Draconomicon I: Chromatic Dragons
Draconomicon is the first supplement for Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition that Wizards of the Coast is aiming primarily at dungeon masters (except for the setting specific Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide). As such, it gives an indication of the direction they are taking for this new line. And it is aimed at Dungeon Masters; there is almost no material in it for players. Draconomicon contains fluff that might inspire adventures and campaigns; tips on using dragons in your games; pregenerated dragon lairs and new monsters. Only a handful of new rituals are of much interest to players.
Fortunately, Draconomicon goes in directions that I like, and it looks like WotC’s supplements for 4e DMs should be very useful. While Draconomicon never blew my mind, there is a lot of good solid material, and very few real whiffs. I plan to use adventure ideas and other bits directly from the book, and I have some other plans that are twists or tangents on material in it as well. It’s also made me more interested in D&D dragons than I’ve been in ages. This is precisely what I, as a DM, want from a supplement.
The physical presentation is virtually identical to that of the core rulebooks, down to the spot-lacquer to highlight the Dungeons & Dragons logo and the “spotlight” character on the cover. I’m not a real fan of post-Elmore, post-M:tG fantasy artwork, but the art in Draconomicon is mostly quite decent as that style goes. Also, where many people complain about the font-size and white space in the 4e layout, I welcome it. It makes the 4e books easier to read, and easier to use during play. The use of color in stat blocks and the gradient background for sidebars are wrongheaded borrowings from modern web design, but overall I consider this a step forward for RPG book design.
The text is divided into four rather long chapters, with a rather thorough Table of Contents. Once again there is no index other than a list by level of new monster stat blocks. Except for the failed promise of Skill Challenges, this has been the most frustrating aspect of the 4th edition product line. No matter how good it is, the most extensive Table of Contents cannot do the job of a proper index, no matter how cursory it is.
Chapter One, Dragon Lore, is the main fluff chapter. It covers the draconic origins, physiology, psychology and social and religious behavior, plus a couple of pages on the lifestyle of each species of chromatic dragon. The origins section provides a brief but interesting creation myth that dates back to the gods-primordials war. It also foreshadows two more categories of dragons, beyond the traditional chromatics and metallics. No doubt, Draconomicon III and IV will cover catastrophic (Earthquake, Tsunami and Inferno?) dragons and scourge dragons. There are a couple of ideas to be mined from this section, and the ideas themselves are pleasantly colorful.
The physiology section, on the other hand, was a complete waste of space and, to me, the worst section of the book. The whys and wherefores of how breath weapons and wing musculature work are mildly interesting, but they won’t impact my game. I have a bookshelf full of entertaining reading already, though, and I want useful material in my RPG books. The one worthwhile nugget here – that it is almost impossible to harvest super-hard dragon hides and bones – could have been added in a couple quick sentences in the later section on dragon organs as ritual materials.
The religion section is also rather disappointing. Dragons are described as not being very religious, so I can only imagine that worship of gods other than Tiamat is extraordinarily rare. Yet each god is given the same paragraph or two as Tiamat herself. There are also five dragon “Exarchs” –near-angelic servants of gods – that could have waited for Deities & Demigods. Worse, none of them serve Tiamat.
Luckily, most of the rest of the chapter is worthwhile. Some of the data about the Life Cycles of each species could have been presented more succinctly and usefully in a simple table, but at least it is useful color. The Psychology and Society sections are very good, presenting dragons as alien but comprehensible (and therefore playable) creatures. While the descriptions of each color of dragon present rather one-dimensional portraits, it’s still useful material.
The DM’s Guide is almost pure gold, and the best chapter of the book. It is chock full of concrete suggestions on how to use chromatic dragons in your campaigns, from twists on the standard combat encounter – solid, if not revolutionary – to entire campaign themes –probably the weakest and most banal part of the chapter. It would be nice to see more than two draconic skill challenges, but new traps are always welcome, and the adventure ideas are useful when you can’t pull together your own work of genius. The best of a solid, if unexceptional, group of artifacts is the Blue Orb of Dragonkind, while the rituals focus on defending a home base, and getting around when you are larger than most whales. Again, more singles and doubles than home runs, but very useful.
The best part of this chapter, though, is the section on treasure hoards. Although there is a minor expansion on the treasure guidelines in the DMG, the sections on developing individual objets d’art, including inspirational charts, will be useful to most DMs even when they are not building hoards. The sample hoards are more numerous than necessary – there’s one for each level of party – but there are many evocative items of treasure in them. Bronzed Halfling, anyone? I feel the writers included some of their A+ material here. Many DMs will also rejoice at the sight of price lists for a range of trade goods.
The Lairs chapter is quite solid, although there is only one piece that I would consider noteworthy. Each of the lairs is presented like a mini-module (can I still call them modules?) in a format similar to what the forthcoming Dungeon Delve book is likely to use. First there are a couple introductory paragraphs that often include interesting hooks or history that may be of use beyond the lair itself. Each area of the lair is then given a short blurb, with a few encounters that amount to a list of monsters. In addition, two combat encounters get the full two-page spread treatment familiar from Dragon and the WotC published adventures. These lairs are suitable for an evening’s pickup game, or even as a short side quest in your campaign. I would have preferred it if they had mixed up the format a little, though. For example, instead of three lairs for each tier, they could have trimmed it to two; one in the current format, and one that is double this size.
Several of the encounters include, alongside level appropriate foes, monsters that are too low a level to pose a serious threat for a party of the indicated level according to the guidelines in the DMG. This also happens in some of the sample encounters in the monster write-ups later in the book. Balancing this are several examples of unique dragons that range from straightforward level-ups of core dragons to full rewrites. Even if you don’t use them yourself, they offer a vision of what can be done when customizing monsters as well as alternate powers. The final part of the book also documents alternative powers you can use to customize your chromatic dragons.
The lair that really made me go “oooo” is the Abyssal Lair. There, a dragon that has been warped by its time in the Chaos makes it home in a river of blood, on floating fleshy islands that are being attacked by demons searching for the fallen consort of their liege. Not your typical mini-adventure.
At the other extreme, the volcanic island lair of an ancient red dragon fails to live up to its promise. The dragon has a few azers working on a doomsday device for him, but there’s not enough to the lair to make it live.
There are a lot of new monsters presented in Draconomicon, ranging from three new types of chromatic dragon to parasites that infest the hoards and bodies of dragons. Which ones are hits and which misses will largely be a matter of taste, but I am rather fond of several new varieties of dracolich. The stoneborn, which is made from a fossilized dragon skeleton, is an especially fresh concept. The hobbler kobolds, who use their skill with traps as an active tool in combat, and the wide variety of dragonborn are other highlights. Less inspiring are the low level elite wyrmlings – do you really want to kill draco-Bambi? – and the seemingly endless types of draconic undead. Three varieties of vampiric dragon and three more of skeletal dragons feel like overkill. There are also a surprising number of dragon-like beings that spurt various forms of noxious substance when wounded or destroyed, or as an aura.
Several of the monster names (again, the undead dragons are the main offenders) are rather lame, as well. They feel like they were generated from a random table of naming elements. The rotclaw, the soulgrinder, the deathless hunger and the rancid tide sound like super villains from early 90s Image comics.
After the generic monsters, the Dragon Hall of Fame features stat blocks and histories for eight infamous wyrms. While Rime is a bit limp, the rest are really wonderful resources, full of inspiring bits and juicy new tidbits of background, although I’m not as fond of how the usual informational skill checks are used to dump back story on the players. Tiamat herself is included – coming in at a heavyweight level 35 solo brute – as is Dragotha, the ur-dracolich, who is presented here as a former lover of Tiamat and dupe of Kyuss.
Draconomicon was well worth my money. Almost every section includes material that I found inspiring and, more importantly, it isn’t just a sea of crunch. I would heartily recommend it to fans of D&D dragons, as well as any D&D4 DM. If you only run PCs, though, and you don’t have any special fondness for dragons, you can safely give this a pass, since there is almost nothing that isn’t strictly for DM use.
I hope all of the Fourth Edition DM supplements are this useful and inspiring.
January 5th, 2009 at 06:08
While I don’t play 4e, if the reviews on this site are this detailed and well written in the future, they will be very useful. Bravo!
January 6th, 2009 at 13:12
Great review Gerald! The book is on my birthday list and I’m looking forward to getting it.
Great website guys! I wish it success and a lot of traffic!
January 7th, 2009 at 03:00
Thanks for the kind words, guys. I hope you keep finding my reviews as informative going forward.