What do you do with a dragon once it's
dead? Dragon claws strung as a necklace
make a nice souvenir. The teeth can be used
to make unusual handles for swords or
daggers, or, if big enough, they can be
made into drinking horns. An enterprising
adventurer will find magic-users quite
willing to pay for genuine dragon's blood
and body parts, to be used in experiments.
Some mages have an even better use for a
dragon's teeth than making ale cups out of
them. With the proper spells and materials,
the teeth can be used to create "the children
of the dragon."

A dragon's tooth can be enchanted so
that, when planted in the ground and given
a command word (usually "grow!"), the
tooth will sprout an armed warrior of an
armor class and alignment appropriate to
the dragon from whose tooth he grew. Each
dragon-man will also have special abilities
unique to his type.

Classical Greek mythology describes two
separate incidents in which dragon?s teeth
were used for this purpose. Jason, as part of
his quest for the Golden Fleece, had to
prove himself worthy of the sacred fleece to
King Aeetes of Colchis. His test was to
harness the fiery bulls of the king, plow and
sow a field with the teeth of a dragon, and
then fight the crop of men that grew afterwards.
The dragon's teeth sprouted armed
warriors, ready to fight at the slightest
provocation. Jason quickly tossed a stone at
the back of one of the dragon-men, who
thought his fellow sibling had struck him
and so returned the blow. Soon, all the
warriors were fighting each other; at length,
they were destroyed.

Cadmus, founder of the Greek city of
Thebes, slew a foul serpent that had killed
all of his men with its poisonous breath.
Obeying a divine inspiration, he gathered
the dragon?s teeth and planted them. Up
sprang a host of fully armed and armored
warriors, who immediately began to fight
among themselves until only five remained.
The five survivors made peace, and they
agreed to follow Cadmus, to help him build
and populate his city.

Types of dragon's teeth

Some of the possible results of using teeth
from each of the ten major dragon types
from the MM are described
below. Each tooth will create a fighter who
possesses a level of fighting ability equal to
one-half the number of hit dice his parent
dragon had (round fractions up). Each
warrior will also have half the number of hit
points that the parent dragon once had
(again, round fractions up). The warrior
will make all saving throws as a fighter or
magic-user of equal level (whichever is more
advantageous). A dragon-man is of the
same sex as the parent dragon.

Black: An AC 3 warrior appears, dressed
in black chain mail with shield and armed
with a black longsword. Chaotic evil in
alignment, with an average intelligence of
10 and a dexterity of 15, the warrior is
immune to all acid-based attacks and can
cast a Melfs acid arrow spell once per day
(1d4 + 1 damage from arrow, 2d4 damage
from acid with saving throws applicable,
+ 1 to hit).

Blue: An AC 2 warrior appears, accoutered
in blue plate mail with shield and
armed with a mace. Lawful evil in alignment,
with an average intelligence of 12,
this warrior is immune to all electrical attacks
and can perform a shocking grasp
spell (1d8 + 3 damage) once per day.

Brass: An AC 2 warrior appears, armored
in brass plate with a shield and flail.
Chaotic good with some neutral tendencies
like his sire, this warrior has an intelligence
of 14 and tends to be verbose and often
selfish, just like a brass dragon. He is immune
to sleep spells and can cast a sleep
spell once per day (the spell has a duration
of 5 rounds).

Bronze: An AC 0 warrior appears, wearing
bronze? plate mail with shield and armed
with two javelins and a short sword. He is
lawful good with an intelligence and dexterity
of 16, and is immune to electrical attacks.
Once per day, he may cast a lightning
bolt for 2d6 hp damage with a range of 40?
(save vs. spell for half damage).

Copper: An AC 1 warrior appears, wearing
copper-colored plate mail with shield
and armed with a morningstar. He has a
dexterity of 15 and an intelligence of 14.
Like the brass dragon-man, he tends towards
avariciousness despite his chaotic
good alignment. He is immune to slow
spells and can cast that spell once per day,
having a 4-round duration.

Gold: An AC -2 warrior appears, wearing
gilt-edged plate mail and carrying a
shield. He is armed with a knife, a brace of
six darts, and a short (4?) fisherman?s trident.
He is lawful good with an intelligence
of 17 and a dexterity of 18 ( + 3 to hit with
missile weapons). He may be immune to
fire (45% chance), poison gas (45%) or
both (10%), and he can cast one flaming
sphere spell per day, of 3 rounds duration,
for 2d4 damage.

Green: An AC 2 warrior appears, dressed
in scale mail covered over with green vestments
and carrying a bow, a full quiver of
20 arrows, and a hand axe. This lawful evil
warrior has an intelligence of 11 and a
dexterity of 18 ( + 3 to hit with missile
weapons). He is immune to poison gas
attacks and can cast a stinking cloud spell of
2 rounds duration once per day.

Red: An AC -1 warrior appears, dressed
in red plate mail with a shield and carrying
a broadsword. Chaotic evil in alignment,
this warrior has an intelligence of 16 and a
dexterity of 17. He is immune to all fireand
heat-based attacks, and he can perform
a burning hands spell once per day for
1d6 + 1 damage.

Silver: An AC -1 warrior appears, accoutered
in silver-gilt plate mail with shield and
carrying a sabre. Lawful good in alignment,
with an intelligence of 16 and a dexterity of
17, this warrior may be immune to cold
(45% chance), paralysis (45%) or both
(10%), and he can cause paralysis for 1d6
rounds by touch, once per day.

White: An AC 3 warrior appears, dressed
in white splint mail with shield and carrying
a battle axe. This is a chaotic evil berserker
warrior with an intelligence of 8. In battle,
there is a 50% chance he will go into berserkergang
and gain +2 to hit and damage
on offensive attacks and a -2 penalty on all
saving throws and on his armor class. He is
immune to cold. Once per day, he can do
1d10 damage with his icy stare (save vs.
spell for half damage), similar to the attack
of a frost man.

When discovered as part of a treasure
trove, dragon's teeth may be found in a
group of from 1-20, usually contained in a
leather bag. A single dragon?s tooth is usually
between 3 inches and 12 inches in
length. Dungeon Masters may use the
following table to determine the type of
teeth found:

Dice Dragon type
01-04 Silver
05-12 Blue
13-20 Green
21-35 Brass
36-50 Black
51-65 White
66-80 Copper
81-88 Red
89-96 Bronze
97-00 Gold

Sometimes (10%), the bag may contain a
mixed assortment of teeth, the different
types determined using the above percentile
rolls. In such cases, the teeth might be
color-coded or marked in some fashion
which the player characters may puzzle out
for themselves. Each tooth has an experience
point value of 100 xp per hit die of the
warrior it will create, and a gold piece sale
value of 1,000 gp per warrior?s hit die.
Dragon-men will either obey or attack the
person who caused the teeth to grow, depending
on the alignments involved.
Dragon-men of an alignment opposite to
that of the possessor of the teeth (such as
lawful good vs. chaotic evil, or chaotic good
vs. lawful evil) will refuse to obey the owner
of the dragon teeth and will attack at once.
If the owner?s alignment either differs in
only one respect from the dragon-men?s
(lawful good vs. lawful evil, for example) or
is neutral, then the dragon-men must make
a saving throw vs. spell to determine if they
obey the owner. Failure indicates the warriors
will obey, albeit reluctantly and without
enthusiasm. Daily saves are made to
determine continued fealty. A successful
save allows the dragon-man to desert, and
he may, if the opportunity is there, injure or
discomfit the owner of the tooth in some
way. Dragon-men of the same alignment as
the possessor of the teeth are loyal to the
death. (Dragon-men will continue to ?live?
until killed.) Being magical constructs, they
and all their apparel and items disintegrate
when slain, with no possible chance of
resurrection or saving.

Enchanting dragon's teeth

The dragon-men Jason faced grew from
teeth that were enchanted in the normal
fashion. It is likely that Aeetes himself spoke
the command word to ensure that Jason
would have to fight the dragon-men. In the
case of Cadmus, the Greek gods caused the
teeth to sprout, since Cadmus couldn?t
enchant them, and they also caused the
dragon-men to light among themselves, for
the purpose of selecting only the best warriors
to serve Cadmus.

To be worthy of enchantment, a dragon's
teeth must be in perfect condition -- without
chips, cracks, or splits due to age, careless
handling, or extraction. A dragon,
according to one source (Dragons: An
Introduction to the Modern Infestation, by
Pamela Wharton Blanpied, Warner Books,
New York, 1980), has 64 teeth in its mouth
normally. After being slain in combat, a
dragon will have 2d8 teeth damaged from
the fighting and the beast's death throes.
Should adventurers decide to pull the remainder
of the teeth for sale to a magicuser,
then each remaining tooth must save
as bone vs. crushing blow during the extraction
(DMG, p.80). Failure to save
means the tooth is damaged during extraction
and is useless for enchantment.

Player character and NPC magic-users
who wish to create enchanted dragon's teeth
may use the following method to do so.
After a tooth has been prepared for enchantment,
using the spell enchant an item,
it is immersed in a crystal basin containing
a broth composed of a mixture of the parent
dragon's blood and at least one of the following
ingredients, according to the type of
tooth being enchanted:

Black: Black dragon acid, giant slug
spittle, bombardier beetle glands, or large
quantities of a very strong acid.

Blue: Several crushed electric eels, dust
or gems from the body of a shocker, umpleby
hair or skin, volt barbs, or the skeleton
of a boggart.

Brass: The sleep eye of a beholder, teeth
from a homunculous, sprite sleep ointment,
glands from the leopard head of a kamadan,
sandman sand, two handfuls of black lotus
pollen, or bark from a black willow.

Bronze: A crushed chunk of pure amber
(transparent gold in color) the size of two
fists, storm giant blood, behir blood, or the
lightning eye of a retriever.

Copper: The slow eye from a beholder,
chips from a stone golem, mustard jelly
venom, or large amounts of sloth blood.

Gold: Refer to the ingredients for red and
green dragon-men. A mixture of one ingredient
each from the red and green lists will
guarantee immunity to both fire and poison
attacks. Either ingredient alone will only
result in immunity to fire or poison.

Green: Powdered ghast bone, scent
glands from several giant skunks, large
amounts of wolverine musk, large amounts
of uropygi (giant pedipalp) scent, vapor rat
blood, retch plant juice, large amounts of
fatty excretion of taer, or one cup of flumph
spittle or of witherstench musk.

Red: Chimera blood, hell hound blood,
salamander blood, magman blood, phoenix
blood (one drop alone will suffice), a pyrolisk
eye, fire drake blood, firenewt blood, or
fire toad blood.

Silver: As with the gold dragon tooth, a
silver dragon's tooth also requires one ingredient
from the white dragon list in order
to achieve the dual immunity to cold and
paralysis. Venom from a carrion crawler,
giant portugese man-o-war, giant wasp,
crystal ooze, drider, tenebrous worm, assassin
bug, fire snake, garbug, grell (large
amounts), tentamort, or female tiger fly is
also needed.

White: Ice toad blood, hoar fox blood, ice
lizard blood, or a frost man's eye (the one
covered by the patch).
 

After an appropriate ingredient is found
and put into the basin, a low fire is kept
burning under the basin, and the tooth is
allowed to steep for one hour. The magic-user
must then cast a limited wish over the
tooth and let the tooth sit overnight in the
mixture. Then the M-U may remove the
tooth and perform an identify spell to determine
if the enchantment was a success.


LETTERS

Dragon teeth
Dear everybody: 
    It looks like we may have bitten off more than 
we could chew with our innocent publication of 
Gregg Chamberlain's "The magic of dragon 
teeth" in issue #98.  That article has elicited more 
specific questions than any other article in recent 
memory.  Here's a sampling of responses, some of 
them nothing more than blatant speculation on 
our part. To save a little space, we aren’t printing
the questions, since they’re obvious from the way
the answers are phrased.

Other types of dragons weren’t mentioned
either because (a) they aren’t official, (b) they are
unique, deity-level dragons such as Tiamat and
Bahamut, or (c) the article was specifically limited
to, as Gregg put it, “the ten major dragon types
from the Monster Manual.” Our position on this
is pretty well summed up in the response earlier
in this letters column concerning “Tables and
tables of troops”: If you want a dragon-man to
spring from the tooth of an orange dragon, or a
Chinese dragon, or a faerie dragon, then sit down
and make one up. Now that Gregg has laid the
groundwork, it shouldn’t be that tough to do.
    <Black Dragon>
    <Blue Dragon>
    <Brass Dragon> 
    <Bronze Dragon>
    <Copper Dragon> 
    <Gold Dragon>
    <Green Dragon> 
    <Red Dragon>
    <Silver Dragon>
    <White Dragon>

I don’t know if dragons have baby teeth, but
I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as a baby
dragon-man. What is he going to use as a weapon
— a +2 rattle?

If you put a dragon-man’s tooth in the ground,
what you’ll end up with is a dirty tooth.

Dragon-men come in one size only, no matter
how big or small the tooth is.

The chance of growing twin dragon-men from
one tooth is slightly smaller than the chance of
growing twin oak trees from the same acorn.

Dragon-men cannot become player characters,
and vice versa.

Judging from Gregg's recounting of the legend 
of Cadmus, I'd say that a dragon-man will spring 
forth from a properly enchanted tooth as soon as 
the tooth is planted; for the sake of playability, 
let's say that the dragon-man appears at the start 
of the round following the completion of the planting. 
(Don't ask me how long it takes to plant a tooth, 
please.) If you plant more than one tooth, like
Cadmus did, then all the dragon-men will spring
forth at the same time, after the last tooth has
taken root.

Dragons probably can’t pull their own teeth —
and even if they could, they wouldn’t be able to
perform the enchantment process by themselves.

Dragon-men aren’t normal mortals, and as
such they don’t need to sleep, eat, breathe, or
drink.

As written, the article does not allow for the
possibility of dragon-men being anything other
than lighter-types. But the whole thing is optional,
and quite unofficial, in the first place; if
you want a magic-user dragon-man to appear,
change the requirements and specifications to
whatever you consider appropriate and go to it.

Melf's acid arrow is a new 2nd-level magic-user
spell, originally described in DRAGON® Magazine
about three years ago and included in Unearthed
Arcana. As one of my favorite baseball
managers always used to say, You can look it up.

A chaotic evil black dragon-man is sure to do
only one thing, and that is whatever he wants to
do. If the character who controls him is obviously
the more powerful of the two, then the dragonman
will probably want to do what he’s told — at
least until he can get away with doing something
else. Never turn your back on a black dragonman,
or a red one, or a white one, or . . .

For the answer to end all answers, to cover
every other question that could be asked, choose
between this pair of three-word phrases: “I don’t
know” and "Whatever you want.” The next time
we get a manuscript about teeth, we’re going to
make sure all the holes are filled before we plant
it in the magazine. — KM