Tome Dragons

The reclusive and remarkable creatures known as tome dragons are eternal seekers and curators of knowledge of all varieties and store it away in the vast libraries they call their homes.

Scroll and Sorcery. A tome dragon is no ordinary dragon as where a standard dragon is comprised of tough scales and thick hides over soft flesh, a tome dragon is comprised entirely of books, scrolls and stray pieces of paper held together by the arcane essence of the creature. All dragons are innately magical with the arcane infuesed into their souls but tome dragons take this magical aspect several steps further. The books and scrolls that make up the dragon's body are always of an arcane nature whether that be in the form of a spellbook or scroll or something more unique like a rare rune inscribed carefully onto a sheet of parchment which eminates raw arcane power. No matter what the specific makeup of the dragon's body it is undeniable that tome dragons have a strong connection to magic which grants them access to a very special breath weapon that allows them to project spells in a cone when they would normally only target a single creature.

Fragile but Formidable The arcane nature of the tome dragon's body gives it immense power that it can use both to expand it's collection of knowledge and to defend itself from those who would harm it. This power is essential for the tome dragon as although it's particular physicality has signifigant benefits, it's body is quite frail and a sufficent enough volume of water can destroy the paper and parchment that makes up the tome dragon, ending its life. The paper body of the tome dragon is frail and flimsy, but this can work to the tome dragon's advantage as it allows it to fold its own body down to the size of a stack of paper and hide itself amongst its vast collections of reasearch and reading material.

Impartial Scholars The moral division between chromatic and metallic dragons has been a cause of conflict for as long as any mortal memory or records go back yet the tome dragons tend to stay clear of these moral conflicts, instead choosing to hide themselves away in their lairs to accumulate knowledge and only interact with other dragons when the promise of new knowledge is present.

Hoarders of Knowledge Whereas most dragons crave vast hordes of material wealth, tome dragons desire to expand their minds and what the can't memorize themselves they store in vast libraries that they amass over the course of their long lives. These libraries come to be their lairs and are filled with books of all types from across the ages, if you are ever in search of knowledge there is a strong chance that a tome dragon has it and would be willing to offer an exchange of its secrets for some new and exciting knowledge.

Arcane Innovators Although tome dragons love to gather knowledge from others, they are not content with only obtaining old knowledge, sometimes they feel the desire to experiment and innovate with magic to create new and wonderful spells. Tome dragons are likely to have access to variants of standard spells that inflict different types of damage to that of the standard spell or even new spells altogether. The crime lord Xanathar traded with a tome dragon to learn of a whole host of new spells which he put into his compendium and even learnt of the tome dragon's most prized spell, dragon's breath. Even though tome dragons distance themselves from other dragon's, they still envy the breath weapons of other dragons and so they used their arcane prowess to create a way to replicate the breath weapons of other dragons via arcane means.

Tome Dragon Spells

Tome dragons are likely to have spells outside of the spells from the PHB which have been used below. Consider using spells that inflict different damage types than they normally would or use spells from the new Xanathar's Guide to Everything. If you feel extra creative you may even want to use spells that you design yourself to give your tome dragons a truly unique feel.