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Brown Dragon, from the WotC Monsters of Faerun Art Gallery... click on the image for the link.
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At a Glance
Brown dragons are visibly distinct from many other dragons, not just because of their coloration but because they lack useful wings. They are closer to “serpents with legs” and in fact are not classified as chromatic dragons. Their legs are relatively short, like a behir’s. Their mouths are long and triangular, with small nostrils and a whiplike tongue.
They have their own dialect of draconic, and those who frequent human lands also understand one or more local languages including Mulhorandi, Durpari, and Shaaran.
These dragons inhabit the foothills of the Dragonsword Mountains and the Giants’ Belt, and they have recently spread to the Unthangol and Toadsquat Mountains. When they venture into the Eastern Shaar they are frequently attacked by the denizens of Veldorn, so they retaliate by laying ambushes along the trade road between Beland and Turelve; they maul anything that attacks the caravans, but let the merchants go unmolested (seeing them as raider-bait).
Like other “natural” predators in the Old Empires but unlike other dragons, brown dragons do not attack the followers of the Mulhorandi God-Kings within Mulhorand’s borders. Foolish humans venturing into the Dragonsword, or into the Raurin, are fair game. The spawn of Tiamat (meaning any chromatic dragon or dragonblood) will happily devour an unwary adventurer, but the brown dragons who occasionally wander into the eastern villages will stare hungrily, sniff with great interest, …and walk away. Most folks don’t take chances, locking their children indoors whenever a dragon walks the streets, but some villages like Tir are actively protected by brown dragons. Rangers and druids are mystified by this behavior. If there was some ancient pact between the brown dragons and the God-Kings, the sages don’t know anything about it… though there are of course the poetic guesses of bards, presuming a dalliance between Bast or Nephthys and a long-ago patriarch among the brown dragons.
Brown dragons reside in warm deserts. When hunting, they are playful rather than vicious. They seem to enjoy stalking and pouncing, and sometimes move and behave more like cats than snakes; some adventurous humanoids call them slithercats.
Brown Dragons of the Realms
Altagos, Slavin’krath’magaal, Vulpomyscan
The Xaeyruudh Campaign
In the Xaeyruudh campaign, the dragons’ lack of aggression toward natives of Mulhorand has everything to do with Re. This is a note-to-self: write the thing about Re.
Sources
- Monsters of Faerûn page 38
- Old Empires [FR10/9274] pages 8, 9, 31, 41, 87, 89, 90, 95
- WotC Monster Index
- 4e is going a different direction with brown dragons. I’m staying with the 2e description. In particular, 2e distinguishes browns from chromatic dragons. I think wings are a problem for dragons dwelling primarily beneath the sands. However, the wings shown in the wizards.com and FR wiki pictures are probably less problematic than traditional dragon wings so if they were winged those would be the wings to choose.
- Forgotten Realms Wiki is beholden to the 4e design changes.
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