Black Dragons

Black Dragons

Cruel Scavengers

Black dragons are the sadists and scavengers of the chromatic brood, delighting in decay, fear, and ruin. They favor desolate swamps, drowned ruins, and festering marshlands where fog hangs low and the water stinks of rot. Their scales are a slick, oily black that gleams when wet, and their skull-like heads—long, narrow, with prominent horns and ridges—give them a corpse-like, skeletal appearance. The stench of stagnant water and decomposing vegetation often precedes their arrival, a warning few live long enough to heed.

Of all chromatic dragons, blacks are among the most cruel and spiteful. They live to inspire terror and rule by sheer intimidation, preferring ambush and psychological torment over honorable conflict. Their breath weapon is a torrent of caustic acid that can dissolve armor, stone, and flesh in moments, and they relish using it to deface statues, melt fortifications, and erase signs of civilization. Black dragons commonly lair in half-sunken caverns, collapsed temples, or flooded tunnels, shaping their territory with concealed pits, deep pools, and submerged passages that favor their amphibious hunting style. They hoard coins and relics dredged from drowned cities, but their greatest treasures are often the ruined keeps, corrupted idols, and broken heroes left strewn through the mire—a testament to the slow, spiteful conquest of everything that dared to stand above the bog.