Dracolich
Dragons live a long time, but they are still mortal, and one day they will die. For some dragons, this is an unacceptable state of affairs - and so they use dark rituals and unholy pacts to consume themselves, bind their souls to precious gemstones, and take on many of the properties of a lich.
Due to their innately evil nature, dracoliches tend to be of chromatic dragon stock, and look mostly like they did in life - just, y'know, more skeletal and/or mold-covered. Dracoliches retain all of their living abilities (like breath weapons, flight, frightful presence, and so on), but gain all of the usual undead immunities and vulnerabilities (poison, charm, paralysis, etc.). Most DMs will also throw in the ability to control undead too; they are a lich after all, and what self respecting undead dragon lord doesn't want an entourage of dragon-guard wights?
One important difference between a dracolich and a regular lich is that a dragon's body is too magically potent to just regenerate around a phylactery. A dracolich's undying soul needs a suitable corpse to possess if its physical form is destroyed, and so they must locate their phylactery near a source of dead dragons. This could be either an existing dragon graveyard, or they could be hunting their peers to build a kind of dragon body farm. Either way, there's your sweet campaign hook. Remember, Gentle Repose works on dragons.
In Pathfinder, they're a lot nastier; known as Raveners here (because Dracolich is trademarked and just calling it a "Dragon Lich" makes too much sense), they're soul-eating monsters who pretty much exist to fuck shit up.
Most important in the Forgotten Realms; the Cult of the Dragon, a crazy cult headed by an uber-crazy lich named Sammaster, goes around creating dracoliches because they want to fulfill a prophecy in which dracoliches will conquer the world. Why? Um... mostly because Sammaster wants to prove that he translated the prophecy right and everybody else, who says it actually reads as a prophecy about dragons taking over the world after a great apocalypse, is wrong. The absolute stupidity of this whole scheme has been nodded to by various authors over the years.
It is revealed that a dracolich known as the Truthful One, wait for it, tricked a Storm Giant hero to kill himself and sacrifice himself to end the Quori invasion of Ebberron during the time of the Giants Empire. Hell, he even put his own soul one of his comrade's bodies to continue his goals of World Domination, pleased that his actions transformed the city of Gianthold into a landscape of fire and ice. (Tzeentech would be proud of this smug bast-) *BLAM* Inter-dimensional Heresy is still Heresy!!!
Ebondeath[edit]
One of the nastiest things ever statted in an official 3rd Edition campaign book, Ebondeath exemplifies just how broken the Dracolich template is -- weighing in at CR 39 (!!), only Larloch (also statted in the same book) is more dangerous.
Once a Black Dragon named Chardansearavitriol, the being who would become Ebondeath, was the first dragon to settle in what would be the Mere of Dead Men in the Sword Coast and made his roost in the ruins of Uthtower.
He became a dracolich due to the urgings of a priest of Myrkul who was also a member of the Cult of the Dragon. Soon enough, cultists flocked to his tower to give him worship. Centuries later, his physical remains disintegrated (also due to Myrkul's influence), and he was left as a disembodied spirit tethered to his dusty remnants. What made him so terrifying was his extensive research into dragon Breath weapons. Specifically, he modified himself to use all of them! And even breathe spells like Finger of Death as a cone! His main goal, now he is a swiarmyknife dragon, is to breed and create super dragons with his range of breath, despite being an undead spirit possessing a skeleton.
The sect imploded at Myrkul's death, and for several centuries the location of his mausoleum was lost. In 5e Storm Lord's Wrath, With Myrkul's return however, there was a plot to give him physical form once more, this time by trying to possess the body of the Green Dragon Claugiyliamatar.
Dragotha[edit]
Dragotha is one of the most feared and evil dracoliches in the Greyhawk setting. First appearing in the module "White Plume Mountain", he was literally just a throwaway cameo at the time, with the module's map noting the direction to "the lair of Dragotha". It would later be expanded that Dragotha is a Red Dragon Dracolich who was once a consort of Tiamat, before she slew him for the crime of trying to form an alliance behind her back with Kyuss. The Worm God subsequently raised Dragotha as a unique dracolich, with some of the powers of a Son of Kyuss to boot, and Dragotha became Kyuss' most loyal, fearsome and powerful servant.
His star truly came on the rise in 3rd edition, when he was a major threat in the Age of Worms.
Gallery[edit]
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2e
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Dragon Magazine #234
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3e
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Dragon Magazine #344
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4e
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5e
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Pathfinder
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Pathfinder 2e
Monstergirls?[edit]
 | This article or section is about Monstergirls (or a monster that is frequently depicted as a Monstergirl), something that /tg/ widely considers to be the purest form of awesome. Expect PROMOTIONS! and /d/elight in equal measure, often with drawfaggotry or writefaggotry to match. |
Despite what you might think, given how often dragons get given the monstergirls treatment, dracolich MGs are rare indeed, and arguably even less common than lich ones.
The closest thing to an example of one known to /tg/ is the Dragon Zombie of the Monster Girl Encyclopedia; if a Dragon fails to find a husband before she dies, the dark energies permeating the world will reanimate her as a Dragon Zombie, a corpse-colored (blue-gray skin, dark mold-green wings, white hair) dragon with bony scales. In this state, her mind has degenerated, leaving her a horny bimbo obsessed with finding a man and taking him for her mate. These dragon-girls are quite dangerous, because they possess a "rotten breath" attack that can convert human women into undead monstergirls.