Friday, March 5, 2021

Greyhawk Deity: The Earth Dragon

Greetings Oerthian loremasters! Today I present a treat from my epic 3.5e campaign vault. One of my favorite books from this era is the 3e Deities & Demigods. Not only does it cover the core Greyhawk gods, it gives extensive stats on them, much like 1e did back in the day with the original Deities book. Mind you, hardly anyone ever bothered to fight deities, but this book started an interesting deity rank system (0 is quasi-deity, 1-5 is demigod, etc), and it goes into delightful description into salient divine feats and rules on remote communication. These alone can make running a cult of Vecna or Nerull scarier. For example, if you are in Vecna's temple, he sees you, if you have his eye or hand, he knows it, or if you even say his name out loud, he hears you! Good stuff for roleplaying.

All this leads to my ill-fated, but very fun epic campaign. This is a long running campaign that me and my friends still reminisce and argue about to this day. The top characters ended in the 30th-level range, and a few may have even attained 0-5 divine ranks. One such adventure during this campaign led the players to take on the Slave Lords (as presented in the 2E sourcebook Slavers) albeit a more epic version of this power group. The end boss of course was the Cult of the Earth Dragon. But this is an epic campaign, so yes, despite all rationality, I also made the PCs fight the actual Earth Dragon in Mt. Drachenkopf.

I don't recall if they won or ran away, it doesn't matter, but in order to facilitate this epic encounter, I had to build the Earth Dragon from scratch using Slavers, and the 3e Deities & Demigods. Disclaimer, I'm not an expert at D&D monster creation, so my math may not check out. It's been two editions ago though, so do what you can with this stat-block. So without further ado, here is my 3E Earth Dragon. Enjoy!

EARTH DRAGON
Wyrm of the Hills, Earth Lord, Serpent of Stone
Demigod
Symbol: Coiled Dragon
Home Plane: Oerth (Mt. Drachenkopf)
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Portfolio: Earth, weather, hidden treasure
Worshipers: adventurers, slavers, humanoids, ogres
Cleric Alignments: any non-good 
Domains: Earth, Evil, Law
Favored Weapon: Bludgeoning weapons
"The Earth Dragon is an ancient deity of the Flanaess, a remnant of an era when spirits of nature were worshiped as gods. Unlike most of the gods of Greyhawk, the Earth Dragon is not a part of a sophisticated theology. It is just the spirit of Mount Drachenkopf, although it long ago spread its influence to all of the Drachensbrag Hills."
"The Earth Dragon most commonly manifests its power as an earthquake to indicate the god's displeasure. It also may cause avalanches, rains of stone, and rarely, volcanic eruptions. The Earth Dragon may manifest itself as a mottled serpent or a gargantuan dragon formed of variegated stone lcaed with precious ores."

Colossal Dragon
Divine Rank: 3
Hit Dice: 40d12+400 (660 hp)
Initiative: +4 (Improved Initiative)
Speed: 40 ft., burrow 180 ft.
AC: 61 (-8 size, +3 divine, +48 natural, +8 deflection)
Attacks: Bite +54 melee (+57 if foe touching the ground), 2 claws +49 melee (+52 if foe touching the ground) 
Damage: Bite 4d8+17/19-20, claw 4d6+18 (+3 additional damage if foe touching the ground)
Face/Reach: 30 ft. by 70 ft. /20 ft
Special Attacks: Breath weapons, crush, tail sweep, spell-like abilities, domain powers, salient divine abilities.
Special Qualities: Divine immunities, SR 35, fire resistance 23, DR 38/+4, understand, speak, and read all languages, godly realm, teleport without error at will, planeshift at will, scent, darkvision, water breathing, tremorsense (30 ft), divine aura (30 ft, DC 21).
Saves: Fort +35, Ref +25, Will +33
Abilities: Str 45, Dex 10, Con 31, Int 26, Wis 27, Cha 26
Skills: Jump +40, Diplomacy +27, Sense Motive +27, Intimidate +27, Knowledge (dragonkind) +20, Knowledge (religion) +20, Knowledge (history) +20, Knowledge (the planes) +20
Feats: Awesome Blow, Blind-fight, Cleave, Move-by Attack. Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical (bite). Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Sunder 
Breath Weapons (Su): The Earth Dragon produces one of two breath weapons. 
A cone of sharp rocks and stones 70 feet long; creatures within the cone take 24d10 points of piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning damage.
A line of flensing sand 5 feet high, 5 feet wide, and 140 feet long; creatures within the area of effect take 24d6 points of piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning damage.
Each of the Earth Dragon’s breath weapons allow a Reflex saving throw (DC 40) for half damage.
Once the Earth Dragon breathes, it must wait 1d4 rounds before it can breath again.
Crush (Ex): The Earth Dragon can jump and land on foes as a standard action, using its whole body to crush them. Crush attacks are effective only against Large opponents or smaller. A crush attack affects as many creatures as can fit under the Earth Dragon’s body. Creatures in the affected area must succeed at a Reflex save (DC40) or be automatically pinned, taking 4d8+20 points of damage each round until the Earth Dragon moves. The Earth Dragon can maintain the pin as a normal grapple attack.
Tail Sweep (Ex): As a standard action, the Earth Dragon can sweep its tail in a half-circle with a 40-foot diameter. Medium-size or smaller creatures within the tail sweep automatically take 2d8+20 points of damage and must succeed at a Reflex save (DC 40) to avoid being knocked down.
Divine Immunities: Ability damage, ability drain, acid, cold, death effects, disease, disintegration, electricity, energy drain, mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, stunning, transmutation.
Salient Divine Abilities: Alter Size, Divine Earth Mastery, Power of Nature
Domain Powers: Cast evil spells at +1 caster level; cast law spells at +1 caster level; 3/day turn or destroy air creatures, or rebuke or command earth creatures. 
Spell-like Abilities: The Earth Dragon may cast any domain spell that it can grant. The Earth Dragon uses these abilities as a 13th-level caster (except evil and law spells, which it uses as a 14th-level caster). The save DCs are 21 + spell level.
The Earth Dragon can control weather, temperature, and shake the earth, as the earthquake spell at will, in a radius of three miles. These effects last as long as the Earth Dragon concentrates and for up to 3 minutes afterward, unless ended as a free action.
The Earth Dragon has complete control over all things made of earth (including stone and metal). It can alter the form of any amount of earth, as a free action. It can also transmute any object made of earth, stone, or metal into a different kind of earth, stone, or metal - such as changing a silver coin into gold. It can affect any object it can see, but no more than one object per round.
Other Divine Powers
As a demigod, the Earth Dragon may take 10 on any check. The Earth Dragon treats a 1 on an attack roll or saving throw normally and not as a failure. It is immortal.
Senses: The Earth Dragon can see (using normal vision or darkvision), hear, touch, and smell at a distance of three miles. In addition, it has blindsight to a range of 3 miles. As a standard action, it can perceive anything within three miles of its worshipers, holy sites, objects, or any location where one of its titles or name was spoken in the last hour. The Earth Dragon can extend its senses to up to three locations at once. It can block the sensing power of deities of its rank or lower at up to two remote locations at once for 3 hours.
Portfolio Sense: The Earth Dragon can sense any time 1000 or more creatures work to affect the earth.
Automatic Actions: The Earth Dragon can use Knowledge (the planes), Knowledge (dragons), Knowledge (history), or Knowledge (religion) as a free action if the DC fpr the task is 15 or lower. It can perform up to two such free actions each round.
Create Magic Items: The Earth Dragon can create bludgeoning weapons, scale mail armor, as well as items related to elemental earth or law, as long as the item’s market price does not exceed 4500 gp.
Godly Realm: The Earth Dragon controls a lair deep beneath the earth. Within a 300-foot radius, it can change the temperature and environment at will.

 

1 comment:

Scott said...

I just recently ran A3 and established that the "earth dragon" was really just the real ankylosaur Wimpell Frump had seen before casting an illusion of one. So many different things to do with the Earth Dragon!