Brass Dragon [Metallic]

Newly hatched brass dragons are a dull, mottled brown. The metallic tone builds with age until the hide glows like burnished brass.

Conversation beats combat every time for a brass dragon. Someone intelligent who tries to leave too soon may face a sulk: a suggestion, or a blast of sleep gas, after which the sleeper wakes pinned under the dragon or sunk in sand to the chin until it has talked enough.

In earnest fights it raises a choking dust cloud using control winds or dust devil before it charges or snatches, and likes control temperature to roast its foes. Young ones in real danger fly off and burrow out of sight; elders scorn such retreats.

Breath options are a sleep cone 70 feet long, 5 feet wide at the mouth and 20 at the end, or a 50 x 40 x 20-foot cloud of scorching heat. Hit Dice and level give no protection from the gas; a save vs. breath weapon halves either effect. Spells work at 6th level plus combat modifier. From birth it is immune to fire and heat and speaks freely with animals. Later: create or destroy water 3/day (young), dust devil 1/day (juvenile), suggestion 1/day (adult), control temperature 3/day in a 10-foot radius per age level (mature adult), control winds 1/day (old), and summon djinni once per week (great wyrm). The djinni willingly performs favors, but the dragon sends it into battle only in extremity, since its death would embarrass the dragon terribly.

Brass dragons roam hot, dry lands from dunes to steppe, basking for hours. Lairs are high caves, ideally east-facing to catch morning sun, with sunning spots nearby that double as traps for passing talkers. Boastful and often boorish, they hold useful lore but share it only after endless digressions and hints that a present would help. They get along with nearby brass dragons and sphinxes and defend their young savagely, trusting their own heat immunity while breathing fire on attackers. Blue dragons are their great rivals; outranged by the blue's breath, a brass avoids single combat and rallies neighbors for a group strike.

Brass dragons can eat almost anything but need little, living largely on precious desert dew that they lap from leaves with long tongues.