Dungeons and Dragons has come out with a *ton* of new books over the past couple of years. Normally, I'd have been all on top of reviewing them, but I've been burying any pandemic related depression in my new Warhammer obsession. Next up on the review block is "Fizban's Treasury of Dragons", which released in October of 2021.

This book is basically the "Monster Manual" for dragons in D&D. However, just like many of the 5e books, this book is more than a straight Monster Manual/Bestiary. There are dragon related options for players, lots of background information on dragons for DMs, and even new spells and items related to Dragons.

It's hard to do a straight "review" on these types of books, since you'll either like the premise or you won't. Instead, let's look at the 5 coolest things I learned about dragons in this book (in no particular order):

1. There are Gem Dragons?

If you've been playing D&D for any amount of time, there's a good chance you know about the 2 more popular forms of dragons: Chromatic and Metallic. Metallic dragons (Bronze, Gold, etc.) like Bahamut are *mostly* good, while chromatic dragons (Black, red, etc.) such as Tiamat are pretty evil. Apparently there's a third subclass of dragons: Gem Dragons. There are 5 types that make up this dragon type: amethyst, crystal, emerald, sapphire, & topaz.

These Gem dragons are very psionic in there nature. Amethyst dragons are curious about the mysteries of the multiverse and like to accumulate knowledge in addition to money and objects. Crystal dragons can be prophetic in nature, studying the skies for signs and omens. Emerald dragons are very curious about people, using their abilities to cloak themselves so they cannot be seen. Sapphire dragons are very conflict oriented, hording weapons and seeking out beings corrupted from the "Far Realm". Basically, if you've played Warhammer 40k, the Far Realm is like the Warp/Chaos. Finally, topaz dragons are about decay and destruction, although not in an apocalyptic "let's go murder everyone" sense. More of a "things have to die so that new things can be created" sense.

2. Dragon's and their hordes

In almost every type of literature out there, dragons are seen as hording various kinds of treasures. Fizban's book provides a rationale behind this in the D&D world: a dragon's magical power is related to the size of their horde. As dragons collect more things, those objects increase the dragon's connection to magic. In fact, one of the ways to weaken a dragon is to take away pieces of its horde. When the size of a dragon's horde is reduced beyond a certain point, then it will lose abilities such as its lair actions.

I feel like this was touched upon in the "Horde of the Dragon Queen" adventure as the reason why Tiamat needed her followers to bring her treasures. If you've been reading long enough, you'll know that I was not very fond of that adventure. Looking back, this makes much more sense and I feel like if it was addressed better in that book it could have helped make that adventure so much better. 

3. The Drakewarden subclass for Rangers

Want a pet dragon for your character? Make a ranger! The Drakewarden subclass gives you a Drake companion ("you used to call me on your cell phone….") that bonds to you. Once you get to level 7, the drake grows big enough that you can now *RIDE IT*! How cool is that??? You might have to make sure that your DM okays this one, as I could easily see this be abused by min/max type gamers. Although….now I want to run a D&D campaign where it's nothing but Dragon Riders…

4. Dragon TURTLES?!?!?

 To be fair, there are a *lot* of varieties of dragons and dragon-like creatures in this book. This just seemed like one of the coolest. The rules are for having Dragon Turtle creatures in your game, but I'd like to think you could modify a dragonborn character into being a dragon-turtle-born PC. That sounds ridiculously cool to me for some reason. A dragon turtle can be as large as an island, which makes them great twists to sea-based adventures. When the dragon turtle strikes, it sends out heat from its shell which boils the waters, dealing out fire damage to anyone nearby.

5. Giant Canary?

As I was flipping back through this book to create this list, I just happened to stop on the Magic Items page and seeing "Giant Canary" in the large monster blocks was enough to grab my attention. The "Gold Canary Figurine of Wonderous Power" is a golden canary figuring that fits in the palm of your hand. When you speak the magic word and throw it, it turns into a large canary. If you are below half hit points, you can make it turn INTO A GOLD DRAGON INSTEAD. That's so freaking cool!

Needless to say, this book is great. For a game with "Dragons" in the name, it makes sense for this book to come along eventually, but there are so many things in here for a DM to use in their games. You could spend the next year or so making adventures with all the different types of dragons in there. Maybe make it Pokemon themed, where the characters "gotta catch them all…."?

If you're interested in the book, consider picking it up using this affiliate link. In the meantime, I need to go sell some friends on an all-dragon rider based D&D game.

Note: I generally assume I know nothing. So if I've missed something, let me know in the comments. Or let me know on Twitter or Facebook. If you like these types of posts, consider subscribing to our patreon.