Basalt Dragons

I watch the snow fall - the evidence of your passing and going: the sign of life, of motion. I feel it as it succumbs to my depths: as the drifts form, their silent sinking coming to rest on my ocean floor. I watch it from my perch; from my hiding place. I am the salt.

I see your ships, your harbors. I see the rock jetties where the sand grows; I see the new harbors, their breakwaters, brick: lifted by your hands - a contrast, as I float above the clouds, stark and angular, un-living: unlike the rolling shores, the barriers, the coral seas. I am the rock.

Wooden ships - they cannot reach me.

Sorcerers and seekers - they look in the wrong places. The shallow places.

I am the deeps - I am the life's bed - where creation was born and where creation has ended. It is my watch to have the world turn, but to turn with it, to move as the world moves, to breathe only as it breathes. As is creation, so am I. Where the surface rises and falls, where the surface ebbs and flows, where even the mountains wash outward - outward to me - here, I will be: as I was.

As is creation, so I will be.

With Scales of Stone and Salt

Basalt Dragons emerge from the deeps - shadows at first, growing rapidly as the sunlight penetrates the haze of fathoms and fathoms of water - until the creature either veers, revealing its length, or explodes from the waves in a storm of spray. Their scales are smooth to the touch - dark gray to gray-blue in color - while hard and cold as stone. When swimming, the move like an iguana - side to side, their wings and appendages held close to maintain their streamlining - on land, or in the air, they take on a regal bearing, standing tall and presenting a wide front to project their dominance.

Basalt Dragons are found in the deep ocean. Rarely - very rarely - they might be found in shallow seas: anywhere with sufficient depth to slake their thirst for peace under the waves and anywhere with sufficient salinity to speak to their connection to the primordial ocean.

Encountering Basalt Dragons

Basalt Dragon
Armor Class:	-4	No. Appearing:	1
Hit Dice:	12	Save As:	Fighter 11
Move:	Std: 90' (30') Swim: 135' (45') Fly: 180' (60')	Morale:	11
Attacks:	Claw / Claw / Bite	Treasure Type:	~ (H)
Damage:	2d6 / 2d6 / 6d8	Alignment:	Law
Frequency:	Very Rare	Chance In Lair:	5%*

• Chance of Talking: 40% • Chance of Being Asleep: 10% • Spells by Level (1/2/3): 3/3/3

Basalt Dragons are huge - and they know it. They are proud and courageous - a bravery bought by confidence. Their voices - if they speak - are low and resonating, shaking the core of the listener: but they speak little, themselves convinced that they are above the lesser, younger creatures making up the sentient (and thus player) races.

Basalt Dragons are not territorial - tolerating other dragons and other creatures within their range: some - pairs or bonded covens - will have extended conversations with one another, extending for months in draconic discussion. Many consider themselves natural philosophers - their perspectives colored by their lives spent below the waves, often beyond the reach of sunlight.

In the ocean, Basalt Dragons are never surprised - however surprise explorers as normal. While the common tactic of the Basalt Dragon when engaging an unwanted visitor is to hide beneath, swimming in vertical ascent towards a target in ambush, the dice chance represents either the dragon's confidence - I don't need to surprise these creatures, they are no match for me - or its curiosity, in the case of a favorable reaction.

Basalt Dragons are able to breathe with equal facility in salt water and in the air.

Regarding No. Appearing, if the dragon is not asleep and encountered in lair, there is a 1-in-4 chance of a group of the dragons congregating together to contemplate the depths. If such an encounter occurs, the dragons will surprise normally - their minds preoccupied - however they will number between 2 and 6, with preference to fewer. This can be accomplished by rolling 3d3 and summing the result of the lower two in order to determine the number of Basalt Dragons present.

Breath Weapon

• Template: Line
• Range*: 120' x 10'
  

The breath attack of a Basalt Dragon is a stream of elemental deep: a spiraling mass, almost like a helix of several continuous bubbles rotating around a frighteningly cold core of heavy water. Underwater, the breath weapon functions normally: however, if the breath effect leaves the water, its remaining range is halved: that is, a Basalt Dragon, submerged 20 feet beneath the waves, when breathing towards a row of harpooners perched across the bow of a vessel would extend the breath weapon a total of 70' from its point of origin: 20' normally from the submerged dragon to the surface and then 50' further above the water, those 50' counting as 100' above the waves.

The damage from a breath attack of a Basalt Dragon is half elemental ice and half bludgeoning. Creatures which resist ice suffer half damage only on a failed save and no damage at all on a successful save; creatures which are immune to ice may re-roll if they fail their save against it on the first attempt.

A target of Ogre size or smaller struck by the breath attack of a Basalt Dragon that does not succeed its Save vs Breath is buffeted backwards, along the path of the stream, a number of feet equal to the damage suffered.

Lair and Treasure

Basalt Dragons lair in the bedrock of the sea - deep into the far reaches of the oceanic twilight zone. They will collect treasure and goods taken from ships of the surface-dwellers, from the coffers of the under-sea peoples, or from sacrifices made by primitives from both. They are partial to organic gemstones - pearls, aragonite, etc. - and metals that do not corrode with the salt.

Resistances and Immunities

Basalt Dragons are immune to Cold and Ice and resist Fire or effects targeting breathing - such as a poison cloud: taking half damage or half effect therefrom.

Basalt Dragons are vulnerable to Lightning, taking double-damage therefrom.

In subduing a Basalt Dragon, they are half as likely as normal to be subdued, in terms of percentiles.

Spoiler Alert!

The Deeper Lore section contains some notes to help a GM (me) to run Basalt Dragons in a way consistent with the archetype they are supposed to fill and some of the inspirations behind their creation. If you play in (or want to play in!) a game GM'ed by me, beyond this point will ruin some of the mystery for you for both Basalt Dragons and for most of the sentient races: having some impact in the game world that isn't immediately available outside of player character discoveries.

Deeper Lore

Basalt Dragons are sustained by rhythm - the tranquil predictability of the thermohaline conveyor, the frigid stillness of the waters beneath the currents and of the sleeping bedrock. The undersea is vast in three-dimensional space - as such, the Basalt Dragon requires fewer hexes of space than might be implied. This is likewise influenced by how active the space is - in cool climates, or deep into the far cracks of the midnight zone, where currents are weaker and the world stands still, the Basalt Dragon's needs are satisfied more readily than in shallower, warmer, or populated waters. Basalt Dragons will sleep naturally for 2 to 8 weeks at a time, waking to survey their world around them for a few days: often times staying in the deeps, far away from Human activities; though they will be woken if their tranquility is broken, either by natural activity (like an earthquake or perhaps powerful storm in a shallower region) or by an increase in the activity of the sentient races, sufficient to disrupt the rhythms of the dragon's territory - thus "starving" them - as normal for a creature sustained by esoteric means.

The inspiration for the Basalt Dragon is Lotan, or Leviathan - great monsters in the deep places of the world, associated with creation itself: Lotan being of the sea before the creation - recall, Lotan, or Tiamat the Chaos Serpent: "chaos" to the ancients was in reference to the state of being before the imposition of order, of civilization, and of law at the hands of the Gods - the Basalt Dragon is representative of a state beyond the reach of civilization, beyond the scale and scope of man. They are a vestige of nature - a note to remind mankind that the sea is always larger, always foreign, and always the master in its own domain.

Basalt Dragons are birthed from the bedrock - rather than reproducing in a traditional sense. When a place has been quiet long enough that the quiet has become part of its essence - then might one of these terrifying creatures be formed. The hatching is typically sudden and monumental - an earthquake beneath the waves, believed to be the cause of tsunami style floods along low coasts in the target range. It seems that the noise, the commotion of this process would be out of tune with the nature of the beast - and likewise, it would seem a cause to wake any nearby Basalt Dragons within hearing distance. Scholars say - however - that this may be an attribute of the social nature of these dragons: an adaptation that allow the creatures to commune with one another, passing their culture and their perspective through to generations - an alien form of parenting where the parents did not bear their children.

Public domain artwork retrieved from OldBookIllustrations.com, Wikimedia Commons, and the National Gallery of Art and adapted for use. Attributions in at text.