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June 2, 2025 15 mins

Not all dragons are fire and fury. The Electrum Dragon, introduced by Ed Greenwood in Dragon Magazine 74, is a rare, spellcasting creature that values thought over treasure and dialogue over bloodshed. In this episode, I explore how to use this Neutral Good dragon in your AD&D campaign, not as a monster, but as a mentor, oracle, or moral challenge. From gas breath that confuses to spellbooks and unhatched eggs, this is a dragon encounter your players will not expect.

#adnd #tsr #gygax



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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:20):
Hey, welcome back to the podcastEvil Dungeon Master Universe
Podcast. I am your host, Evil Dungeon
Master Vince, and it is Monday. Yay, time for another podcast.
I just want to say good morning to everybody.
Hopefully everybody's doing wellout there.
And if you're not, I hope everything gets better for you.
And maybe today, talking a little bit about advanced

(00:40):
Dungeons and Dragons will help maybe brighten the day for you
or at least give you some distraction for thinking thought
for gaming. You know, it always helps with
me, so why not for you? askthedm@theevildm.com is my
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(01:01):
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(01:24):
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Now that's all out of the way. Yeah, I please the overlords.
So today we're going to look at something.

(01:44):
I was looking around at some oldDragon magazines and I I like
some of the old dragon magazinesbecause it has some interesting
things in there. And I saw it in the Electrum
Dragon by Ed Greenwood, which weall know who he is.
And if you don't, then, well, you know, it's OK.
Cool. In Forgotten Realms, the man,
the master. Electrum dragon on Dragon.

(02:07):
I'm sorry. Yeah.
Dragon Magazine 74 on page 17. Now this isn't your usual fire
breathing monster. This is a philosophical spell
casting, gas spewing creature that prefers to think over
fighting. So let's look at some ways we
can use this guy in your campaign so we don't just turn

(02:31):
him into one another. One of those, you know, things
that sit on top of treasure withwings and just go with roar.
So it's funny, you know? So the dragon likes to live far
from civilization. In fact, it avoids cities
completely. It prefers bare Stone Mountain
peaks and a quiet place that nobody visits.

(02:52):
It's neutral good. So it's not going to be going
around trying to kill people or kill individuals unless they
really bother them. And the fact that it likes to
live alone, it makes it different for most Dragons in
the game because it doesn't hoard gold for power.
It hoards beauty, ideas and sometimes magic, and it talks a
lot. It likes to talk.

(03:12):
It's like, you know, what do they call a Chatty Cathy or
something? Likes to call back in the day or
chatterbox or whatever. It has a strange breath weapon,
a gas that causes enthevelment, confusion, or sometimes both.
This is not your typical burn down your village dragon attack.
It weakens you, makes you vulnerable, and then watches

(03:35):
what you do next, which I found quite interesting.
This breath is more like a test than a threat.
So it spews it on you and then it sits there and wonders what
are you going to do next now that this threat has happened to
you. Interesting, right?

(03:57):
Kind of. I like the fact that he's a
thinking dragon. Electrogram.
Excuse me? Dragons also cast spells like a
magic user. They learn spells from scrolls
or books, they just don't know them.
They have to train, they have toexperiment, they have to fail.
Which means you can build a subplot around one looking for a

(04:18):
missing scroll or wanting to teach a rare spell to the right
student, or get taught the rightspell from someone that he'd
never had. So ways that you can use this
dragon and we'll get into his stats in just a moment.
Because I like to get to the good stuff 1st and I don't want
to get to the stuff you can justread on your own.
But some people like that. That's right.

(04:39):
But so first of all, let's forget combat.
This dragon isn't the one you'regoing to fight.
It's a dragon you meet. Maybe the players climb into a
high Alpine ruin and find one. Meditating.
Yes, meditating. Maybe it interrupts a fight and
he wants to talk. Maybe it's been asleep for 100

(04:59):
years and it just woke up confused about the world.
You can use him as a quest giver, A reluctant Oracle, a
guardian of ancient magic, and abeing that challenge your
players morality and not just tactically.
It might trade a spell in exchange for a story or give a
gift to someone who speaks honestly.

(05:20):
Imagine going in, talking to this dragon and just being
yourself and honest for once andnot fearing the dragon.
Well, I mean, you're going to fear the dragon because the
dragon has a big powerful being.But you go in there and be
yourself and talk to the dragon and the Dragon's like, here you
go, dude, here's here's some magic.
It's like, whoa, OK, cool. Here's a kind of an idea for

(05:45):
you. The Electron Dragon lays eggs
once every 100 years. The article says an abandoned
egg has a 75% chance to hatch onits own.
So now you have a fragile, incredibly rare egg sitting in
wherever this is found. What did the players do?

(06:08):
Steal it? Guard it?
Hatch it? What if the dragon thinks
they're the ones who stole the egg?
If they do take the egg and thisDragon's looking for it, what
are we going to do? This Dragon's going to be coming
after them. Now, this isn't a dragon that
fits every campaign, but when itshows up, it does change the
tone of how the campaign is and how Dragons are treated.

(06:30):
It forces players to think, to listen, to decide whether they
want to fight or understand whatthe dragon is all about.
It's kind of a powerful dragon in a sense.
Use it only once. Maybe make it count.
They'll remember it. You could put him in as a
constant contact, but then you'dnever know it's an ancient

(06:52):
dragon. If it is that old, it's going to
get annoyed if these players keep coming to talk to him when
he's trying to sleep. But then again, he's a Chatty
Cathy, so he may be just like, yeah, but there comes a point
that he may just, you know, see the party and be like, oh, these
guys again. But if he's up at that high top

(07:13):
mountain and nobody ever comes up there and he's up there
chilling and your players characters go up there once
twice a week, maybe he's going to be like, hey, here's my
friends or depending if you're aDick to him or not.
So getting back to what he actually has, he's the frequency
is rare number appearing 1 Armorclass is 2.

(07:35):
It dies at 79. The 60% chance he's in his
layer, though his layer may not always be his layer, he may use
go around from place to place. Meditating Treasure tags will
see below. Number of attacks, Three damage
one to four, one to four. 3 to 24.
Breath weapon plus possible magic use.

(07:56):
Special defenses, see below. Magic use as a standard.
Intelligence is exceptional, neutral, good size is about 36
feet along. No psionic abilities.
Chance of speaking 100%, chance of magic use 100%.
Chance of sleeping is 40%, whichis interesting.

(08:20):
The Electrum Dragon, also named Drago Magnus Electrum, is a
rare, solitary creature who dwells far from civilization,
usually in the mountainous area,and always layers in a cavern or
stone building. It's usually peaceful and
philosophical in nature, but canbe formal fighter if aroused.

(08:43):
An Electro dragon fights with his breath weapon by casting or
by casting spell in addition to possibly employing his physical
claws and bite attacks, and may direct those four attacks
against multiple targets in any combat rounds.
Its breath weapon is a unique unstable gas emitted in a cone
for inches by three by three high, which reacts with the air

(09:07):
and loses its effectiveness after one round.
The gas causes refuelment like we discussed.
It lasts for one turn, confusionfor 9 rounds, or both,
depending. All creatures in the area must
make a saving throw twice versusbreath weapon to avoid both
effects. Electric dragon begins life able
to detect magic and read magic. Gains the ability to identify

(09:30):
items on touch without any ill or cursed effects.
So here you go, you've got an item, you want to know what it
is. The dragon can touch it and
possibly tell you, but you know he's probably going to want to
chat for a while and ask you to do a few things for him.
So quest giver, there you go. Upon growing into young state
and upon becoming an adult, gains the power to dispel magic

(09:54):
once per day. A very old Electro dragon can
dispel magic twice per day. There are natural These are
natural abilities, former the former 2.
Useable at will without limitation rather than spells.
In addition to these abilities, the Electro dragon gains the
ability to cast spells as the foul as follows.

(10:14):
A very young one can cast 1 first level magic user spell
each 24 hours. Young ones can cast 2 first
level spells a day. Sub adults, blah blah blah.
That'd be one first level, second level spells, young
adults three, first two, second adults four, first two, second,
one, third and old is 4/2 and two.

(10:37):
Very old is 433 and one. I'm sorry, 432 and 1/4 level
spell ancient be 433 and 2. These spells are never
automatically known. They must be acquired from the
scrolls or spellbooks throughoutthe training with a magic user.
So an electrum dragon must experiment with written spells

(11:00):
for some time in order to successfully modify it for
entirely verbal casting. Refer to the Monster Manual for
Aging and other details of dragon nature when it comes to
that. Electron Dragons enjoy trading,
bargaining, and philosophical debate.
They hoard things of beauty, such as finely crafted items,
rather than wealth per SE. A typical electron dragon might

(11:23):
hoard statues, Harper 2 tapestries, gems, jewelry, a few
coins of metal. Electron Dragons made
approximately 1 Every 100 years.The female produces 1 to 4
rubbery footlong eggs after a year after mating.
These eggs are laid and left unattended.

(11:47):
Each egg if remains unmolested. I hate that they use that term.
And 75% likely to refer to be fertile and will hatch in a
matter of days. So it's depending what your
players want to do when they find those eggs.
So the two Dragons will do it and then the female will part
and then sometime later after being impregnated, I would

(12:09):
assume we'll drop one of these one to four eggs in a certain
area where she thinks is safe, then hightails it out of there.
Guess they think the egg is survival of the fittest here,
but I'm not sure why they do that.
I thought this would be a kind of an interesting dragon to your
campaign because it's different from all other Dragons and it's

(12:32):
an Electro dragon so it's not a typical dragon you'll see.
Throw this dragon in your campaign and you'll have a
different type of opinion of Dragons after seeing this one.
Maybe the players might think he's cool, give him a really
good name and he could be a reoccurring NPC dragon that your
players go to for advice. Maybe if the party gets to know

(12:55):
him quite well, he could be somewhat of a mentor to the
party and they can go to him andhe would.
Since he's an ancient dragon, hewill know things that they don't
know and he could possibly give them some, oh, I don't know,
some type of advice and you know, philosophical way.

(13:15):
Think of like when you you see those movies and they always
find the, the ancient master, you know, ancient master in
Chinatown or wherever. He's like 100 something years
old and he knows everything. But, you know, maybe he doesn't
know everything. Or think of him how, like, Luke
went to Dagobah and he went to Yoda and Yoda taught him how he

(13:36):
was kind of, you know, a little bit crazy and old and but he
knew what he was talking about. Things like that.
This is how this dragon can be used in your campaign.
And it could be a great way to be a quest giver, a source of
information dumped to the players.
If they're not getting anything,again, they'll have to go to
this dragon. But if they go to this dragon

(13:59):
and they find the information they need, it could be something
you can use. I think if they overuse it, the
dragon might get pissed because he is 40% of the time sleeping.
So waking him up, I don't know. I mean, it depends on how you
want to make his attitude. Is he going to be pissed that
you woke him up or not? You know, maybe he didn't have
his morning coffee yet, so he might be a little bit annoyed.

(14:21):
I mean, I know, I know some people out there, you know, they
don't have their coffee and theyget woken up.
They, they're a little bit pissy.
So I don't know. Tell me what you think of the
comments about this dragon. How do you use this type of
dragon in your campaigns? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Comment below either on Spotify because you can comment on
Spotify each episode. I don't think anywhere else,
maybe Pocket Cast you can, but you can on YouTube.

(14:44):
When this hits the YouTube waves, you can comment away and
tell me what you think. Again, that is Dragon magazine
#74 from June 1983 on page 17. Take a look at it and tell me
what you think. Keep it original, keep it old
school. Goodnight and God bless
everybody. Keep those AD and D fires lit.
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