Glade Dragons

The man cupped his hand over a knee, allowing a boy to take foot.

"One... Two... Hoist!"

With a quick movement, the boy was up and over the narrow split of the birch tree nearing the top of the rise. The man deftly followed, his landing heavy, but muted by the sack sandals both of them had tied over their feet. Before them, a boulder formed an outcropping - strangely bereft of trees, only two or three, spaced apart, behind the thick wall of growing wood.

"Shhhh," he hushed. And they approached - stepping through the orange ruckus that was the glade in Autumn.

"Here," he continued, "grandson, here lies the secret behind the woods - the reason we cut only what we need, and why we pay gratitude to the woodlands where it provides for those needs. But be silent - if not for fear, but for respect."

The boy nodded. They advanced.

The ground slowly gave way as their perspective crept forward, peeking over the edge of the overhang and into a hollow - ringed and matted by a thousand fallen leaves - revealing the great guardian of the wood. Curled into spiral, the serpentine beast heaved slowly with deep breathing, its eyes closed: sentience hidden and spent in the far Elysium of dreams. With scales the shape of spade-heads, its back and folded wings reflected scintillating reds and yellows - mixed and meshed together into a quilt of unknowable pattern.

The boy startled.

"Don't worry, grandson: see how some of the scales show the sign - the tint of brown about the edges. The guardian sleeps with the coming of the winter. In spring, he will wake - breathing life again with his waking and taking flight between the boughs, a new skin upon him to match the new leaves sprouting and the blossoming of the hanging flowers. And in the spring, again, we will offer gratitude to the forest: knowing it - and we - are in symphony."

The boy nodded - looking again over the edge at the somnolent winged ophidian.

"Come away now - we must let him rest; you have seen what was meant to be seen."

A Flight Between the Boughs

Glade Dragons are the untamed wild. Glade Dragons are the grand expanses where the canopy keeps the sun from searing - the life that teems in the gentle shade. Their scales resemble the leaves, interlaced and interlocked, and both their limbs and neck are long, flexible. Their faces are not short, but not long - blocky, as a stump might be - and on occasion irregular. Their eyes lack an iris, only pupil - wide, wide pupil, to the exclusion of the white - but the pupil is shaded a deep, deep green.

Encountering Glad Dragons

Glade Dragon
Armor Class:	3	No. Appearing:	2-5
Hit Dice:	7	Save As:	Fighter 7
Move:	Std: 90' (30') Fly: 240' (80')	Morale:	9
Attacks:	Claw / Claw / Bite	Treasure Type:	~ (H)
Damage:	1-6 / 1-6 / 2-20	Alignment:	Neutral
Frequency:	Rare	Chance In Lair:	20%

• Chance of Talking: 30%
• Chance of Being Asleep: Special
  
• Spells by Level (1/2/3):  2/1/~
  

Whimsical, animalistic creatures, Glade Dragons move among the trees with a lithe grace and flexibility akin  to a weasel or ferret, but with the mass and power of a lion. They are surprisingly quiet, their voices whispering as the rustle of leaves where branches in the canopy overlay one another.

Glade Dragons have a chance 1 greater to surprise, and a chance 1 less to be surprised in turn, when in their preferred biome. Additionally, the appearance of the dragon is slightly different based on the trees in the area it inhabits: in coniferous regions, a Glade Dragon will be a deep green color and have a striated texture to it; whereas in an oak forest, a Glade Dragon will have large, amoebic scales which will change from a light green in the spring and summer to a yellow or orange in the autumn, then brown in the winter. Glade Dragons in deciduous biomes, as such, are also known to molt in the spring time - their scales having lost all color over the winter sleep.

Regarding sleep, the chance that a Glade Dragon is asleep is determined by the time of year and the behavior of the trees where it lives:

	Of Evergreens...	Of the Deciduous...
In the Spring,	20%	20%
In the Summer,	10%	5%
In the Autumn,	20%	30%
In the Winter,	40%	80%

Thus, there is great variety in Glade Dragons - but each becomes the guardian of their own plot and territory.

Breath Weapon

• Template: Line*
• Range: 80' x 5'
  

The breath weapon of a Glade Dragon is a channeling of growth and can only be used when the dragon has at least one foot on the ground or when it is gripping a live tree still rooted in the ground. When used, a writing mass of green vines and sprigs erupt from the dragon's gullet.

The vines can be directed to turn up to 90 degrees, once every 20', up to the maximum range. The vines can be prematurely ended - that is, if the dragon does not want the line to continue to the full 80' range, it can end it, say, at 60' - or 70'; or 32' - however many as it desires. If ended early, the vines will plunge into the earth, or entwine around plants or rocks around them, securing themselves to the end location.

These vines rapidly brown - hardening from herbaceous tendrils to a solid wooden cord. Any character that fails their Save vs Breath when targeted by the breath attack will be entangled, paralyzed, stuck in place until such time as they can be forcibly extracted from the trunk. A character so entangled should likewise thereafter Save vs Death or begin to suffocate, their chest being compacted by the growth.

When the breath ends, the dragon must move within the next round, leaving behind a trunk for the newly deposited shrub which roots at the point where the dragon's foot was (or feet were, evenly divide between them as applicable) in contact to be grounded. Note, if a Glade Dragon ends its breath weapon early, it will be rooted in two places: where the dragon was and where the termination took place. If the breathing Glade Dragon does not move, or cannot move, within one round of breathing for their breath to take root, they must - themselves - save or be paralyzed: though a Glade Dragon cannot cause itself to suffocate.

Lair and Treasure

Glade Dragons make their lairs in the forest, taking on the character of the forest around them. In the boreal taiga, they will be nestled among the poplars and evergreens; in the sweltering tropics, they will be found amidst the ceiba and strangler figs.

Some lairs are underground - but most take the form of large, living wooden structures: constructed, the sages say, from the very breath of the creature, drawing and adding to the life of the woodland.

Resistances and Immunities

Glade Dragons are immune to Poison and Cold or Ice.

Glade Dragons are vulnerable to Fire: taking double damage therefrom.

Deeper Lore

Spoiler Alert!

The Deeper Lore section contains some notes to help a GM (me) to run the Glade Dragon 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 Glade Dragon and for most of the sentient races: having some impact in the game world that isn't immediately available outside of player character discoveries.

Glade Dragons are sustained by the animus of the forest: the sway of the branches in the breeze and the perpetual fortitude of thick trunks; the the shade cast by the canopy and the persistence of the lichens, grasses, and moss that grows in its shadow. A Glade Dragon will thus require a territory proportional to its size of forestry to sustain it: larger dragons taking up several hexes, smaller ones requiring only a particular copse.

Glade Dragons are attuned to the trees with which they are cohabited. A Glade Dragon which is surrounded by the trees to which it is attuned will require fewer of them to sustain it, but will encourage the thicker and faster growth of those kind of trees in and surrounding their range.

Attunement is not permanent.

While Glade Dragons will begin life attuned to the forest in which they are spawned, a Glade Dragon will - over time - come to attune to new trees if they are forced to relocate or if the forest around them changes dramatically in tone or content. Thus, the same dragon - years down the line - may have a different appearance to it than it did in years past, if encountering the same player or party.

Public domain and open license art retrieved from Pixabay, the National Gallery of Art, and OldBookIllustrations.com and adapted for thematic use. Attributions in alt text.