Chitin-Skin Dragon (Creature, Dragon)

These dragons seem half-way between dragons and insects. Instead of scales they have chitin plates and even their wings are made of flexible pieces of chitin. They have the segmented eyes of a giant insect and down their necks range several antennae that look almost feathered, these antennae are used to pick up and detect sounds and scents. Their legs have several small openings which when opened wide can be used to project destructive sound waves, and they have six legs, the hindmost resemble those of a cricket’s and are used to propel them in mighty leaps and also by both males and females to create sub-sonic mating songs.

Unlike insects they have internal skeletons, and razor-sharp teeth. They also have long dragon-like tails and the draconis fundamentalis of true dragons. They have small horns of chitin-covered bone which emerge across their heads and similar bumps down their spines. Like most true dragons they have long serpentine necks. In total their appearance is bizarre and places them quite close to Aberrations.

When born their chitin is a bright green but over the years when it is regrown after molting it becomes a dull brown. Their eyes begin a ruby red but dull to a burning ember by full growth. They live mostly in tropical forests, having once been found throughout what is now Toyama before the Toyaman samurai hunted them to extinction within. They are capricious and cruel beings, and more unpredictable than most true dragons as they have no tendency towards law or chaos (and neutral evil is more unpredictable than either). They are cunning creatures, but lack the dominating nature of green dragons and live mostly for their own appetites. For evil dragons they were quite communal and sometimes found in groups as large as 7 adult individuals. These groupings would include only one dragon of one gender and all others would serve as its mate. Even so they were short lived as when too many children were born, or a certain mate shown too much favor they would fall on each other in cannibalistic fury. The most enduring of these groups were those in which a wyrm or great wyrm male held sway over a seraglio of lesser females (a female’s reproductive life ends during the ancient age category, where as a male’s stretches into the great wyrm category although a reduced potency).

**Type**: Dragon (Earth)

**Environment**: Warm woods

**Organization**: Wyrmling, very young, young, juvenile, and young adult: solitary, clutch (2–5) or gathering (4-20); adult, mature adult, old, very old, ancient, wyrm, or great wyrm: solitary, pair, family (1–2 and 2–5 offspring) or gathering (3-7 and sometimes young).

**Challenge Rating**: Wyrmling 3; very young 4; young 5; juvenile 7; young adult 9; adult 11; mature adult 14; old 16; very old 18; ancient 19; wyrm 20; great wyrm 22

**Treasure**: Triple standard

**Alignment**: Always evil; usually neutral evil.

**Advancement**:Wyrmling 5–6 HD; very young 8–9 HD; young 11–12 HD; juvenile 14–15 HD; young adult 17–18 HD; adult 20–21 HD; mature adult 23–24 HD; old 26–27 HD; very old 29–30 HD; ancient 32–33 HD; wyrm 35–36 HD; great wyrm 38+ HD

**Chitin-Skin Dragons by Age**

**Chitin Dragon Abilities by Age**

#### Special Abilties

**Breath Weapon (Su)**: Either a line of acid or an blast of sonic vibration which deals damage to all creatures within a certain range of the creature. This secondary breath weapon has a range of 5-ft as Tiny, 10-ft as Small and Medium, 15-ft as Large, 20-ft as Huge, and 25-ft as Gargantuan. Although vulnerable to most sonic attacks Chitin Skin Dragons are immune to the Sonic breath weapon of other Chitin Skin Dragons.

**Spell-like Abilities**: All spell-like abilities (except summon swarm) are 1/day (Sum Sw is 3/day).

**Modified Dragon Senses**: Unlike other dragons, a chitin-skin dragon only has Darkvision 60-ft and low-light vision (instead of double strength low-light vision); during day light it sees as well as a human instead of twice as well. In exchange it gets blindsense out to 30-ft + 30-ft per age category, blindsight out to half the range of its blindsense, and scent (although its sound based blindsight makes it vulnerable to sonic spells and attacks).

**Vermin Mastery**: As a standard action, you can, a number of times per day equal to your age category, enslave vermin within 30 feet. Vermin receive a Will save to negate the effect. The DC for this Will save is equal to 10 + 1/2 your HD + your Charisma modifier. Vermin that fail their saves fall under your control, obeying your commands to the best of their ability, as if under the effects of *control undead*. Intelligent vermin receive a new saving throw each day to resist your command. You can control any number of vermin, so long as their total Hit Dice do not exceed twice your age category. If a targeted vermin is under the control of another creature, you must make an opposed Charisma check whenever your orders conflict.

**Spells**: Chitin Skin Dragons cast as sorcerers, but may only select spells from the druid spell list.

**Skills**: Jump, Climb, Hide and Move Silently are class skills for chitin-skin dragons. They also make all jump checks as running jumps.