The brown dragon is a traditional monster in both
fantasy fiction and role-playing games.
Brown dragons are also known as "desert dragons". They
are usually one of the largest type of dragons. They are
highly intelligent, but they do not consider humans to be anything other than food, and they
will not speak with them. This species is not winged and
has no means of flight. These giant man-eaters are
strangely revered by many desert cultures and figure
prominently in the mythology of most desert nomads.
Brown dragons are hatched from eggs and they come out with thin
leathery brown scales. These scales will become lighter
color as the dragon ages, and will finally take on a color
that is nearly white. Brown dragons do not have a
traditional breath weapon, but they are able to be almost
as effective in a sandy environment by breathing in large
amounts of sand and then expelling it in a mighty blast
that can strip the flesh right off most creatures. Some
older dragons gain the ability to control the desert sands
themselves, even to the point of making it come alive in an
elemental form. But those powers are far from
universal.
Brown dragons almost always make their homes in sandy
deserts. They prefer to live near human settlements where
food is easy to come by. They consider the blue dragon to
be their biggest rival. Battles between the two species are
very common and form the basis of many legends in the
surrounding desert cultures.
Many brown dragons do not mate at all. Those that do
tend to very quickly raise large broods and then release
them to live their own lives. The ones that do mate are
fairly decent parents, giving at least instruction and
knowledge to the young dragons. Individual brown
dragons seem to vary in their devotion to their
hatchlings, but it usually doesn't run very deep.
Brown dragons dig their own lairs, usually a quarter
mile or more beneath the desert sands. They never leave any
obvious openings, instead they tunnel to their lair through
sand dunes that will collapse behind them. They have no
real need to breathe, so they can stay buried like this
until they wish to feed. They are capable of eating sand, but prefer to eat meat whenever possible.
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.