Gold dragon

Gold dragons were the most powerful of the metallic dragons, and the most dedicated to defeating evil. They spent the bulk of their lives in human form, seeking out evil and punishing wrongdoers to the best of their considerable abilities. Their typical mode of operation ran roughly along the lines of a sting operation: the dragon would listen for stories of dangerous or evil creatures or people, then revealed its true form and meted out punishment. They preferred to turn villains over to law enforcement if available, but would ultimately take whatever actions they deemed necessary in order to see justice served. They were best summarized as the paladins of the draconic world.

Description
Physically, gold dragons were quite spectacular. Several large horns tipped with umber shot sideways from their cheeks, and two very prominent horns pointed backwards along their heads. The most obvious feature was probably the tentacle whiskers that sprouted from the top and bottom of the gold dragon's jaw, giving the appearance of a beard of sorts. Their wings, like those of brass and copper dragons, connected to the body all the way to the tip of the tail. From below, the overall shape resembled that of a brass dragon, but the different coloring and dramatic difference in size enabled easy differentiation. When in flight, the gold dragon's wings rippled, giving the appearance of swimming rather than flying. They smelled of saffron and incense.

True to their name, gold dragons were a brilliant, shimmering gold color. Their head was crested with a ring of majestic horns. Their muzzles would often sprout growths that gave the appearance of a mustache or beard. A gold dragon was rarely encountered in its natural form. Older gold dragons possessed the ability to change their shape into that of an animal or humanoid creature.

Personality
Gold dragons were the nobility and royalty of the metallic dragonkind. From hatching, they were instilled with a sense of order tempered with a benevolent nature. Some gold dragons, however, saw the need to impose order on others from the good of all. This sense of doing things “for the greater good” could lead a gold dragon to become a tyrant. This was a rare instance, however.

Gold dragons could often be seen talking and teaching their acquired wisdom to humans, elves, aasimar and other non-hostile races. When forced to fight, gold dragons preferred to converse with intelligent creatures, using their intimidation and insight to gain the upper hand. Their attitude towards visibly evil characters was not as forgiving though, as they tried to eradicate any evil aspects in their territories.

Combat
Gold dragons preferred to talk rather than to fight. They would never engage in combat if they believed it was unnecessary. Once they believed it was necessary, however, they were amazingly powerful opponents. Their ability to breathe fire rivaled that of the eldest red dragons, and they would pour their entire being into a battle against evil. Gold dragons disliked killing, but they did not hesitate to do so if it was necessary in order to defeat an evil foe.

Breath weapon
Gold dragons were powerful combatants, and they had two separate breath weapons. The first was fire. The second was a blast of weakening gas in which the dragon held the fire in its body and, instead of exhaling it, exhaled air over the fire which emitted a cone of hot, dry, dehydrating air that weakened foes.

Society
Unlike many species of dragons, gold dragons had a very firm and hierarchical social structure, encompassing all members of the species. This structure always had one gold dragon as its leader, who served until he/she either died or stepped down. At that time, all gold dragons congregated and chose the next leader of their kind. Sometimes two dragons could be chosen; in such cases, the two would share the duties of leadership. The position of leader, which bore the honorific Your Resplendence, did not so much involve the maintenance of order &mdash; gold dragons were famous for their good behavior &mdash; so much as the dispensing of advice and wisdom to any dragons who asked for it. Gold dragons were voracious learners, and they tended to become very wise and worldly as they aged. They freely shared their knowledge and experience to anyone who asked, dragon or not. In fact, it was not unknown for a gold Great Wyrm to take the form of a scholarly professor in order to spread its knowledge at some human center of higher education.

Gold dragons could sometimes be seen taking human form to experience living in human society, and aiding travelers. They were not, however, oblivious to chaotic and evil plots and would do to their best to thwart said plots whilst remaining within lawful grounds.

Lair
Unlike most other species of dragons, gold dragons devoted immense time and energy to the construction of their lairs. The layout of their lairs often resembled those of elegant human mansions, albeit buried underground. Rooms were well-constructed and elegantly decorated with the many art treasures the gold dragon had collected over its lifetime. Typical rooms in a gold dragon's lair included a main hall, a banquet hall, a resting chamber, a study, a kitchen, a lobby, a storage room, and perhaps even a lavatory. Many gold dragons even had a glass-walled observatory, especially if they lived underwater.

Gold dragons were known to reside in the Serpent Hills, the Earthfast Mountains, the Vast, the Graypeak Mountains, Loudwater, the Orsraun Mountains and Turmish.

Parenting and Development
Gold dragon eggs must be incubated in a nest of open flames. A newly hatched gold wyrmling appeared similar to an adult, except that it lacked horns or tentacle whiskers. At some point, however, the biological parents could send the wyrmling to live with foster parents; this allowed the parents to undertake their own quests, as well as exposing the wyrmling to new experiences.

Wyrmling, very young, young, juvenile, and young adult gold dragons tended to be solitary or lived in a clutch of 2-5 dragons; adults, mature adults, older dragons, wyrms or great wyrms would live solitarily, in a pair, or a family consisting of a couple of adults and several offspring.

Language
Gold dragons were the only species of dragon to have their own language. They could only write this language when in human form as their dragon form claws were not practical.

These dragons even kept records of historical events. The content of these records was mostly useless to human historians however, as they described dragon events like dragon births, trials and deaths, rather than events that affected the non-dragon world.

Notable gold dragons

 * Aerosclughpalar
 * Lareth
 * Oroyalis
 * Palarandusk
 * Protanther
 * Tamarand
 * Valamaradace