Steel Dragon [Greyhawk]

Hatchlings are dark blue-gray with steely glints; by adulthood the hide has paled to gleaming burnished steel. Every human guise the dragon wears keeps one gray tell, in its hair, eyes or nails, or else in a ring or similar ornament. Besides their own language and the neutral dragon tongue, 19% of hatchlings can talk with any intelligent creature, rising 5% per age category.

A steel dragon prefers clever talk to bloodshed. Forced to fight, it leads with spells and avoids melee, resuming dragon form only when badly hurt or seriously threatened. Anyone it plans to meet in melee gets breathed on first, and it tries to keep them in the gas until the gas weakens.

The breath is a cube of poison whose size the dragon controls exactly, from tiny up to the maximum edge length in the table. It kills through skin contact as surely as when inhaled: victims save vs. poison at -2 or die, and even a successful save means taking the listed damage unless immune to poison. Lard or grease over all bare skin removes the -2. In still air the cube lasts two rounds.

The dragon is immune to poison and to 1st- to 4th-level wizard spells. It may polymorph self five times daily; a form lasts until it picks another, and reverting is free. Age adds cantrip (twice daily, young), friends (once, juvenile), charm person (three times, adult), suggestion (once, mature adult) and enthrall (once, old). Its magic functions at a level of 8 plus its combat modifier.

Where most dragons shun people, this one wants the bustle of a great city and the company of humans and demihumans. It poses as a sage, scholar or mage, often becomes a celebrated patron, and is endlessly fascinated by mortal art, history, culture and politics. It never reveals itself, though these dragons always recognize each other. Homes are human dwellings with sturdy vaults for the hoard.

Human food is a favorite, but it cannot sustain the dragon's true bulk for long, so once or twice a month it slips off to hunt in the wilds behind a cover story, such as a historian visiting ruins or interviewing an old soldier. It loathes chaotic creatures that disrupt cities or spoil its hunting grounds, reporting troublemakers or hunting criminals in town and dealing out faster justice in the wild.