw, cast, sling or shoot anything containing metal, such as daggers, axes or metal-tipped arrows. Metal armor seizes up, worsening Armor Class by 1 and imposing -2 to attack rolls, and odd side effects may follow, such as being slowed on a metal floor.

From young adult age it can shape change 3/day like a 7th-level druid. It may also blink (as the 3rd-level wizard spell) a number of times per day equal to half its age category, rounded down.

The most solitary of neutral dragons, ambers roam vast primeval conifer forests, often ranging over 900 square miles, without any fixed lair. They scorn gold and metal treasure and hoard nothing, so any valuables found near one are coincidental. Not truly territorial, they still make short work of anyone who enters the deep woods meaning harm, yet they are no forest guardians; they are a force of nature whose moods swing like the weather, mild as spring wind one moment and furious as a summer storm the next.

They speak their own language and several druidic tongues, and talk telepathically with druids and woodland folk like elves, gnomes, sprites and brownies. Druids share much of their outlook but are merely tolerated; a partnership between the two is rare.

Ambers live on the thick sap of conifers, piercing the bark with their prows to drink. Druids and rangers who know the signs can spot the triangular scar this leaves on a trunk.