This week we look at a specific monster I designed many years ago for first edition pathfinder, though it could easily be adapted to any other fantasy rpg with a bit of effort. The dragon steed is an equine creature, just far enough from the horses that provided the original stock that they can’t produce offspring if attempting to cross-breed.
As their name implies, dragon steeds have some draconic heritage, though they are still considered animals for the purposes of any spells or abilities where creature type matters. Their draconic link is many generations removed from their current state, but draconic influence is powerful regardless of the distance. They have become their own species, existing in small herds generally led by a stallion. Depending on the setting, they could only be a single herd or small group of herds all descended from the same type of dragon; in other settings they may be far more common and multiple subtypes with different dragon breaths. They do have scales instead of hide, the scales are usually subtly tinted based on the dragon type they have distant ancestry from. The other major physical changes are improved eyesight, including darkvision and low-light vision, claws instead of hoofs and a breath weapon, elemental type determined by dragon ancestry. Non-visible changes also include immunity to sleep or paralysis magic. They are also very intelligent for animals and are difficult to sneak up on or ambush. Because of this, their population is limited either by food or the number of dire animals or magical beasts in the area, normal predators aren’t terribly threatening to dragon steeds. They are slightly bigger and weigh more than horses, but share the same general outline. Dragon steeds specifically bred as war mounts aren’t slowed by carrying a rider or wearing armour overtop their scales. Horses tend to get nervous or skittish around dragon steeds. Collectively this series of improvements makes dragon steeds challenge rating 3.
Now that I have gone over the abilities and described what dragon steeds look like, how can they be used in a campaign or setting? The three ideas below start at the least impactful and increase from there, a creature like dragon steeds can have either a minimal or major impact on a setting as the game master desires.
First it can be encountered in the wild as a random encounter, either as an individual or a herd. This could be used simply to show that the setting has strange and exotic creatures or to set up their use in a more active way later. They are omnivores though are not skilled at hunting so meat is a minimal part of their diet in the wild. Wild dragon steeds are not violent or aggressive unless you threaten their young, but unlike most wild horses they won’t simply attempt to run if attacked. They would use their breath weapons first, before biting and clawing the nearest foes. But they don’t have any real tactical sense, so it would simply be a brawl once the breath weapons were used. Any captured wild dragon steeds would be difficult but possible to train as mounts, you would probably want some kind of protection against the element that dragon steed breathes.
Next, they could be involved in a ritual spell somehow. Perhaps you simply need the blood of a dragon steed, but if it is particularly important to the plot or powerful you may need a living dragon steed, several scales, or an organ such as the heart or whatever organ powers their breath weapon. This would cause finding a dragon steed to become an entire story line and likely require the players to chase down rumours of these rare and magical creatures. It would likely require them to travel to distant, less civilized lands, where dragon steeds could be found in the wild in small numbers. Maybe this could tie to either the dragon who created the dragon steeds or other descendants of that dragon, or it could be used to imbue protection to the party from some of the abilities of a dragon for some length of time.
Third, dragon steeds can become mounts for some group in your setting. I find it incredibly boring that so many fantasy settings have a bunch of incredibly cool humanoid races, monsters and yet their cavalry is all mounted on horses. Domesticated dragon steeds are larger and stronger than wild ones if they are given a reasonable amount of meat in their feed. Trained dragon steeds would only use their breath weapon on command from their rider. This could create incredibly deadly effects if used by a group together. The first way they could be used as mounts is if they are the standard mount for an entire nation or region, this would likely result in heavy cavalry like knights or cataphracts becoming a dominant part of warfare in that area. Likely if you follow this option, you would need other interesting animals to be mounts of other nations/regions. The second option is that a specific group, like a knightly order uses them, this likely has less of an overall impact on your setting, and gives that specific group something really cool to make them stand out in the campaign. If using the second option you probably want to make that group fairly important to the campaign or at least a plotline in the campaign. Dragon steeds can also be used as a mount to make one particular NPC stand out, maybe one the of the main opponents of the party.
Let me know what you think of dragon steeds, and any new monsters they inspired you to think about creating or using. How would you use dragon steeds in a campaign? Do you want to see actual stat blocks in future monster blog posts? Next blog post we will likely be back in Gal Hadre, is there any specific topic there you want to see?
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