Red dragon

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Legacy canon content This article contains information of uncertain canon status due to changes made in Monster Core. Chromatic dragons will not appear in Remastered works. Additional context might be available at Meta:Red dragon.

Red dragon

(Creature)

2E1E

Common

CE

Dragon

Fire

Level

Varies by age

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Images of red dragons

Source: Bestiary, pg(s). 111–113

Type

Dragon
(fire)

CR

6–22 (by age category)

Environment

Warm mountains

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Images of red dragons

Source: Bestiary, pg(s). 98–99

Ⅰ

Ⅱ

Red dragons are the largest and strongest type of chromatic dragons, and few creatures can match its arrogance, avarice, and cruelty.

Appearance

Detail of a red dragon's head.

Red dragons are very nearly the largest species of dragon, rivaling and occasionally exceeding the gargantuan size of the gold dragon. About a half-dozen red dragons, all members of a single pure-blood clan, have grown beyond even the mightiest of gold dragons in size and strength. A red dragon hatchling uncoils from their egg already the size of a horse.

A red dragon's long body is covered in thick scales the color of molten rock, and large horns top their head. A smaller horn sprouts just behind the tips of their blunt muzzle. Certain scales grow in sharp ridges sweeping back along their face, and grow ever larger down their back and along the crests of their powerful wings, giving them an unmistakable spiky appearance.

Abilities

A red dragon on ground.

All red dragons can breathe fire, and as they age they gain increasing control over flames. The heat radiating from an adult red dragon's body can harm anyone foolish enough to stand too close, and their vision is not impeded by smoke. Their intense internal fires allow them to digest almost any non-poisonous matter. Older red dragons can melt stone or instantly turn creatures to ash with their fiery breath. A red dragon's powerful tail can crush a stone wall, and their jaws are strong enough to snap iron bars.

When roused to physical combat, a red dragon uses virtually their entire body as a weapon, biting, clawing, lashing with their powerful tail, and buffeting enemies with their monstrous wings while flying. As they age, their scales grow increasingly resistant to physical injury even as their entire physiognomy becomes less susceptible to all but the most powerful magical effects.

Red dragons begin learning the intricacies of arcane spellcasting at an early age, and possess innate abilities that mimic wizardry. Very young dragons can sense the presence and characteristics of magical auras, while adults can influence the actions of other creatures with simple speech. An old red dragon's domain over fire is even capable of taking control of an enemy spellcaster's fire to use it against them.

Ecology

Whenever possible, a red dragon lairs within an active volcano. They are omnivorous, as their internal fires allow them to digest almost any type of animal, plant, or mineral that they consume. Younger red dragons tend to have the greatest impact on their environments, as red dragons are at their most active in their youths and spend more of their time hunting, killing, and patrolling their territory. As a red dragon ages, they spend more time hibernating in their lair and journey increasingly far from it in search of human settlements to terrorize, minimizing the damage dealt to their immediate surroundings.

Society and culture

Red dragons are usually solitary creatures, and gather only under unusual circumstances.

Red dragons consider themselves to be the pinnacle of dragonkind and perceive almost all other creatures as their inferiors. They do not tolerate other creatures' attempts to slay dragons, especially other red dragons. While they do not respond every time a dragon is slain, their reprisals against the slayers or their hometowns are always violent. This is not typically due to a desire to avenge the fallen dragon, since red dragons generally scorn their kin who were weak enough to fall to humanoids, but out of a sense of wounded draconic pride and to ensure that the dragonslayers who were lucky once will not be so again. They will often attack known dragonslayers passing through their territory.

Red dragons' contempt for weaker beings extends to other dragons, and they especially despise metallic dragons. More so than with any other dragon type, red dragons have a very complicated relationship with gold dragons, the only dragons to often attain equal or greater powers than red dragons. Red dragons both hate and admire their gold cousins, and attempt to treat respectfully even with gold dragons younger or weaker than themselves. Few other creatures, including other dragons, fully understand the significance of this love-hate relationship.

Red dragons often keep humanoid slaves, most often human and elven maidens, which they treat as beautiful and delicate, but replaceable, additions to their hoards. They typically eat these slaves when they become old or injured. Other slaves work to expand and maintain the red dragon's lair, though they never enslave dwarves in this manner because red dragons despise them and attack them on sight. Red dragons do not interact with humanoids other than elves, humans, and dwarves, which they treat as beneath notice. They sometimes form alliances with ifrits, although these pacts rarely endure for more than a few years.

Red dragon names often incorporate the Draconic words dara and thys, which mean "terrible" and "great", and are often very long and difficult to pronounce. Red dragons often add syllables to their names as they age, causing their names to become extremely long, but very old individuals sometimes shorten their names again to make them easily remembered among those they terrorize.

History

Red dragons came into being thousands of millennia ago when the first metallic dragons were hunted and slain by Dahak. When Apsu retaliated against his son and Dahak called on Tiamat for aid, the latter promised to heal the metallics injured by her son if they would rise up against Apsu and aid Dahak. Most of the dying dragons refused, but some accepted Tiamat's offer and became the first chromatic dragons. The first to accept was a dying gold dragon, who upon being healed became the first red dragon and named himself Nerothroc.

Over history, Nerothroc's bloodline has occasionally produced red dragons of such size and power that they eclipse even the greatest gold dragons. Only six such red dragons are known to have lived in recorded history.

On Golarion

Red dragons are powerful and evil enough to raze entire towns.

The Kortos Mounts are home to several young red and blue dragons, which settled there following the death of Maejerex Steeleye and vie with one another for control of the area. Although the leaders of Absalom have considered sending dragon hunters to deal with them, as of 4709 AR they were content with letting the dragons kill one another off.

In the desert kingdom of Qadira, a significant number of red dragons live amongst the northern reaches of the Zho Mountains.

In 2351 AR, the city of Parnthford was completely razed by one or more red dragons in what is believed to be a revenge attack for the slaying of another red dragon.

Notable red dragons

See also: Category:Red dragon/Inhabitants

• Aashaq, great wyrm of Dahak's Teeth in the Shackles with a cult-like following
• Asuulek, an ancient and mostly dormant red dragon who lairs in the volcano known as Asuulek's Mouth in western Osirion
• Daralathyxl, well over 2,000 years old and one of the most powerful dragons in all of Golarion, who resides in the Five Kings Range of northwestern Andoran
• The great wyrm Fhengasma, reputedly a lover of the demon lord Flauros who lives below his castle on his Abyssal realm called the Bloodpyre Fields
• Glarataxus, who has periodically plagued the towns and settlements near the Varisian city of Korvosa since 4569 AR
• The powerful Horranath, who attacked and nearly razed the town of Dalaston in eastern Taldor in 4709 AR
• Naximarra, descendant of Baelgoroth, who seeks to prevent the domination of red dragons by an Orb of Dragonkind
• Sheblis and her mate Tyrkalis, who rule a small domain from the ancient Thassilonian ruin of Raschka-Tor in the Tusk Mountains of the northeastern Hold of Belkzen
• Solus, the Red Typhoon, who lairs in a silver-filigreed castle in Medina Mudii'a
• Tsazgatherax, patron of the Embermaw clan of kobolds
• The ancient red dragon Tharularg, who, according to dwarven legend, was slain atop the highest peak of the World's Edge Mountains sometime in the second millennium of the Age of Enthronement
• Vorathadyn, whose lair became a demiplane infested with immortal but ineffective dwarven laborers after wishing for an impenetrable vault

References

Paizo ceased the use of chromatic dragons with the publication of Monster Core, as part of the Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster Project. When mentioned in Monster Core and subsequent publications, existing chromatic dragons might be retroactively changed to new or equivalent types of non-chromatic dragons.

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.