Original Dungeons & Dragons

• Cone-shaped breath weapons originate from the mouth of the dragon at ½" diameter.
• Line-shaped breath weapons will travel in a straight line beginning at the height of the dragon's head at the time it releases.
• Cloud-shaped breath weapons extend from ground level to a height of 3".

Attacking Dragons: Sleeping dragons may be attacked with a free melee round by the attacker and +2 on hit dice for chances of hitting. Certain weapons will be more or less effective than others against the various types of dragons. The number indicates the addition or subtraction for the probability of hitting as well as the amount of damage done.

Talking Dragons: The percentage of dragons that are able to speak with other creatures is given for each variety. Of that percentage that speak, a further subdivision is able to cast spells, which is shown as the percentage magic use. Dragons that cannot talk don't use spells.

Variable Damage: The Greyhawk supplement introduced alternative combat rules which removed much of OD&D's dependence on Chainmail. A result of this is weapons and monsters all deal newly defined variable damage. In Greyhawk, dragons can either attack with their breath, or make 3 attacks; 2 claws and a bite. All claw attacks deal 1d4 damage, but the bite attack is different for each kind of dragon.

Specific Dragon Information

Dragon Turtles: The most fearsome monster of the waters. They are exceptionally strong, being able to lift any ship upon their back if they happen to come up under it.

Chromatic Dragon: The Dragon Queen is a huge creature with five heads, one of each color of the five chaotic dragons. Her body is striped in these same colors, and her tail is that of a wyvern. She can employ all heads at once, either to bite†, breath, or cast spells. Each head has 2 spells, with the white head having 2 1st level spells, the black 2 2nd, the green 2 3rd, the blue 2 4th, and the red 2 5th. Her major abode is in a stupendous cavern far beneath the earth. Her guard consists of 5 dragons, each of largest size, of the 5 chaotic types of dragons. Her major aim is to spread evil.

• Fafnir: This dragon was slain by Sigurd. When its blood is consumed it bestows the person with the ability to understand all types of bird languages. It guards a hoard of 2H treasure.
• Nidhug: This dragon dwells below the tree Ygdrasil where it gnaws relentlessly at its roots.
• Ofnir: This dragon helps Nihug in his duties.

Dragons of Dragon Isle: This reptilian race used in war by the Melnibonians was feared by all enemies of this race. They were able to spew forth a type of Greek fire almost impossible to put out. While they came in many colors, they are all still to be treated as the red dragon of D&D.

• Very Young to Young: Head of a horse, body of a lizard, tail of a snake, large red wings, and 4 lion legs ending in talons.
• Sub-Adult to Adult: Horns of a deer, head of a camel, eyes of a demon, neck of a snake, scales of metal, claws of an eagle, and legs of a tiger with large yellow spotted wings.
• Old to Very Old: Appears as the classical type.

Example: A very old, 11 hit dice red dragon is encountered asleep in its cavernous lair. Three fighting-men creep in and strike to subdue. All three hit scoring respectively 2, 3, and 6 points, or 11 points total. 11 ratioed over 66 (the number of hit points the dragon can absorb before being killed or in this case subdued) is 1/6th or 17%. The referee checks to determine if the dragon is subdued and rolls over 17 on the percentile dice. The dragon is not subdued, and a check is then made to see whether he will bite or use his breath weapon during the second melee round. The result indicates he will breathe. The attackers strike again and once more all hit for a total of 12 points. The dragon breathes and as none make their saving throws the attackers are all killed for they take 66 points of damage from dragon fire. Subsequently, the referee rolls 01 on the percentile dice (any roll up to 34 would have indicated success) indicating that had the attackers survived they would have subdued the red dragon that turn. Not more than 8 man-sized creatures can attempt to subdue any one dragon.

Length of Subdual: A subdued dragon will remain in that state until such time as an opportunity presents itself to escape or kill its master presents itself, but as long as the master is in a commanding position it will not attempt either course.

• Dragon Turtle: It's easy to assume that all stats not specifically mentioned are the same as in the entry for "Dragon" in Volume 2, but based on what I know about how early D&D was played, including what's written in the original box set, I don't think that adventurers were ever meant to or even had mechanics for swimming underwater for long or deep enough to find the underwater lair of dragon turtles and their families, and I don't think, based on how they're described, that OD&D dragons were pack hunters. They certainly didn't need to be. Hence the change to their no. appearing, treasure, and % in lair stats. They were clearly only intended to be sea hazards.
• Chromatic Dragon: Neither the chromatic nor platinum dragons were given stats for their bite damage. While it's easy to assume that the chromatic dragon's bites do the same damage as the head of the applicable dragon species, the flavor text actually never mentions her being able to bite at all, it actually seems to say that she can only breathe or cast spells, which either means that she would eventually... not be able to attack anymore, or that there are no limitations on how often she can use her breath weapons. I just made the assumption and gave her normal bite damage.
• Platinum Dragon: For the platinum dragon, I went with the bite damage given in the AD&D Monster Manual, since most of the bite damage in that book is already the same as listed in Greyhawk.
• Midgard Serpent: The Midgard linnorm wasn't explicitly made a true dragon in D&D until 2nd edition, so assuming the same 60% in lair doesn't seem safe. Because it's another marine dragon, I could just give it 0% like the dragon turtle, but that doesn't work either, as the whole thing about Jormungandr is that it was so big it encircled the entire world ocean. So, in that sense, it's technically always in its lair, right?
• Imperial Dragon: The description of the Eastern dragons is so awful it lead to the creation of the lung dragons 3 years later because the existing rules were just so terribly written. As such, I've assumed basic dragon stats with the following exceptions: the way its described makes it sound like another unique dragon, so only 1 of them exists, and as such it is probably also a very old dragon, hence 2H treasure. It's said to live in the seas, which counts as a "water area," which is where good dragons are said to live in the original passage. Law did not equal good for Gary, but in practice, nobody actually understood what Gary thought alignments were because he didn't... y'know, ever actually tell anyone. So from the perspective of most players reading this book good was law and evil was chaos, and Supplement IV certainly never tells us which Eastern dragons are law or chaos aligned. I didn't note this for Eastern green dragons because it clearly says they are immune to wood which pretty clearly indicates they are still found in the normal places for green dragons. Also, the myth this dragon is based on is a definitively benevolent creature. Another thing we can assume based on the imperial dragon living in the sea is that it, like the dragon turtle, was never really meant to be encountered in its undersea lair.
• Treasure Dragon: Properly called the "dragon of treasure" in the book, it is very clearly a unique individual. This means that the alignment can't follow the basic chaos OR neutral given in the boxed set because it has to be one or the other, there's only 1 of them. I went with neutral because no clear disposition exists in the text and later lung dragons would end up being commonly neutral anwyas. We also know that it has an absolutely enormous hoard, which it has slept on so long that it now forms a layer of armor over its body. This suggests that the dragon probably just never leaves its lair, and just lazes around on its treasure all day. This also means that it will never be encountered outside, as dragons lair in caves and the like.

Chinese Dragons

Special Abilities:All Chinese dragons are Psionic Class 6, but have ESP at a radius of 5 x the age level of the dragon. All except yu lung can Polymorph into human form and back at will and become visible or invisible at will, except that an invisible dragon will become visible when attacking.

Water Fire: Certain other types have the power of Water Fire. This unearthly stuff may be created by any dragon with the power whenever they are under or touching water, and may be dispelled by them at any time. Water Fire surrounds the body like the flame of a demon and does damage, at the amount specified for each class, to anyone touching it. All Chinese dragons are themselves immune to Water Fire. Water Fire will disappear for 2d6x10 rounds after being contacted by real fire (as in, for example, a Fireball), and cannot be recreated until the end of that period.

Lung Wang (Sea Dragon):These solitary brutes are a Chinese form of the dragon turtle, with a turtle body, crested neck, and shen lung head. They rule large bodies of water, can breathe air or water but cannot fly, and can lift any ship they come up under or ram as the largest warship. Their ordinary attacks are 2 claws and 1 bite, and they can breathe out steam as a breath weapon. Except for Scaly Command and the ones noted in the general paragraph, they do not bother with other spells. As rulers of the seas, lung wang will demand tribute from every passing ship. Regular travelers may work out an arrangement — for example, so much dumped overboard at a given spot.

Li Lung (Earth Dragon): The only Chinese dragon with wings, these have a lion’s body and dragon’s head with human features. They live underground, cannot breathe water, but can swim. They cane attack with 2 claws and 1 bite, but have no breath weapon, and would be easy prey except that each can once a day, without a chance of being dispelled, cast Earthquake, with a width and length each 3 times the age level of the dragon. Often such a convulsion will bring down the cavern in which they are usually living, but li lung are never harmed by any Earthquake, though they may be inconvenienced by having to dig out of the rubble.

Yu Lung (Carp Dragon): These shy creatures live in fresh water and have a dragon’s head, 2 legs, and a carp’s body or tail. They cannot fly, polymorph, or turn invisible, have no breath weapon, and breathe only water, although they can emerge awkwardly onto land for up to 1 hour. Their ordinary attacks are 2 claws and 1 bite. When rolling up yu lung, bring all age levels of 5 or above down to adult. There are no older yu lung; they have achieved their hearts desire and metamorphosized into some other kind of Chinese dragon.

Names: The names of these dragons are completely off from the only way I've ever seen these monsters transliterated into the Latin alphabet during my whole life outside of D&D. "Lung" are not monsters from Chinese mythology, they're organs, it's long that are the so called Chinese "dragons." Other things are wrong too, like translitering tian as "t'ien," which is just... completely wrong, like that's just not correct. My guess is that maybe back in 1979 the standard for Chinese to Latin was different from the earliest written form I've seen, and that's totally possible, after all in Destroy All Monsters they call Beijing "Peking," which was really confusing when I was little, and Chinese languages are pretty notoriously complicated. But this doesn't explain why they kept these names all the way into 3rd edition in 2001. Maybe it had something to do with the OGL? Like, since they weren't part of the SRD, maybe, like, they kept the old forms of the name to make them seem like more of a brand thing for legal reasons? Either way it's stupid and irritates me.

The other names are weird too, like apparently dilong used to be written as lilung which I truly do not understand, but at least it means the same thing. However the chinese name for carp is currently written as "li," which is confusing. Tehcnically it's "liyu" but that's just "carp fish," with the kanji for li being the actual part that means carp specifically, so the name yulong just means "fish dragon" and isn't specific to carp. "Celestial" is I guess a way you could translate tian, but that's kinda missing the forest for the trees, and a much more 1:1 translation is simply "heaven" because it refers to the sky and the mythological domain of the gods believed to be in the sky which is very much in line with one of the ways heaven is used in English, but even "sky dragon" would have been fine. Shenlong is like that too, where like I guess "spirit" kinda works I mean I guess, but it's most often translated as "divine" or sometimes "god" dragon. Panlong is fine, though, panlong really is translated as coiled dragon. For your transliteration convenience, I present to you the folloing chart with the actual appropriate names:

• Blackmoor: Later retconned into being the ancient history of Mystara, this is the name of Dave Arneson’s original fantasy campaign. Because it was lumped in with Mystara in the basic sets which were based on only the original box, excluding the supplements, we can say that the dragons are presented in the original boxed set are “from” Blackmoor. Dragons: Turtle, Golden, Red, Blue, Green, Black, White.
• Greyhawk: The introduction of the other metallic dragons, as well as the leaders of the chromatic and metallic breeds, in addition to the new combat system, makes the 1st supplement Greyhawk the first step to D&D becoming its own game mechanically distinct from Chainmail, and is also the first step towards AD&D. The supplement itself has nothing to do with the actual Greyhawk setting of Gary Gygax’s campaigns, but, again, retroactively, we know that the dragons introduced within only appeared in the worlds of AD&D, not Mystara, so we can say that the new dragons and modifications to previous dragons are “from” Greyhawk after a fashion. Dragons: Chromatic, Red, Blue, Green, Black, White, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, Copper, Brass, Turtle
• Norse: Supplement IV introduces a number of monsters, gods, and other things for running games with more influence from various existing mythologies. Three of these have special rules for including dragons. The Norse dragons don’t modify the rules of any existing dragons, but it does limit the number of types that appear. It also introduces the Midgard serpent, which was not yet a true dragon, but would finally become one in 2nd edition. Dragons: Midgard, Red, Green, White
• Melniboné: Based of a series of fantasy novels I’ve never read that Gary was apparently very into, this setting only has a single dragon type. Dragons: Melnibonéan
• Eastern: Rules for adapting the existing OD&D dragons to a Chinese mythology based setting appear in the very back of Supplement IV. These include a couple of new dragons, as well as limitations on which dragons can appear. But the rules are very sparse and confusing and not totally complete. Dragons: Treasure, Imperial, Gold, Red, Blue, Green
• Chinese: The rules for Eastern dragons were later cleaned up in an issue of Dragon magazine and became the first version of the lung dragons. These new versions are incompatible with the Eastern dragons of Supplement IV, as each present their own version of how to use long in OD&D games, so I’m preserving the names they were originally published under to differentiate them, as the Dragon article was called “Chinese Dragons” while the Supplement IV entry specifically calls them “Eastern Dragons.” Dragons: T'ien, Wang, Shen, Li, Pan, Yu