White Dragon

(From 5th Edition Monster Manual - 2014):

The smallest, least intelligent, and most animalistic of the chromatic dragons, white dragons dwell in frigid climes, favoring arctic areas or icy mountains. They are vicious, cruel reptiles driven by hunger and greed.

A white dragon has feral eyes, a sleek profile, and a spined crest. The scales of a wyrmling white dragon glisten pure white. As the dragon ages, its sheen disappears and some of its scales begin to darken, so that by the time it is old, it is mottled by patches of pale blue and light gray. This patterning helps the dragon blend into the realms of ice and stone in which it hunts, and to fade from view when it soars across a cloud-filled sky.

Primal and Vengeful. White dragons lack the cunning and tactics of most other dragons. However, their bestial nature makes them the best hunters among all dragonkind, singularly focused on surviving and slaughtering their enemies. A white dragon consumes only food that has been frozen, devouring creatures killed by its breath weapon while they are still stiff and frigid. It encases other kills in ice or buries them in snow near its lair, and finding such a larder is a good indication that a white dragon dwells nearby.

A white dragon also keeps the bodies of its greatest enemies as trophies, freezing corpses where it can look upon them and gloat. The remains of giants, remorhazes, and other dragons are often positioned prominently within a white dragon’s lair as warnings to intruders.

Though only moderately intelligent, white dragons have extraordinary memories. They recall every slight and defeat, and have been known to conduct malicious vendettas against creatures that have offended them. This often includes silver dragons, which lair in the same territories as whites. White dragons can speak as all dragons can, but they rarely talk unless moved to do so.

Lone Masters. White dragons avoid all other dragons except whites of the opposite sex. Even then, when white dragons seek each other out as mates, they stay together only long enough to conceive offspring before fleeing into isolation again.

White dragons can’t abide rivals near their lairs. As a result, a white dragon attacks other creatures without provocation, viewing such creatures as either too weak or too powerful to live. The only creatures that typically serve a white dragon are intelligent humanoids that demonstrate enough strength to assuage the dragon’s wrath, and can put up with sustaining regular losses as a result of its hunger. This includes dragon-worshiping kobolds, which are commonly found in their lairs.

Powerful creatures can sometimes gain a white dragon’s obedience through a demonstration of physical or magical might. Frost giants challenge white dragons to prove their own strength and improve their status in their clans, and their cracked bones litter many a white dragon’s lair. However, a white dragon defeated by a frost giant often becomes its servant, accepting the mastery of a superior creature in exchange for asserting its own domination over the other creatures that serve or oppose the giant.

Treasure Under Ice. White dragons love the cold sparkle of ice and favor treasure with similar qualities, particularly diamonds. However, in their remote arctic climes, the treasure hoards of white dragons more often contain walrus and mammoth tusk ivory, whale-bone sculptures, figureheads from ships, furs, and magic items seized from overly bold adventurers.

Loose coins and gems are spread across a white dragon’s lair, glittering like stars when the light strikes them. Larger treasures and chests are encased in layers of rime created by the white dragon’s breath, and held safe beneath layers of transparent ice. The dragon’s great strength allows it to easily access its wealth, while lesser creatures must spend hours chipping away or melting the ice to reach the dragon’s main hoard.

A white dragon’s flawless memory means that it knows how it came to possess every coin, gem, and magic item in its hoard, and it associates each item with a specific victory. White dragons are notoriously difficult to bribe, since any offers of treasure are seen as an insult to their ability to simply slay the creature making the offer and seize the treasure on their own.

A White Dragon’s Lair

White dragons lair in icy caves and deep subterranean chambers far from the sun. They favor high mountain vales accessible only by flying, caverns in cliff faces, and labyrinthine ice caves in glaciers. White dragons love vertical heights in their caverns, flying up to the ceiling to latch on like bats or slithering down icy crevasses.

A legendary white dragon’s innate magic deepens the cold in the area around its lair. Mountain caverns are fast frozen by the white dragon’s presence. A white dragon can often detect intruders by the way the keening wind in its lair changes tone.

A white dragon rests on high ice shelves and cliffs in its lair, the floor around it a treacherous morass of broken ice and stone, hidden pits, and slippery slopes. As foes struggle to move toward it, the dragon flies from perch to perch and destroys them with its freezing breath.

Lair Actions

On initiative count 20 (losing initiative ties), the dragon takes a lair action to cause one of the following effects; the dragon can’t use the same effect two rounds in a row:

• Freezing fog fills a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on a point the dragon can see within 120 feet of it. The fog spreads around corners, and its area is heavily obscured. Each creature in the fog when it appears must make a DC 10 Constitution saving throw, taking 10 ((3d6)) cold damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. A creature that ends its turn in the fog takes 10 ((3d6)) cold damage. A wind of at least 20 miles per hour disperses the fog. The fog otherwise lasts until the dragon uses this lair action again or until the dragon dies.

• Jagged ice shards fall from the ceiling, striking up to three creatures underneath that the dragon can see within 120 feet of it. The dragon makes one ranged attack roll (+7 to hit) against each target. On a hit, the target takes 10 ((3d6)) piercing damage.

• The dragon creates an opaque wall of ice on a solid surface it can see within 120 feet of it. The wall can be up to 30 feet long, 30 feet high, and 1 foot thick. When the wall appears, each creature within its area is pushed 5 feet out of the wall’s space, appearing on whichever side of the wall it wants. Each 10-foot section of the wall has AC 5, 30 hit points, vulnerability to fire damage, and immunity to acid, cold, necrotic, poison, and psychic damage. The wall disappears when the dragon uses this lair action again or when the dragon dies.

Regional Effects

The region containing a legendary white dragon’s lair is warped by the dragon’s magic, which creates one or more of the following effects:

• Chilly fog lightly obscures the land within 6 miles of the dragon’s lair.

• Freezing precipitation falls within 6 miles of the dragon’s lair, sometimes forming blizzard conditions when the dragon is at rest.

• Icy walls block off areas in the dragon’s lair. Each wall is 6 inches thick, and a 10-foot section has AC 5, 15 hit points, vulnerability to fire damage, and immunity to acid, cold, necrotic, poison, and psychic damage.
  If the dragon wishes to move through a wall, it can do so without slowing down. The portion of the wall the dragon moves through is destroyed, however.

If the dragon dies, the fog and precipitation fade within 1 day. The ice walls melt over the course of (3d6) days.

(From Fizban's Treasury of Dragons - 2021):

Creating a White Dragon

Use the White Dragon Personality Traits and White Dragon Ideals tables to inspire your portrayal of distinctive white dragon characters, and use the White Dragon Spellcasting table to help select spells for a spellcasting dragon.

White Dragon Personality Traits

d8 - Trait:

1 - Talkative people are usually the most dangerous. I like to eat them first.

2 - I brood over past encounters with foes and sometimes mistake newcomers for my ancient enemies.

3 - I can recall many tidbits of lore picked up over the centuries but have no sense of their import.

4 - I don’t like the taste of warm blood and always rinse my mouth out with snow after a fight.

5 - Whenever I encounter a new type of creature, I try to lure it back to my lair so I can add it to my collection of frozen trophies.

6 - I have named the wind that blows through my lair and speak to it often. It is my sole companion.

7 - I meet any challenge to my territory with aggression, even if I can’t win outright.

8 - I feel protective of smaller, weaker creatures that are tormented by larger monsters.

White Dragon Ideals

d6 - Ideal:

1 - Rapacity. When a creature has the misfortune of crossing my path, I ask myself two questions: Am I hungry now? And if not, will I be hungry later? (Any)

2 - Survival. This world is harsh and unforgiving, and so am I. I do whatever it takes to survive. (Any)

3 - Dominance. I delight in making others tremble, knowing that I could kill them at any time. (Evil)

4 - Isolation. All creatures are either prey or rivals. What do you mean by “company?” (Any)

5 - Vengeance. Every scar upon my scales, every treasure beyond my reach, is a slight that must be answered. (Evil)

6 - Service. I used to live as a beast, before learning what is possible when creatures put aside their petty needs in service of a greater goal. (Lawful)

White Dragon Spellcasting

Age        Spell Save DC        Spells Known

Ancient        16                   gust of wind, ice storm

(From 2nd Edition AD&D Monstrous Manual - 1991):

White dragons, the smallest and weakest of the evil dragons, are slow witted but efficient hunters. They are impulsive, vicious, and animalistic, tending to consider only the needs and emotions of the moment and having no foresight or regret. Despite their low intelligence, they are as greedy and evil as the other evil dragons.

The scales of a hatchling white dragon are a mirror-like glistening ground. As the dragons ages, the sheen disappears, and by the time it reaches the very old stage, scales of pale blue and light gray are mixed in with the white.

White dragons speak their own tongue, a tongue common to all evil dragons, and 7% of hatchling white dragons have an ability to communicate with any intelligent creature. The chance to possess this ability increases 5% per age category of the dragon.

Combat: Regardless of a target’s size, a white dragon’s favorite method of attack is to use its breath weapon and special abilities before closing to melee. This tactic sometimes works to the dragon’s detriment, as it can exhaust its breath weapon on smaller prey and then be faces with a larger creature it must attack physically. If a white dragon is pursuing creatures in the water, such as polar bears or seal, it will melee them in their element, fighting with its claws and bite.

Breath Weapon/Special Abilities: A white dragon’s breath weapon is a come of frost 70’ long, 5’ wide at the dragon’s mouth, and 25’ wide at the base. Creatures caught in the blast may Save versus Breath Weapon for half damage. A white dragon casts its spells and uses its magical abilities at 5th level, plus its combat modifier.

From their birth, white dragons are immune to cold. As they grow older, they gain the following additional abilities:

Juvenile: ice walking, which allows the dragon to walk across ice as easily as easily as creatures walk across flat, dry ground. 

Mature adult: gust of wind three times a day. 

Very old: wall of fog three times a day, this produces snow or hail rather than rain. 

Wyrm: freezing fog three times a day. This obscures vision in a 100’ radius and causes frost to form, creating a thin layer of glare ice on the ground and on all surfaces within the radius.

Habitat/Society: White dragons live in chilly or cold regions, preferring lands where the temperature rarely rises above freezing and ice and snow always cover the ground. When temperatures become too warm, the dragons become lethargic. White dragons bask in the frigid winds that whip over the landscape, and they wallow and play in deep snow banks.

White dragons are lackadaisical parents. Although the young remain with the parents from hatchling to juvenile or young adult stage they are not protected. Once a dragon passes from it hatchling stage, it must fend for itself, learning how to hunt and defend itself, learning how to hunt and defend itself by watching the parents.

White dragons’ lairs are usually icy caves and deep subterranean chambers; they select caves that open away from the warming rays of the sun. White dragons store all of their treasure within their lair, and prefer keeping it in caverns coated in ice, which reflect the gems, especially diamonds, because they are pretty to look at.

Although white dragons, as all other dragons, are able to eat nearly anything, they are very particular and will consume only food which has been frozen. Usually after a dragon has killed a creature with its breath weapon it will fall to devouring it while the carcass is still stiff and frigid. It will bury other kills in snow banks until they are suitably frozen.

White dragons’ natural enemies are frost giants who kill the dragons for food and armor and subdue them for guards and mounts.