Summary
While playingDungeons & Dragons, there’s rarely a bigger moment than when a dragon appears. Whether it’s foreshadowed or not, the actual moment usually has players scrambling for a strategy and the Dungeon Master cackling with glee. Rightly so, a dragon is almost always an impactful and exciting encounter.
When your group has been playing for a long time, though, it can be hard to keep things fresh. Even an Ancient Dragon starts to feel a little stale when you’ve toppled multiple ones across different campaigns. Sure, they’re still deadly, but the excitement of a new encounter isn’t there anymore. To help with that, we’ve put together a list of the strangest dragons in D&D your players won’t see coming.
9Gem Dragon
Psionic Neutrality
You might already have used a Gem Dragon in your game, but for many players and Dungeon Masters, they’re easily forgotten. It’s easy to find a place for avillainous Chromatic Dragonin your game or a noble Metallic Dragon. Theneutral Gem Dragontakes a bit more nuance.
Their neutrality is their greatest asset for a DM, as it makes them flexible. They can be antagonists or allies, depending on the situation. Their psionic abilities and unusual breath weapons make them feel distinct, and their studious nature can make them a great source of knowledge for players.
8Solar Dragon
A Stellar Choice
Solar Dragons are typically a part of a Spelljammer campaign, with your players traversing the stars on magical sailing ships. If you’re not playing in a Spelljammer campaign, though, that’s what makes the Solar Dragon such a perfect creature to drop unexpectedly.
Taking monsters that don’t quite fit in your setting and finding a way to introduce them will naturally result in interesting stories and surprised players. Their Photonic Breath weapon is also sure to catch an adventuring party off guard.
Solar Dragons typically avoid humanoids but are carnivores with tremendous appetites. An especially hungry one might descend on a planet in search of food, throwing an entire nation into chaos.
7Deep Dragon
Underdark, Underused
The Underdark is one of the most exciting regions in many D&D games, an entire subterranean land filled with bizarre creatures and hostile civilizations. Many dragons favor underground lairs, so it isn’t unusual for one to be included in an Underdark adventure.
This can mean the Deep Dragon gets overlooked in favor of a more classic Metallic or Chromatic, but the Deep Dragon is the quintessential Underdark dragon. Warped by magic, fond of manipulation, and it has a fungal nightmare breath - what more could you want?
6Jabberwock
Beware The Jabberwock My Son
The Jabberwock is one of the strangest dragons in Fifth Edition. It chooses a target and hunts them until they or it has died. It speaks in a constant maddening babble, and instead of a breath weapon, it has laser eye beams.
An encounter with a Jabberwock isn’t like any other dragon and is likely to be one your players talk about for a long time afterward. The moment it starts firing those eye beams instead of a breath attack, you’re probably going to have chaos on your hands, which every DM secretly loves.
5Dracohydra
Monster Mash
One of the reasons many Dungeon Masters have never found the Dracohydra in their search for intriguing new types of dragons to use is that it technically isn’t a dragon at all, falling under the Monstrosity category instead. It’s a multi-headed dragon, hatched from a dragon egg, that’s good enough for us.
Created when a dragon egg is warped by magical energies, this dragon can regenerate and grow additional heads as they’re destroyed. Often held captive by the spellcasters who helped create them, a freed Dracohydra could provide your campaign with a more unusual quarry to hunt down than a regular dragon.
4Elder Brain Dragon
Food For Thought
The Elder Brain Dragon is technically an Aberration, but there’s no denying the draconic nature of this beast. If you need a final encounter for your Mind Flayer focused campaign, look no further than this horrifying entity.
When aMind Flayer Elder Braindecides it wants to be more mobile, it has the colony capture a dragon and then latches onto it. The dragon becomes an enslaved host body, subject to the whims of the Elder Brain.
The breath weapon of this dragon is actually a spray of Illithid tadpoles, capable of infesting a living creature and transforming it into a Mind Flayer. It’s probably one of the most horrifying attacks in all of Dungeons & Dragons.
3Ghost Dragon
Haunting The Hoard
When you think of using a dragon but want to give it an undead twist, the first thought is usually the Dracolich. They’re a great monster but don’t overlook the simplicity of the Ghost Dragon. It’s a dragon, it’s dead, it’s still here. Perfect!
A Ghost Dragon usually arises from a dragon so attached to its hoard that it can’t let it go even in death. This is a great way to catch players off guard with a lair that is supposedly empty, or you could have the Ghost Dragon hunt them down if they unwittingly come into possession of something from their hoard.
2Sea Serpent
An Oft Forgotten Classic
Not every campaign takes place on dry land; island-hopping pirate adventures are a beloved staple of D&D. While the mighty Kraken has become the favored sea monster in recent years, don’t forget to show some love to the classic Sea Serpent.
You might expect it to be a Monstrosity, but this leviathan is actually a Dragon creature, complete with a breath weapon attack. Extremely territorial creatures, you don’t even need much of an excuse to introduce one to your game. If your players are on a ship, a Sea Serpent can attack without warning.
1Time Dragon
It’s Always Time For A Time Dragon
A time-traveling dragon is probably the last thing your player’s characters will expect to encounter. And if they are expecting it, the dragon can just go back in time to before they were expecting it; bet they weren’t expecting that.
The Time Dragon is effectively unstoppable. Killing it just causes it to become an egg on a random plane of existence. It then hatches, grows to maturity again, and can time travel right back to the point where you killed it to take revenge. Use this one carefully; time travel can get confusing.
The best way to use a Time Dragon is as a benefactor, not an antagonist. A benevolent dragon sending the party on time-traveling adventures to correct mistakes in the past is a great hook for a campaign and much more interesting than fighting an unbeatable dragon.
