Black Dragon
Black dragons collect the wreckage and treasures of fallen peoples. These Dragons understand that the strong should rule, and that nothing lasts forever, least of all nations. They make their homes in fetid swamps and crumbling ruins where kingdoms once stood.
With deep-socketed eyes and broad nasal openings, a black dragon's face resembles a skull. Its curving, segmented horns are bone-colored near the base and darken to dead black at the tips. As a black dragon ages, the flesh around its horns and cheekbones deteriorates as though eaten by acid, leaving thin layers of hide that enhance its skeletal appearance. A black dragon's head is marked by spikes and horns. Its tongue is flat with a forked tip, drooling slime whose acidic scent adds to the dragon's reek of rotting vegetation and foul water.
When it hatches, a black dragon has glossy black scale. As it ages, its scales become thicker and duller, helping it blend in to the marshes and blasted ruins that are its home.
All chromatic dragons tend towards evil, but black dragons stand apart for their sadistic draws. A black dragon often lives to watch its prey beg for mercy, and will sometimes offer the illusion of respite or escape before finishing off its enemies.
A black dragon strikes at its weakest enemies first, ensuring a quick and brutal victory, which bolsters its ego as it terrifies its remaining foes. On the verge of defeat, a black dragon does anything it can to save itself, but it accepts death before allowing any other creature to claim mastery over it.
Black dragons tend to hate and fear other dragons. They spy on draconic rivals from afar, looking for opportunities to slay weaker dragons and avoid stronger ones. If a stronger dragon threatens it, a black dragon abandons its lair and seeks out new territory.
Lizardfolk often venerate and serve black dragons, raiding humanoid settlements for treasure and food to give as tribute and building draconic effigies along the borders of their dragon master's domain.
A black dragon's influence might also cause the spontaneous creation of Shambling Mounds that seek out and slay creatures approaching the dragon's lair.
Kobolds occupy the lairs of many black dragons. They take after their masters, often becoming cruel, torturing and weakening captives with centipede bites and scorpion stings before delivering them to sate the dragon's hunger.
Black dragons hoard the treasures and magic items of crumbled empires and conquered kingdoms to remind themselves of their greatness. The more civilizations a dragon outlasts, the more entitled it feels to claim the wealth of current civilizations for itself.
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