Mage Dragon

Dragons in the Sundered Lands are usually feral, with most located around the Mountains of the Sky, and very long-lived. Some wizards hit upon the idea of transferring their mind into a dragon's body, leaving them long-lived (or even immortal), powerful, and still having access to their magic.
The process involves years of study, requires rare and arcane components, and finally culminates in the wizard setting their willpower against that of the dragon. If they fail, their mind is destroyed and the dragon is unaffected, although often much stronger than before. If they succeed, the dragon's mind is overlaid with that of the wizard, and the wizard's magic creates a 'pearl' of energy hanging in mid-air below their chin, signifying their magical capacity.
Currently twenty-eight mage dragons exist, ruling the nation of Draconia with varying amounts of attention. Each is the rival of any human archmage. They created the dragonkin to serve them, and regularly crush incursions by the hobgoblin armies of Dhargul to their east.