Draconians from Dragon Eggs

[Altitude]

So, in the campaign I am running, I'm doing a side plot which I think every DM thinks about running after flipping through the Bestiary of Krynn - repopulating the Noble Draconians. If the metallic draconians finally get to repopulate, then so do the chromatic ones.

Here's my question - how many draconians are born from one dragon egg? Not having any distinct recollection of this being covered in the books, I had assumed that it was not a high ratio. However, one of my players, who has a strangely encyclopedic knowledge of things he reads seems to remember this being covered in the novels somewhere, and that a crap ton of draconians are born from each egg, and come out fully formed and ready for battle.

I've already stated in our game that even if they do come out fully formed, they are still "babies" in terms of actual intelligence, and that they wouldn't have anything but instinctual combat in them at birth.

The dilemma I have is whether I have provided with the party with way too many eggs, and I have to find a way to destroy/invalidate some of them so they don't have more female draconians on their hands than they know how to handle. The group has found the eggs in a form of stasis, so I can have some of them "go bad" if I have to, or say that perhaps the ritual on the eggs isn't complete, so that those removed from the stasis are ruined if they hatch "early."

Thoughts?

[maladaar]

I thought one egg yielded one draconian, but I could be wrong.

[Cam Banks]

I thought one egg yielded one draconian, but I could be wrong.

It depends on the power of the dragon clan in question. More baaz come from a single brass egg than auraks from a gold dragon egg. War of the Lance has full details and rules options for handling the creation of draconians.

Cheers,
Cam

[Falconer]

According to Dragons of Deceit (DL9), one corrupted Silver dragon egg yields 4d12 baby Sivak Draconians, and it's implied to be the same for the others. Regards.

[Sephzero]

Well, I'd imagine it may be one of those how many of the initial batch actually survive to adulthood for that.

[Altitude]

It depends on the power of the dragon clan in question. More baaz come from a single brass egg than auraks from a gold dragon egg. War of the Lance has full details and rules options for handling the creation of draconians.

Hrm, that is, of course, essentially the one source book I haven't bought because I never planned on running a campaign during that period of time. I'm not sure I can convince myself to spend $30 on a PDF copy of it to get these numbers. I suppose even ballparking the possible quantities is a violation of copyright? I just don't want to be like, orders of magnitude off, but at the same time I don't necessarily feel like I need a concrete ruleset, you know?

one corrupted Silver dragon egg yields 4d12 baby Sivak Draconians

Whoa, that's a lot of draconians!

[Cam Banks]

I'll quote you what I wrote in "The Ecology of the Draconian" for Dragon magazine #339's Campaign Classics article:

"By all accounts Takhisis only entrusted the secret of creating draconians to Dracart, Wyrllish, and Harkiel. Historians reported even earlier experiments, however, almost all of them failures. Contrary to popular rumor, the ritual required neither the Zhakar dwarf mold plague, nor infusing the dragon egg with the fiendish soul of an abishai. Instead, vile incantations and prayers to Takhisis, chanted in unison by a dark priest and a Black Robed wizard, prepared the egg as it sat on a slime-covered altar. At the climax of the ritual, the saliva of an evil dragon provided the final essence of corruption, harkening back to Takhisis’ defiling of the first five dragons. The number of draconians produced always depended on the type of dragon. Brass eggs produced as many as twenty or thirty baaz, while a gold egg yielded only one or two auraks."

Cheers,
Cam

[Altitude]

I'll quote you what I wrote in "The Ecology of the Draconian" for Dragon magazine #339's Campaign Classics article:

"By all accounts Takhisis only entrusted the secret of creating draconians to Dracart, Wyrllish, and Harkiel. Historians reported even earlier experiments, however, almost all of them failures. Contrary to popular rumor, the ritual required neither the Zhakar dwarf mold plague, nor infusing the dragon egg with the fiendish soul of an abishai. Instead, vile incantations and prayers to Takhisis, chanted in unison by a dark priest and a Black Robed wizard, prepared the egg as it sat on a slime-covered altar. At the climax of the ritual, the saliva of an evil dragon provided the final essence of corruption, harkening back to Takhisis’ defiling of the first five dragons. The number of draconians produced always depended on the type of dragon. Brass eggs produced as many as twenty or thirty baaz, while a gold egg yielded only one or two auraks."

Cheers,
Cam

Muchas gracias! I hadn't anticipated giving them 40-60 baaz... I think some of those might have to not survive the trip. Thanks for the input!

[maladaar]

Has any source discussed the size of the dragon eggs?
This may be a dumb question, but I am going to ask it anyway.

Is the egg roughly the size of wyrmling?

Meaning if dragon X wyrmling is size Small, is it assumed that the egg is at least size Small?

[Weldon Chen]

I'll quote you what I wrote in "The Ecology of the Draconian" for Dragon magazine #339's Campaign Classics article:

"By all accounts Takhisis only entrusted the secret of creating draconians to Dracart, Wyrllish, and Harkiel. Historians reported even earlier experiments, however, almost all of them failures. Contrary to popular rumor, the ritual required neither the Zhakar dwarf mold plague, nor infusing the dragon egg with the fiendish soul of an abishai. Instead, vile incantations and prayers to Takhisis, chanted in unison by a dark priest and a Black Robed wizard, prepared the egg as it sat on a slime-covered altar. At the climax of the ritual, the saliva of an evil dragon provided the final essence of corruption, harkening back to Takhisis’ defiling of the first five dragons. The number of draconians produced always depended on the type of dragon. Brass eggs produced as many as twenty or thirty baaz, while a gold egg yielded only one or two auraks."

Ummm. Cam. I think you got edited. that sentence I just bolded about the abishai and the mold plague isn't in the official article.

Weldon