Shadow dragon

Shadow dragons were evil true dragons that were either native to the Shadowfell, or transformed by years spent there.

Description
Physically seeming insubstantial, shadow dragons had dark and translucent scales which helped them camouflage into the darkness around them. Shadow dragons were often mistaken for black dragons, but their horns pointed backwards. A long fringe of spines emerged from the back of a dragon's neck and its powerful tail featured a swimming fin. An average shadow dragon was 20 ft - 30 ft (6.1 m - 9.1 m) in length.

A dragon egg could be identified as that of a shadow dragon by the purple tinge seen when held in front of an intense white light, though it shared this trait with deep dragon and amethyst dragon eggs.

Personality
Shadow dragons were crafty and devious, eclipsing even red dragons in their mental capabilities and were on par with gold dragons, the smartest of the metallic dragons.

Abilities
Shadow dragons were physically weak compared to other dragons. For example even at great wyrm stage shadow dragons were, in regards of raw physical strength, below a white dragon, the weakest of the chromatic dragons, at the same stage.

They had the frightful presence like other dragons and a number of abilities that allowed them to be stealthy and also to move fast. Starting with a predisposition towards mundane hiding, sneaking and jumping. They weren't exactly fast flyers but could move unusually fast on feet for dragons.

Senses
Like any other true dragon, shadow dragons had sharp hearing and sight, which was capable of low-light vision and darkvision. They also had blindsense.

Breath
A shadow dragon's breath was a cone of shadows. Creatures caught in it lost parts of their vitality, skills and spells, possibly permanently, all while temporarily empowering the dragon. They could train their breath weapon to turn those they killed with it into spectral creatures who were then permanently enslaved by the shadow dragon.

Magic
As they aged, shadow dragons learned an increasing number of magical abilities to hide from enemies and enhance their movement. They could hide away into shadows, even those in otherwise well-lit areas, and learned over its ages to cast mirror image, dimension door; nondetection and shadow walk.

Once at great wyrm stage, they could fill a large area with darkness. Once this ability was used, a battle was in danger of becoming a one sided matter in favor of the shadow dragon. The darkness was impossible to disperse with light, magical or not. Creatures without ties to the Plane of Shadow were practically blind as long as they remained in the area that encompassed a radius of. Those with ties to the plane were largely unaffected. This ability was usable multiple times.

Like many other true dragons, they developed sorcerer abilities with at least the potential to learn spells usually only open to divine casters as well as from the chaos, evil and trickery domain.

Combat
A shadow dragon would stalk its prey from the shadows, preferring to use its abilities to blend with the darkness and to confuse its enemies. It fought in many of the ways typically done by true dragons &mdash; biting, clawing, bludgeoning with its wings and/or its tail, crushing on an enemy and sweeping with its tail.

A shadow dragon had very strong spell resistances and very hard scales. As it grew, it gained an increasingly stronger resistance against spells and non magical physical attacks. Their scales were hard even among dragons and grew only harder with age. All shadow dragons owned an outright immunity against life sapping effects.

History
Around 1372 DR, a number of shadow dragons joined forces with the Cult of the Dragon and there were a number of known shadow dracoliches associated with the cult.

Homelands
Many shadow dragons inhabited the dark places of Faerûn, such as ruins or abandoned keeps. These dragons from the Plane of Shadow were seen in the Frost Hills and the Thunder Peaks. They could also be found in the Dragon Eyrie.

They were found in the Underdark, particularly in the Middledark and Lowerdark. They preferred depths of at least below the surface where the connections to the Plane of Shadow were stronger.

Relationships
Shadow dragons were a favored monster of the drow god Vhaeraun, serving him and sometimes being sent by him to aid his followers. The same was true for the Chultan demigod Eshowdow.

Shadow dragons were related to three drow offshots. A special form of half-shadow dragon, zekyl, shadow draconic drow, zar'ithra, and the draa'zekyl or drow-dragon.

Sorcerers were sometimes known to form dragonpacts with them. The pact was called Elusive Disciple of Dusk and gave the sorcerer abilities to flee safely.

Notable Shadow Dragons

 * Aurgloroasa "Sibilant Shade"
 * Furlinastis
 * Nurvureem "Dark Lady"
 * Shhuusshuru "Shadow Wing"
 * Haerinvureem "Shimmergloom"
 * Thaxll'ssillyia
 * Umbraxakar
 * Uthgrimnoshaarl

Appearances

 * Novels
 * Streams of Silver • Dawn of Night
 * Video Games
 * Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn • Neverwinter Nights: Tyrants of the Moonsea
 * Board Games
 * The Legend of Drizzt Board Game

Connections
Schattendrachen