Brown Dragon

Also called great desert dragons, brown dragons are wingless and cannot fly. They are sand-colored, from dull brown when hatched to nearly white as great wyrms, with small webbed digging claws, very long jaws and leathery scales softer than most dragon hide. They speak their own language and that of blue dragons, and each age category adds 5% to the odds that one can converse with any intelligent creature. They are smart but see humans as food, and find the idea of chatting with a meal strange.

A brown dragon digs a deep trench and lies in wait. Footsteps of a man-sized creature have a 90% chance of reaching its ears from as far as 500 feet overhead, and it surfaces so silently that foes take -5 on surprise rolls. Older ones add illusions or invisibility.

Its breath is a potent acid sprayed in a 5-foot-wide line up to 60 feet long; a save vs. breath weapon halves it. It sprays groups but not riders, since horses are tasty and put up less of a fight than people. It casts spells as an 8th-level wizard.

From birth it is immune to acid and desert heat and can survive almost indefinitely without air. With age it gains create sand to bury its burrows (young), create water once daily (juvenile), sandstorm, a spell of an ancient desert kingdom, once daily (adult), the power to summon a 12 HD earth elemental (venerable) and disintegrate once daily (great wyrm).

Brown dragons came from a great eastern desert and now haunt much of the wasteland in the east of an old desert kingdom, often near settlements. They live in burrows almost 1,000 feet down, hollowing out enormous chambers. Families form only briefly, with parents always at the mature adult stage, and many never mate.

Humans, who hunt them for hide and hoard, are their main foes, and blue dragons attack them as well. Brown-versus-blue battles are legendary for their savagery, and desert folk respect the brown so oddly that their stories usually cast the blue as the worse villain.

They can digest sand and minerals to last long periods, but prefer meat, especially horse.