Weird Dragon - Tumblr Posts
So here are all of Marinos' shimmer dragons- they're a wee bit cursed to us land creatures.
Shimmer dragons are an entirely separate family of dragonkind from DnD's typical chromatic, metallic, and gem dragons. They are very loosely inspired by Chinese and Japanese dragons, some of which (the Japanese dragons iirc) metamorphize from fish as part of their life cycle. That and being heckin noodles is where the similarity ends, though.
Shimmer dragons are aquatic, able to remain above the water comfortably for only a few hours, though they can magically fly. They are hermaphrodites, able to both sire offspring and lay eggs. Shimmer dragons of any species can mate to produce eggs for both parents- they seldom form long term mating bonds of any sort and rear their own eggs alone. The young are always of the seal-jellyfish form until pupation from wyrmling to young dragon, which is jarringly rapid and reveals their species. They can be the species of either parent; it is completely random and impossible to divine in advance. Shimmer dragons seldom care if their young takes after them physically.
Their personalities vary pretty wildly, but they all tend to be very ecclectic and to have very strange and esoteric hoards.
Like other true dragons, they can shapeshift and produce offspring with other creatures, but given they mostly see All That as a way to produce young and lack much romantic instinct, and find typical bisex beings to be repugnantly alien (often a mutual feeling), this doesn't exactly happen often.
As is the case for all true dragons in Marinos, shimmer dragons carry the Bloodsong, the immuteable essence of dragonkind that grants them power and majesty that ever increases with age for as long as they live. In desperation they can sing the Bloodsong for a Wish that is even stronger than the typical uses of the spell, sacrificing dragonhood in the process and becoming a new dragonborn. Their descendants after that are shimmer dragonborn.
Shimmer dragons all have dual damage resistances, sometimes in ecclectic combinations, and matching breath weapons.
Pearlescent- poison and piercing
Aventurescent- fire and thunder
Opalescent- radiant and lightning
Schiller- necrotic and acid
Chatoyant- psychic and bludgeoning
Irridescent-slashing and cold
They also have innate spells, which they can imbue their breath weapons with to turn them into areas of effect, sometimes to bizarre effect!