Fire Dragon

A primordial chaos god made fire dragons to mock true dragons, and the parody extends to every life stage from egg to great wyrm. Each seems formed of molten rock, plated in obsidian, its eyes glowing like coals.

It attacks with two claws and a bite, can use all of a true dragon's special physical attacks such as wing buffets and tail slaps, and has a fear aura equal to a true dragon of its apparent age.

Its breath is a choking, scorching cloud of sulfur fumes (save vs. breath weapon for half). Its touch burns for 1-8 points unless the victim saves vs. spell, and in flight it sheds red-hot embers that ignite flammables (save vs. magical fire).

Fire cannot hurt it, but cold and water attacks do double damage and each vial of holy water deals 1-12. Normal weapons are useless; magical, holy or newly blessed ones hit normally, as do acid and non-fire attack spells. Magic resistance starts at 10% and gains 5% with each apparent age level.

Fire dragons are loners that assemble only at their creator's command, as in its great war against the world. They sometimes seem to form families but keep no treasure, and serving as mounts for chaos-spawned warriors is their limit of cooperation.

They eat nearly anything, even rock and soil, but prefer meat. Their bodies yield scroll ink for fireball and protection from fire, hide for fire-resistant scale mail, and bone tips for wands of fire. Wizards who find some before the god's season of devastation should turn the bodies into arrows of fire dragon slaying, and plenty of them.