The white dragon is a traditional monster in both fantasy fiction and role-playing games.
White dragons are usually the smallest and least intelligent flavor of dragons. They only have a rudimentary intelligence, and very few of the younger ones can speak any languages or cast any spells. They live only for the moment, eating and taking whatever they can.
White dragons are hatched from eggs and they come out shiny and reflective. They have the ability to breathe a dangerous cone of frost from birth. This ability becomes more and more powerful as the dragon ages. Some older dragons gain the ability to summon winter weather, ranging from light snow to raging blizzards. But that power is far from universal.
White dragons almost always make their homes in very cold areas that have a layer of permafrost. They avoid the actual poles though, as dragons require a lot of meat to eat. These dragons have a hard time functioning if the temperature is above freezing, their natural instinct in an above freezing environment is to hybernate until winter comes again.
These dragons almost completely ignore their young. They incubate the eggs and feed them for about a year or so. After that they just let them fend for themselves. So white dragons are almost universally self taught, as the parents are too selfish and lazy to do any instruction on their own.
If at all possible white dragons will make their lairs in caves of ice with sleeping chambers that are deep enough to not receive any sunlight at all. These chambers will often have large numbers of gems, and the frozen carcasses of many many creatures. White dragons will only eat frozen meat, but their environment and powers make frozen meat fairly easy to come by.
My monster nodes are usually based upon material in the various AD&D rulebooks. But they are my own work, as I often expand
the information. In some cases I will blatantly disagree with the source material. None of these nodes are cut and paste. You
are free to use my descriptions in any material of your own (even commercial material), as long as I am credited as the
source.