Draco
The draco is typically a four-legged winged reptile that breathes fire, ice, lightning, poison, or any kind of harmful breath weapon. Its tail is long, muscular, and prehensile. Horns adorn the head and body of many dracos, and some have crests upon their heads. The draco’s sharp teeth and claws can rend a man asunder. Draco wings are leathery and batlike, but dracos with furry or feathery wings are not uncommon. Although most dracos sighted in recent times are quadrupedal, bipedal variants are not unheard of. Dracos can be divided into several subspecies, typically aligned with a particular element.
Origins
When the world was young, two reptiles, a giant snake and a giant lizard, were struck by a surge of energy from an elemental instability in the universe. Immediately, they were turned into dragons. Both developed diverse elemental powers. When they met for the first time, they fought a fight that lasted four hundred and forty-four years. They travelled the world as they fought, knocking scales loose from one another. They tore at each other until there was none left but two skeletons that eventually crumbled into bone dust. Every scale that fell upon the earth from the battle of the ancestors became the first dracos. Though not all were as hostile as their ancestors, these dracos were fiercely territorial, but they soon discovered that pairing up could be both pleasant and tactical. Meanwhile, the bone dust of the ancestors spread throughout the universe, enduring through space and time. Dracos created from spontaneous genesis come from friction between the bone dust and the elemental forces that surge now and again through the universe.
Habitat
Dracos typically lair in caves or subterranean caverns. Many have made abandoned ruins, castles and fortresses their homes .
Behavior and Culture
Dracos tend to be solitary creatures, but they may ally with or rule over the armies of goblins or other creatures to expand their reach and influence . Some dracos assume the guises of humanoids and live amongst them to experience a different life. Some assume great influence amongst humanoids while in this guise, but their true form remains a mystery to all but themselves.
Powers
Dracos have breath weapons. Some of them are spell casters.
Roles
The draco is the archetypical European dragon, with the exception that these dragons are not exclusively evil. The GM may use them as the keepers of a treasure hoard that the player characters want to claim for themselves, or a threat to a nation state, or as a benevolent mentor who helps the player characters on occasion.
