The steel dragon is a traditional monster in both
fantasy fiction and role-playing games.
Steel dragons are one of the smallest species of
dragons. They are extremely intelligent and they spend
almost all of their time polymorphed into human
forms. Most steel dragons live amongst humans full time and
take on roles as wizards and scholars. It is not unusual
for steel dragons to own significant property in human
lands. Nor is it strange for a good percentage of the
local wizard's guild to secretly be
steel dragons.
Steel dragons are hatched from eggs and they come out deep-blue with
only steely highlights, as the dragon ages it takes on the
appearance of burnished steel. They have the ability to
breathe forth a cloud of poison gas strong enough to kill
almost anything. They have great control over the size of
this cloud and its potency and maximum size increases with
age. Steel dragons all have the natural ability to
change forms, and are almost never seen in
their true forms at all. They are almost universally
spellcasters, and as they age most will gain many natural
magical abilities relating to mind control.
Steel dragons love to live with the company of men. They
usually take on personas of various learned men, with
wizards, librarians, and alchemists all being prime
choices. Their long lifetimes and dragon nature assure that
they are fabulously wealthy. They keep their riches in
their homes as they do not keep traditional dragon's
lairs at all. They will almost always have a vault or
strongroom in which they keep their most valued
possessions.
These dragons raise their young in pairs and will often
introduce their young into human society as human
children. It is not all that strange for steel dragons to
travel far and wide in human lands while their children
grow up, as dragon children grow far too slowly for them
to masquerade as human children in one place for too long.
They will fight to protect their own young, and will die in
the process if it comes down to it.
Your average steel dragon lives on as much human food as
possible. But they cannot even begin to ingest enough food
in human form to support their real bulk. Because of this
they have to frequently slip away from the cities to hunt
larger animals.
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.