I suggest the Dimensional Shambler from Pathfinder. It's a monster from Lovecraftian literature and a really fun one to use in a campaign. I've used it once and my players are still scared of mentioning its name out loud lol
Man, I'm loving the idea of a song dragon 'blessing' the bloodline of a noble family, but they view it as a curse as they can no longer bear sons. Maybe that's why Lord Neverember has no heir...
Plot hook: The melodies sung by the voice of a song dragon counteract the song of the false hydra. The party needs to find a song dragon before the false hydra gets to fully grow becoming too powerful to stop it.
It is actually pretty easy to tell if someone is a dragon, just give them an IQ test. Basically if they aren't a complete moron, they're a dragon. No, not really. Just expressing how irritating life is. You people are cool.
if you want a stronger giveaway - the song dragon tends to hum all the time - and half way through the campaign the bard realizes that the songs he is humming are horribly old - part of the ancient lore he discovered during adventures.
Of all dragons, I feel like these song dragons could warrant a Charming Presence rather than a Frightening Presence. It could capture their elusive, sublime, yet social nature and can prove a true challenge to a party depending on who fails their save.
I would also perhaps flavour their breath weapons to not be entirely silent, but that the only thing that can be heard within it is this quiet distant singing of a female voice, as an ethereal tune on the wind.
I have my doubts about any DM who'd let someone play this, but a song dragon as a bard works. NPC, more likely. A famous bard who is surprisingly young is looking for an escort through the wilds
In my campaign, one of the party's recurring NPCs is a song dragon that takes the form of an Elf bard. She's a member of a bards college in the area, but is in actuality the founder of the college who likes to disappear and come back as a "new student" from time to time. She tends to act as a curious archeologist and loreseeker. She "happens upon" the party a lot in their travels through ancient ruins and plants the seeds to push them towards uncovering artifacts and knowledge needed to thwart the BBEG.
That was definitely a ball drop with the removal of song/mercury and steel dragons. Completely ignoring it because a song dragon was once the lover of elminster (gave him a daughter) and another song dragon was a key player in ending the Dragon rage Mythal during the Year of Rogue Dragons trilogy. So they exist in the novel version of Toril. Drow dragons are also their own thing and entirely separate from Deep Dragons because they were created to be drow-weredragons. I even go as far as to, in my version of Toril, make Obsidian dragons were-gem dragons
I have a theory. Selune is known as the goddess of shapechangers, song dragons actually being one of her favoured beast/animal. Selune is also known to be a particularily feminine deity; so perhaps all dragons transform into women because they transform into something closer to her image. Sort of like how biblically accurate angels are supposed to in some ways mimic God (just an example). So possibly instead of the ancestor being gifted the form by a powerful dragon, it could be a gift from Selune. Similar to how she can gift out Lycanthropy as a gift. Agai, just a theory, but its a cool thought.
Honestly I really want to see a Steel Dragon being covered alongside this one, It would be really cool to see how you would adapt it to 5e! On another note about the de-canonization of Steel and Song Dragons, They could be something that Fizban himself is keeping secret. How I adapted the new canon is that they are secret society of dragons that tries to keep up the balance between the mortal races and dragon kind with a modus operandi of living alongside them. I would love them to be their own race but what I loved the most about Steel Dragons are their behavior and culture. Their unique relationship with mortal races and how that relates to their identity and way of being. So their "race" isn't as important to me as those more interesting things.
Instead of the song dragons creating Silence with their breath weapon they should have all noise emitted in that space creates a cacophony of different tones of ringing and jingling. It would be the same effect as silence
The elf in my campaign is a bard from the Feywild-- his beautiful, wealthy patron is a song dragon AND a distant grandparent. But he doesn't know either of those things yet. 😂😇
Great song choices as always, Daddy-o 👍🏼 I've always wanted to make a world where music is the centerpiece to the metaphysics, so this got my gears whirring. I also see a lot of worldbuilding interplay and potential with dragonborn. Thanks!
"Snow White & the Shift 7 Dwarves" the singing in the cartoon as she cleans their places & bakes their pot pies. Why a dragon would associate with gold mining, crystal faceting clan. The dwarves not understanding why the kobolds are suddenly friendly. The witch being pissed off as to why her kobolds have unexpectedly switched allegiance from bringing her the jewels that the captive dwarves used to "carve" for her when they weren't being the enslaved taskmasters of the Kobolds, "chip chip chip, when do we escape this? chip chip chip back to being engineers of vaults. chip chip chip this all well and fines, but we could be making caverns not holes."
What about giving them the performance of creation subclass feature? Sure, as you said song in the name is a weird thing considering they don't have song related features: static gas could be seen as a way to disrupt the rhithm of the world and thus magic doesn't work or something like that. But giving them that subclass features might be a nice touch. they sing, and things are brought upon existence.
Oh wow this is perfect for my party Patron in our mercenaries campaign they are a mercenary band that has been fighting for good and I've been trying to find something interesting to have the patron become and this Lots in perfectly thank you as always
To put them in tune with their penchant for music, I’d give song dragons a new ability: Enchanting Song Aura. The song dragon sings constantly throughout the encounter. This song reaches up to 60 feet around the dragon. Every turn, all living creatures who can hear have to make a WIS check; if they fail, they are distracted by the song and have to skip their turn, if they pass, they can ignore it for the next 5 turns.
Actually had a fun game in which I made a reluctant werewolf situation using an orphan child song dragon that has no idea of their actual lineage, but thinks of its form shifting as some sort of curse that caused its parents to abandon it. In reality, its mother thought it lost or worse after monster slayers had attacked it, singing out for it as it roamed the country, flying close enough to the child's village roughly once a month, to which the party not only protected the child from the hunters, but reunited the pair after basically adopted the child shortly after.
Appreciate you converting this. Hopefully it gets lots of views. So many people were less than thrilled with the sidebar in Fizban's retconning the song and steel dragons. As for a release December, maybe Krampus from Pathfinder 1e, Bestiary 6. He's an epic encounter, so would probably be kind of time consuming, but it'd be very fitting for the season.
Ah Dragons,one funny thing I like to explore with dragons is what if one day they took mortal form only to find somthing about their shapeshifting broke and they are now stuck in this less powerful form. I play a 'Kobold' Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer (Gold) that was a young gold dragon that got cursed into his current body when he carelessly took an abandoned dragonslayer's castle as a lair. He didn't listen to his Dragonborn paladin friend and now they got to find a way to undo this unusually powerful curse. Said dragonborn paladin being played by a friend of mine. I find it funny that the rest of the party is only just now catching on to the fact that something is up with the gold-scaled kobold that knows way to much about dragons and that its odd that dragonborn seems to differ to/follow the lead of the kobold instead of the other way around. Oh and the Kobold's name is very similar to the dragon both supposedly work on behalf of. Its been four sessions,and we even snuck though a few dragon cult groups. Because no dragon cultist ever seems to take notice of one extra kobold (even with gold scales) and no kobold is going to question the authority of one that seems to be draconicly blessed with magic. Managed to capture a red dragon egg after an ambush on some cultists, I was their 'guide' though some heavily patroled mountain passes, but that left the party with quite the moral dilemma. Is it justified to take a sentient life before it gets a chance live? Well if it wasn't for my pal the pally, that egg would have been splattered. The rest if the party was split but the Dragonborn paladin had noticed the morality slide my dragon-turned-kobold was taking. Some examples, A dragon that was truthful to a fault was now concerningly good at deception especially for malicious purposes. He also dressed more like a decently well off traveler or possibly a rouge as he wore well fitting travel clothes rather than robes and carried one dagger (and one concealed one) instead of a staff. Another form of deception. He also was becoming more vicious towards enemies and a sarcastic jerk to everyone that wasn't ether his dragonborn friend or some influencal person the party was trying in the good books of. That shocked Zas / Zaslortraz the dragon-turned-kobold into a "What they hell am I doing?" moment and also sparing the egg....and very nearly blowing Zas's cover...but oh boy is the party suspicions now.
Never related so hard to a monster. I also love just singing kinda absentmindedly. I often sing the songs that are playing on the radio while at work, and I have been known to hum the songs that are playing during boss fights in my raid group.
Especially when you consider the hype for viking stuff. In the forgotten realma, dendar the night serpent is also called Nidhoggr…maybe there will be a follow up boo called “ Takhisis’s better treasury of dragons”
The Song Dragon real estate scam is brilliant. It puts me in mind if a full blown Scooby Doo mystery, complete with a reverse unmasking when the party reveals the scam artist as a dragon. They transform in anger, bellowing "and I would've gotten away with it, too... IF IT WEREN'T FOR YOU MEDDLING ADVENTURERS" Roll initiative
I remember a trilogy I read a while back. ‘The Rage’, ‘The Rite’, and ‘The Ruin’. The premise was that every so often all dragons are overcome with a period of insanity called The Rage. All dragons, chromatic and metallic are driven to rage, raze everything before them, and generally be problems. A song dragon teams up with a group of adventurers to solve the mystery behind the Rage and try to end it forever. Together, they face chromatic dragons, a half-maddened gold dragon, undead dracoliches, a vampire dragon, and eventually a master wizard turned lich who was trying to gain control over the Rage and destroy the mortal and celestial realms.
Not a random encounter, met either on the road or in a town, but they are setting off in the same direction the party is. A large, powerful fighter and wizard with silver hair and beard, and a beautiful lady bard and healer. Clearly a couple, and one of her songs is The Riddle of Steel and Song. Both seem young, until you get their eyes, which are old and wise, and they speak of things that happened before the PCs' oldest known ancestors like they were yesterday. Interesting traveling companions. Could get interesting if there is a grey dragon looking to get the bounty on the PCs.
Instead of a song dragon npc, I’d be interested in scaling them down into a playable race. Maybe like a descendent of a full song dragon, still maintaining some abilities but not as broken as having a player transform into a full dragon.
The games I run tend to be so broken that I'd probably just let a player turn into a dragon. Now that I think about it I do have plans to have one of my players turn into a dragon.
I learned this second hand but Fizban's just reconed Steel dragons out of D&D by say that they don't exist and that they never existed. Also Song dragon were a kind of subspecies of Steel dragons so double excuse to not have Song dragons.
@@Andrew-vq2zr I call bull on their excuses; They just didn't want to explain dragon politics and why there is a whole faction of metallic dragons that don't answer to Buhmet. However it's more likely that the word count was going to get too high.
I just realized that if there are no Steel dragons or Song dragons and depending on how the drow changes go they might just take out Drow dragons as well. Which is one of the few lore friendly way to be a non Loth drow and have a draconic bloodline.
Is it just me, or are WOTC moving away from polymorphic dragons? To my knowledge none of them actually have shapshifting in their stat block, and the new lore mentions it less and less
I think there’s a section in Fizban’s saying that it is usually metallic who can take this polymorphic trait, but I think chromatic dragons are just as capable (so a green dragon is as capable of shapeshifting into a humanoid as much as a silver dragon).
WotC is moving away from historical D&D, profitability and good ideas. My dragons will polymorph, it is a distinction between them and the lesser dracoform like wyverns and drakes.
So I am running a Wild West campaign and at one of the saloons my party frequents the saloon’s main singer is a song dragon. She used her love of music to make a career
One of my old D&D buddies decided that, for our homebrew 3.5 world, song dragons cast spells as bards (plus had some of their bardic music features). They did similar stuff with a few other dragon species, and it was pretty fun.
Song Dragons are originally from Forgotten Realms. As Wotc has chosen to do little to nothing with FR this edition it doesn’t surprise me that they weren’t included.
I've been planning on somehow incorporating a song dragon into a 5e campaign. I'm glad you've already done the work of converting it to 5e! EDIT: I can probably take a young copper dragon mini and paint it silver with hints of blue to represent the song dragon's draconic form, unless there's already such a mini available.
Here's a neat plot hook: The song dragon wants to become a dracolich, but needs to sacrifice a whole kingdom to do so, and your party has to stop them before it's too late.
I also gave Song Dragons song magic, which is basically extra beefy bardic magic with larger AoE and damage. When they fly, the wind whistling thorough their wings, frills, and spines sounds like a woodwind orcherstal score, and causes a subtle hypnotic effect that gives enemies disadvantage on attacks and saving throws, and gives allies advantage on attacks and saving throws within a certain range of said Song Dragon. Their lairs/domains are also characterized by being filled with 'the subtle music of nature', a harmonious, ever-present musical sound that puts everyone who hears it into a collective case of mass hypnosis/suggestion, which can be as mild as just making everyone in the lair's range happier and more amiable to one another, or it can be as malicious as putting every plant, animal, insect, and person under the thrall of the Song Dragon.
Maybe it's just me thinking. But it seems like Song dragons and Steel dragons feel like they would work well together. Looking after humans/humanoids as a whole. A but of a partnership if they know of each others presence in a city or various area. Lol just food for thought.
I wanted Mercurary dragons my favorite metallic dragon in Fizban's honestly it kinda let me down compared to how good the previous Draconomicon books in other additions where.
I've always assumed they were billon dragons, that is, crossbreeds between silver and copper dragons, given their appearance and predisposition for shape shifting into maidens. The fact that there's also an electrum and orium dragon says to me that there ought to be a silver/copper breed as well. They're 100% not werecreatures, they're dragons, pureblooded, born and raised, from the outset, and there's absolutely no question about that. If a weredragon bites you, you do not become a weredragon, it's not a disease, it's not a curse, they're just dragons.
If you know the Lyonesse trilogy by Jack Vance (Dying Earth), the dragon can be like Melancthe, a witch who lives on the coast and joins sea creatures at night in forlorn singing. The party is searching for a “killer” dragon at the behest of a town and finds a woman living in a shack at the base of its supposed mountain on the beach. She denies them of dragons or refuses to help when asked, but the party might find clues or sneak to witness her transform in the night to rendezvous with other fantastic beasts and sing under the moonlight.
Why is their breath weapon not Sonic/Thunder damage? Really missed a trick there, Wizards. Also, why not make their spells require them to be in their human form to cast it? Seems like a good way to tie the two forms together and make it useful in combat.
The combination of immune to non magical weapons and antimagic field is interesting, but it could also mean that whole classes of PCs don't get to have fun that night...
A friend of mine as a joke wrote "My ex, an adult song dragon, has been hunting me for 6 years" in his backstory and the dm killed him with the dragon later. We had to revive him and make the dragon think he stayed dead. Had to fake a funeral for him and a bunch of other crap lol
I really kinda like the idea of making it a villain/ rival for the party. Where it screws with them in human form and eventually they get strong enough and take it down as a mid tier boss for a section of the campaign.
Contaveral opinion: i didn’t know about the lingering anti magic breath but When I hear the detailed lore about what song/were dragons are, I find them currently a redundant race filling the the next door neighbors was a secret dragon role when past editions lore had declared all other dragon were monolithic reclusive hermits. Given that gem dragon can change as a bonus action and fizbans gives permission for chromatics to cast spell, and have a section about possible mortal relations shapeshifted or not, I don’t think song have any unique standing without a major rework. Make any metallic or gem dragon a humanfiel that likes music, polymophs as a legendary or bonus action, and you have your song dragon equivalent for your campaign. I personally find song dragons more intriguing as a lifestyle any dragon can take then it being one specific subspecies’s main gimmick.
@@Rattus138 Deffently needs more meat on the bones, mabey one or two more unique actions to set them apart from the basic dragon template. Defiantly needs some weird quicks like about how they handle hoards in my mind to set them apart. Some kind of plot hook that only can be done with a Song and not another polymorphed dragon with overlapping interests wearing a ring of mind shielding with Nystul’s Magic Aura cast on it. What kind of person a Song Dragon is when compared to a disguised to a trickster Copper, a militant Bronze, a quiet observer that is an emerald, or a manipulative and patient family person that a blue.
If you like song dragons I suggest reading "The Year of Rouge Dragons" D&D book series by Richard Lee Byers. They're out of print now, which sucks because my collection is all beat up, but you can still get the ebooks. One of my favorites.
KOBOLD kingdom lead by a song dragon is at war with another kingdom run by a necromancer wanting a draco lich and someone hires the party to deal with this
Just to clarify a mistake made in the first minute and a half, in their older lore, song dragons don't *have* males - they're an all-female race who reproduce by coupling with male dragons and humanoids, usually preferring the latter.
It's not that Truesight is _bad,_ but 15 ft is pretty tiny. And most dragons have Blindsight, which also detects invisible things and sees through illusions, usually.
Truesight is really at its most useful with disguise self type shenanigans, where the party isn't trying to hide from the dragon visually but socially. 15ft is pretty small though
There is a novel series where, partway through it, some of the characters realize that every dragon they know of or have even heard of is male. Later on, it turns out that krakens are the female of the species. It might be interesting if all Song Dragons are female, and the male of the species has a human male form, and some other mythical creature as its other form.
I'll be honest, I don't get the hype around Song Dragons, all metallic dragons have the same ability to shift forms, so they're main "gimmick" isn't really that unique
I think they ditched Song Dragons just cause all of the adult and ancient dragons can polymorph themselves. For the narrative bit of “small weak woman is actually powerful monster” you can use any of the other more versatile dragons, or a Song dragon. But the Song dragon’s got one gimmick
For anyone who missed how cheesy these dragon's can be... they breathe anti-magic AND are immune to non-magic damage... So uh, seems like they could just breathe their anti-magic and be literally invulnerable. Magic weapons and items can't be magical in anti-magic and magic of course can't be cast into it. May even be a dragon type that might actually breathe, then shift into human form with a masterfully crafted mundane longbow or something to just be a REAL douche.
![Apex Predators - SUN AND MOON DRAGONS - Dungeons & Dragons Spelljammer [D&D] - Monster of the Week](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/CBFa32dXQyQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for watching erryone! LEt me know what you wanna see next week~
I suggest the Dimensional Shambler from Pathfinder. It's a monster from Lovecraftian literature and a really fun one to use in a campaign. I've used it once and my players are still scared of mentioning its name out loud lol
I am once again asking for the Orium dragon from 4e.
Just wondering if there's anything that says a dragons (in general) other form has to be human? Like could one be a harengon or tortle or elf etc?
Man, I'm loving the idea of a song dragon 'blessing' the bloodline of a noble family, but they view it as a curse as they can no longer bear sons. Maybe that's why Lord Neverember has no heir...
Plot hook: The melodies sung by the voice of a song dragon counteract the song of the false hydra. The party needs to find a song dragon before the false hydra gets to fully grow becoming too powerful to stop it.
"A terrible monster is stalking the town!"
"A dragon?"
"Yes, but even worse - a property speculator."
Between silver, steel, and song dragons, everybody you met in a town could be a dragon. It's worse than mimics.
Multiple anime series have run with that idea.
It is actually pretty easy to tell if someone is a dragon, just give them an IQ test.
Basically if they aren't a complete moron, they're a dragon.
No, not really. Just expressing how irritating life is. You people are cool.
"My mother is a _magma_ dragon, thank you very much."
Its a tendency, at least among mettalic dragons, to be able to polymorph at one stage of their life.
Lol, doesn’t Fizban’s say any dragon can take human form
if you want a stronger giveaway - the song dragon tends to hum all the time - and half way through the campaign the bard realizes that the songs he is humming are horribly old - part of the ancient lore he discovered during adventures.
Thank you for this, im stealing it sorry.
Definitely theft worthy.
Of all dragons, I feel like these song dragons could warrant a Charming Presence rather than a Frightening Presence. It could capture their elusive, sublime, yet social nature and can prove a true challenge to a party depending on who fails their save.
I would also perhaps flavour their breath weapons to not be entirely silent, but that the only thing that can be heard within it is this quiet distant singing of a female voice, as an ethereal tune on the wind.
i just imagined a song dragonborn bard.
I have my doubts about any DM who'd let someone play this, but a song dragon as a bard works. NPC, more likely. A famous bard who is surprisingly young is looking for an escort through the wilds
In my campaign, one of the party's recurring NPCs is a song dragon that takes the form of an Elf bard. She's a member of a bards college in the area, but is in actuality the founder of the college who likes to disappear and come back as a "new student" from time to time. She tends to act as a curious archeologist and loreseeker. She "happens upon" the party a lot in their travels through ancient ruins and plants the seeds to push them towards uncovering artifacts and knowledge needed to thwart the BBEG.
That sounds like a great way to lead the party in the right direction without railroading them! Great job!
I love this
That was definitely a ball drop with the removal of song/mercury and steel dragons. Completely ignoring it because a song dragon was once the lover of elminster (gave him a daughter) and another song dragon was a key player in ending the Dragon rage Mythal during the Year of Rogue Dragons trilogy. So they exist in the novel version of Toril. Drow dragons are also their own thing and entirely separate from Deep Dragons because they were created to be drow-weredragons. I even go as far as to, in my version of Toril, make Obsidian dragons were-gem dragons
A song dragon that communicates exclusively through rapping.
I have a theory. Selune is known as the goddess of shapechangers, song dragons actually being one of her favoured beast/animal. Selune is also known to be a particularily feminine deity; so perhaps all dragons transform into women because they transform into something closer to her image. Sort of like how biblically accurate angels are supposed to in some ways mimic God (just an example). So possibly instead of the ancestor being gifted the form by a powerful dragon, it could be a gift from Selune. Similar to how she can gift out Lycanthropy as a gift. Agai, just a theory, but its a cool thought.
I misread the thumbnail and was wondering what kind of horific aberration a Snog dragon was going to be...
dammit now i want that
Honestly I really want to see a Steel Dragon being covered alongside this one, It would be really cool to see how you would adapt it to 5e!
On another note about the de-canonization of Steel and Song Dragons, They could be something that Fizban himself is keeping secret. How I adapted the new canon is that they are secret society of dragons that tries to keep up the balance between the mortal races and dragon kind with a modus operandi of living alongside them. I would love them to be their own race but what I loved the most about Steel Dragons are their behavior and culture. Their unique relationship with mortal races and how that relates to their identity and way of being. So their "race" isn't as important to me as those more interesting things.
Instead of the song dragons creating Silence with their breath weapon they should have all noise emitted in that space creates a cacophony of different tones of ringing and jingling. It would be the same effect as silence
To me, the Song Dragon seems like the perfect Bard NPC or DMPC.
The elf in my campaign is a bard from the Feywild-- his beautiful, wealthy patron is a song dragon AND a distant grandparent. But he doesn't know either of those things yet. 😂😇
We ran a campaign where my player character was a young adult Song dragon. It was an epic campaign.
Great song choices as always, Daddy-o 👍🏼
I've always wanted to make a world where music is the centerpiece to the metaphysics, so this got my gears whirring. I also see a lot of worldbuilding interplay and potential with dragonborn.
Thanks!
Heck yeah! That’s a really cool idea
"Snow White & the Shift 7 Dwarves" the singing in the cartoon as she cleans their places & bakes their pot pies. Why a dragon would associate with gold mining, crystal faceting clan. The dwarves not understanding why the kobolds are suddenly friendly. The witch being pissed off as to why her kobolds have unexpectedly switched allegiance from bringing her the jewels that the captive dwarves used to "carve" for her when they weren't being the enslaved taskmasters of the Kobolds, "chip chip chip, when do we escape this? chip chip chip back to being engineers of vaults. chip chip chip this all well and fines, but we could be making caverns not holes."
What about giving them the performance of creation subclass feature? Sure, as you said song in the name is a weird thing considering they don't have song related features: static gas could be seen as a way to disrupt the rhithm of the world and thus magic doesn't work or something like that.
But giving them that subclass features might be a nice touch. they sing, and things are brought upon existence.
Oh wow this is perfect for my party Patron in our mercenaries campaign they are a mercenary band that has been fighting for good and I've been trying to find something interesting to have the patron become and this Lots in perfectly thank you as always
"hey bro are you a song dragon?" "No I just have ADHD" 😂
To put them in tune with their penchant for music, I’d give song dragons a new ability: Enchanting Song Aura.
The song dragon sings constantly throughout the encounter. This song reaches up to 60 feet around the dragon.
Every turn, all living creatures who can hear have to make a WIS check; if they fail, they are distracted by the song and have to skip their turn, if they pass, they can ignore it for the next 5 turns.
I kinda like the idea of someone having song dragon blood. Would be great if it was a bard
Actually had a fun game in which I made a reluctant werewolf situation using an orphan child song dragon that has no idea of their actual lineage, but thinks of its form shifting as some sort of curse that caused its parents to abandon it. In reality, its mother thought it lost or worse after monster slayers had attacked it, singing out for it as it roamed the country, flying close enough to the child's village roughly once a month, to which the party not only protected the child from the hunters, but reunited the pair after basically adopted the child shortly after.
your head is so animated, you should have a bobble head dungeon dad for your merch.
Song dragon needs sonic attacks and other audible-based spells
Appreciate you converting this. Hopefully it gets lots of views. So many people were less than thrilled with the sidebar in Fizban's retconning the song and steel dragons.
As for a release December, maybe Krampus from Pathfinder 1e, Bestiary 6. He's an epic encounter, so would probably be kind of time consuming, but it'd be very fitting for the season.
A song dragon that is a high level bard pretending to use true polymorph to turn into a song dragon
I think it's clever
Ah Dragons,one funny thing I like to explore with dragons is what if one day they took mortal form only to find somthing about their shapeshifting broke and they are now stuck in this less powerful form. I play a 'Kobold' Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer (Gold) that was a young gold dragon that got cursed into his current body when he carelessly took an abandoned dragonslayer's castle as a lair. He didn't listen to his Dragonborn paladin friend and now they got to find a way to undo this unusually powerful curse. Said dragonborn paladin being played by a friend of mine. I find it funny that the rest of the party is only just now catching on to the fact that something is up with the gold-scaled kobold that knows way to much about dragons and that its odd that dragonborn seems to differ to/follow the lead of the kobold instead of the other way around. Oh and the Kobold's name is very similar to the dragon both supposedly work on behalf of.
Its been four sessions,and we even snuck though a few dragon cult groups. Because no dragon cultist ever seems to take notice of one extra kobold (even with gold scales) and no kobold is going to question the authority of one that seems to be draconicly blessed with magic. Managed to capture a red dragon egg after an ambush on some cultists, I was their 'guide' though some heavily patroled mountain passes, but that left the party with quite the moral dilemma. Is it justified to take a sentient life before it gets a chance live? Well if it wasn't for my pal the pally, that egg would have been splattered. The rest if the party was split but the Dragonborn paladin had noticed the morality slide my dragon-turned-kobold was taking. Some examples, A dragon that was truthful to a fault was now concerningly good at deception especially for malicious purposes. He also dressed more like a decently well off traveler or possibly a rouge as he wore well fitting travel clothes rather than robes and carried one dagger (and one concealed one) instead of a staff. Another form of deception. He also was becoming more vicious towards enemies and a sarcastic jerk to everyone that wasn't ether his dragonborn friend or some influencal person the party was trying in the good books of. That shocked Zas / Zaslortraz the dragon-turned-kobold into a "What they hell am I doing?" moment and also sparing the egg....and very nearly blowing Zas's cover...but oh boy is the party suspicions now.
Now im imagining a party befriending a foul mouthed bard who just happens to turn into a dragon from time to time
Never related so hard to a monster. I also love just singing kinda absentmindedly. I often sing the songs that are playing on the radio while at work, and I have been known to hum the songs that are playing during boss fights in my raid group.
To me song dragons feel like the feminine counterpart to a masculine steel dragon. Both of them living as humans
The amount of monsters really is the worst thing about that book. Like why just gems? And why no new drakes? AND WHAT ABOUT LINDWYRMS?!
Especially when you consider the hype for viking stuff. In the forgotten realma, dendar the night serpent is also called Nidhoggr…maybe there will be a follow up boo called “ Takhisis’s better treasury of dragons”
@@epiccthulu Meaby.
The Song Dragon real estate scam is brilliant.
It puts me in mind if a full blown Scooby Doo mystery, complete with a reverse unmasking when the party reveals the scam artist as a dragon. They transform in anger, bellowing
"and I would've gotten away with it, too... IF IT WEREN'T FOR YOU MEDDLING ADVENTURERS"
Roll initiative
something that won't leave my mind for years now is to run a shadow war between Dopplegangers & Song Dragons
Professor at a magic school. Music teacher.
Would be cool if the Bladesong was gifted to the elves by a song dragon thousands of years ago
Modern era npc idea with the song dragon (especially for school settings):
A Band/Choir director who is a song dragon.
I remember a trilogy I read a while back. ‘The Rage’, ‘The Rite’, and ‘The Ruin’.
The premise was that every so often all dragons are overcome with a period of insanity called The Rage. All dragons, chromatic and metallic are driven to rage, raze everything before them, and generally be problems.
A song dragon teams up with a group of adventurers to solve the mystery behind the Rage and try to end it forever.
Together, they face chromatic dragons, a half-maddened gold dragon, undead dracoliches, a vampire dragon, and eventually a master wizard turned lich who was trying to gain control over the Rage and destroy the mortal and celestial realms.
Not a random encounter, met either on the road or in a town, but they are setting off in the same direction the party is. A large, powerful fighter and wizard with silver hair and beard, and a beautiful lady bard and healer. Clearly a couple, and one of her songs is The Riddle of Steel and Song. Both seem young, until you get their eyes, which are old and wise, and they speak of things that happened before the PCs' oldest known ancestors like they were yesterday. Interesting traveling companions. Could get interesting if there is a grey dragon looking to get the bounty on the PCs.
Instead of a song dragon npc, I’d be interested in scaling them down into a playable race. Maybe like a descendent of a full song dragon, still maintaining some abilities but not as broken as having a player transform into a full dragon.
The games I run tend to be so broken that I'd probably just let a player turn into a dragon.
Now that I think about it I do have plans to have one of my players turn into a dragon.
That actually does sound pretty interesting.
I learned this second hand but Fizban's just reconed Steel dragons out of D&D by say that they don't exist and that they never existed. Also Song dragon were a kind of subspecies of Steel dragons so double excuse to not have Song dragons.
Yeah they retconned all other dragons in a sidebar claiming they were nothing but some other type of dragon being mischievous
@@Andrew-vq2zr I call bull on their excuses; They just didn't want to explain dragon politics and why there is a whole faction of metallic dragons that don't answer to Buhmet. However it's more likely that the word count was going to get too high.
There's a steel dragon in my game too-- he runs a demi-plane magic shop.
I love the weird dragons.
Well that's just lame. Include Moonstone and retcon the others out of existence? I do not approve.
I just realized that if there are no Steel dragons or Song dragons and depending on how the drow changes go they might just take out Drow dragons as well. Which is one of the few lore friendly way to be a non Loth drow and have a draconic bloodline.
Is it just me, or are WOTC moving away from polymorphic dragons? To my knowledge none of them actually have shapshifting in their stat block, and the new lore mentions it less and less
I think there’s a section in Fizban’s saying that it is usually metallic who can take this polymorphic trait, but I think chromatic dragons are just as capable (so a green dragon is as capable of shapeshifting into a humanoid as much as a silver dragon).
Metallic Dragons have the ability to polymorph into humanoids. One is actually involved in one of their campaign books.
Deep dragon aswell, don't they have a shapeshift?
WotC is moving away from historical D&D, profitability and good ideas. My dragons will polymorph, it is a distinction between them and the lesser dracoform like wyverns and drakes.
I am glad Wotc didn't put the song dragon in fizbans, because your stuff is so good!!
So I am running a Wild West campaign and at one of the saloons my party frequents the saloon’s main singer is a song dragon. She used her love of music to make a career
Capping off a video about song dragons with one of the best pieces of video game music in history. Beautiful
Another wonderful video, I look forward to whatever you put out next
With all the DK music he uses, I won't be shocked to learn he plays DK in all his campaigns
One of my old D&D buddies decided that, for our homebrew 3.5 world, song dragons cast spells as bards (plus had some of their bardic music features). They did similar stuff with a few other dragon species, and it was pretty fun.
From the thumbnail it looks like this is going to be about some kind of Pod People Dragon.
“Song dragons just love music”
Bard players “my time has come”
Song Dragons are originally from Forgotten Realms. As Wotc has chosen to do little to nothing with FR this edition it doesn’t surprise me that they weren’t included.
I've been planning on somehow incorporating a song dragon into a 5e campaign. I'm glad you've already done the work of converting it to 5e!
EDIT: I can probably take a young copper dragon mini and paint it silver with hints of blue to represent the song dragon's draconic form, unless there's already such a mini available.
Here's a neat plot hook: The song dragon wants to become a dracolich, but needs to sacrifice a whole kingdom to do so, and your party has to stop them before it's too late.
The Bronze Dragon from Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel should be a Song Dragon, in my opinion. I think I will switch that once I run it.
I also gave Song Dragons song magic, which is basically extra beefy bardic magic with larger AoE and damage. When they fly, the wind whistling thorough their wings, frills, and spines sounds like a woodwind orcherstal score, and causes a subtle hypnotic effect that gives enemies disadvantage on attacks and saving throws, and gives allies advantage on attacks and saving throws within a certain range of said Song Dragon.
Their lairs/domains are also characterized by being filled with 'the subtle music of nature', a harmonious, ever-present musical sound that puts everyone who hears it into a collective case of mass hypnosis/suggestion, which can be as mild as just making everyone in the lair's range happier and more amiable to one another, or it can be as malicious as putting every plant, animal, insect, and person under the thrall of the Song Dragon.
Maybe it's just me thinking. But it seems like Song dragons and Steel dragons feel like they would work well together. Looking after humans/humanoids as a whole.
A but of a partnership if they know of each others presence in a city or various area.
Lol just food for thought.
My party is never able to put it together. They make great plans then charge in like murder hobos.
I wanted Mercurary dragons my favorite metallic dragon in Fizban's honestly it kinda let me down compared to how good the previous Draconomicon books in other additions where.
I was thinking how a Drake Warden could in someway connect with a Song Dragon too.
I've always assumed they were billon dragons, that is, crossbreeds between silver and copper dragons, given their appearance and predisposition for shape shifting into maidens. The fact that there's also an electrum and orium dragon says to me that there ought to be a silver/copper breed as well.
They're 100% not werecreatures, they're dragons, pureblooded, born and raised, from the outset, and there's absolutely no question about that. If a weredragon bites you, you do not become a weredragon, it's not a disease, it's not a curse, they're just dragons.
Gotta use this one now, sooo many new characters to make
Wow, that's cool! Yeah, I know. Thanks, Dungeon Dad!
If you know the Lyonesse trilogy by Jack Vance (Dying Earth), the dragon can be like Melancthe, a witch who lives on the coast and joins sea creatures at night in forlorn singing.
The party is searching for a “killer” dragon at the behest of a town and finds a woman living in a shack at the base of its supposed mountain on the beach. She denies them of dragons or refuses to help when asked, but the party might find clues or sneak to witness her transform in the night to rendezvous with other fantastic beasts and sing under the moonlight.
Not a D&D player, but I thought Song Dragons were only female and just mated with other male dragons that aren’t Song Dragons.
Why is their breath weapon not Sonic/Thunder damage? Really missed a trick there, Wizards.
Also, why not make their spells require them to be in their human form to cast it? Seems like a good way to tie the two forms together and make it useful in combat.
This is definitely some magical realm tier material. I love it
Totally love this, song dragons are awesome.
The combination of immune to non magical weapons and antimagic field is interesting, but it could also mean that whole classes of PCs don't get to have fun that night...
This is genuinely really cool. :)
Thanks Josiah.
A friend of mine as a joke wrote "My ex, an adult song dragon, has been hunting me for 6 years" in his backstory and the dm killed him with the dragon later. We had to revive him and make the dragon think he stayed dead. Had to fake a funeral for him and a bunch of other crap lol
I really kinda like the idea of making it a villain/ rival for the party. Where it screws with them in human form and eventually they get strong enough and take it down as a mid tier boss for a section of the campaign.
Contaveral opinion: i didn’t know about the lingering anti magic breath but When I hear the detailed lore about what song/were dragons are, I find them currently a redundant race filling the the next door neighbors was a secret dragon role when past editions lore had declared all other dragon were monolithic reclusive hermits. Given that gem dragon can change as a bonus action and fizbans gives permission for chromatics to cast spell, and have a section about possible mortal relations shapeshifted or not, I don’t think song have any unique standing without a major rework. Make any metallic or gem dragon a humanfiel that likes music, polymophs as a legendary or bonus action, and you have your song dragon equivalent for your campaign.
I personally find song dragons more intriguing as a lifestyle any dragon can take then it being one specific subspecies’s main gimmick.
I do get your point but I guess the flavor is still different enough, the fact the human form is also a true form is one example of that.
@@Rattus138 Deffently needs more meat on the bones, mabey one or two more unique actions to set them apart from the basic dragon template.
Defiantly needs some weird quicks like about how they handle hoards in my mind to set them apart. Some kind of plot hook that only can be done with a Song and not another polymorphed dragon with overlapping interests wearing a ring of mind shielding with Nystul’s Magic Aura cast on it.
What kind of person a Song Dragon is when compared to a disguised to a trickster Copper, a militant Bronze, a quiet observer that is an emerald, or a manipulative and patient family person that a blue.
“Immune to nonmagic”
“Can create anti-magic zones”
Oooh that sounds kind of busted.
If you like song dragons I suggest reading "The Year of Rouge Dragons" D&D book series by Richard Lee Byers. They're out of print now, which sucks because my collection is all beat up, but you can still get the ebooks. One of my favorites.
KOBOLD kingdom lead by a song dragon is at war with another kingdom run by a necromancer wanting a draco lich and someone hires the party to deal with this
Just to clarify a mistake made in the first minute and a half, in their older lore, song dragons don't *have* males - they're an all-female race who reproduce by coupling with male dragons and humanoids, usually preferring the latter.
It's not that Truesight is _bad,_ but 15 ft is pretty tiny. And most dragons have Blindsight, which also detects invisible things and sees through illusions, usually.
Truesight is really at its most useful with disguise self type shenanigans, where the party isn't trying to hide from the dragon visually but socially. 15ft is pretty small though
I'm kind of mad that they took out the Steel Dragon
The singing dragons in the book Nightpool were amazing
There is a novel series where, partway through it, some of the characters realize that every dragon they know of or have even heard of is male. Later on, it turns out that krakens are the female of the species. It might be interesting if all Song Dragons are female, and the male of the species has a human male form, and some other mythical creature as its other form.
The Guitar Solo Dragon
I'll be honest, I don't get the hype around Song Dragons, all metallic dragons have the same ability to shift forms, so they're main "gimmick" isn't really that unique
Wheren't all dragon able to "shapeshift" to some extent?
When bards say they want to Frick a dragon, is this what they had in mind?
"Cold, dead heart"? I think you mispronounced "phylactery" there, Josiah.
Same difference
thank you! dragons, one of my favourite topic
When the Bard IS the dragon:
The song dragon and the Falls hydra
Apex predator with additional spells has big shark with a gun energy
Maybe they Considered it a Lycanthrop and not a Dragon...?!? Who knows these days
Daaammnnn antimagic and silence? That's just adding insult to injury for a mage killer effect...
I think they ditched Song Dragons just cause all of the adult and ancient dragons can polymorph themselves. For the narrative bit of “small weak woman is actually powerful monster” you can use any of the other more versatile dragons, or a Song dragon. But the Song dragon’s got one gimmick
Wonder if you could do a song dragon as a player character who can't transform back into a dragon for some reason.
I feel like a dragon or creature that stays in human form most of the time should have some sort of disadvantage in its other form.
For anyone who missed how cheesy these dragon's can be... they breathe anti-magic AND are immune to non-magic damage...
So uh, seems like they could just breathe their anti-magic and be literally invulnerable. Magic weapons and items can't be magical in anti-magic and magic of course can't be cast into it. May even be a dragon type that might actually breathe, then shift into human form with a masterfully crafted mundane longbow or something to just be a REAL douche.
Like the Visage form of dragons in WoW.
You need to do Greater Drakes!!! Please!
Not just left out, decanonised!