Purple Dragon [Energy]

Indigo at hatching, a purple dragon's scales grow bigger, harder and darker over time, fully violet by adulthood and nearly black on a great wyrm. It speaks its own tongue and the evil dragon common tongue; 14% of hatchlings can converse with any intelligent creature, plus 5% per age category. Deeply cruel, they revel in terror, and prairie farmers fear them doubly because they raid at night.

It likes to fight with claws and teeth whose serrated edges leave ragged wounds that take twice as long as normal to heal, softening up strong foes with its breath first. Purple dragons seek out battle, yet they are clever enough to withdraw and think when surprised. The breath blinds, working best in the dark, and can burn through 10 feet of stone. Its damage runs from 2d8+2 for a hatchling up to 24d8+24 for a great wyrm.

Lairs are dark caverns opening onto grassland or low hills, often dug by the dragon, which burns its way past rock too hard to claw. They are loners until mating; then both parents rear the young, with the crueler male as main hunter. Some shelter evil humans or hill folk in exchange for service and information, but most are too haughty to bargain even with other evil dragons.

They eat livestock, wild herds and isolated villagers, hunting by night on dark wings and preferring thunderstorms, foreseen through predict weather, whose noise covers their approach. Lacking meat, they will grudgingly eat potatoes, onions and carrots, which only sours their mood. Adults have no natural foes, though verbeeg and hill giants prey on foothill hatchlings and ankhegs take prairie young, and parents kill such intruders slowly. Copper dragons rarely escape them intact, and a purple dragon may even challenge an equal-size gold in the air; the gold usually wins.