Artie Pavlov is staying home, and so should you! @Artie_Pavlov
Question about dragons
@TheEdVerse. If a dragon gets killed in her human shape. Does she revert back to her natural form? 1)
This is one of those queries that gets the infamous “It depends” answer. In this case, on the circumstances of the death. (Or the story needs of the DM/writer/game designer. ;} ) However, this is something that has come up in…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 3, 2020
2)
…the home Realms campaign twice, and both times I as DM ruled the same way that (unbeknownst to me at the time) Gary Gygax had once answered such a query: yes, the dead dragon does revert at least partially (again, depending… 3)
…on the circumstances). So things could get interesting if space/volume or weight/mass are concerns. Reversion does occur past the point at which observers can tell at a glance this is NOT “just” a dead human (scales, etc.).#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 3, 2020
Can’t help but imagine a situation where a party slays a dragon in human form in a confined space, and then have to immediately rush out of there to avoid getting crushed by the reverting dragon. Yes! This has happened, in Realmsplay. The PCs knew to flee headlong; guards coming to arrest them did not, and ended up literally plastered all over the chamber walls. (Interesting shades of red still to be seen today.)#Realmslore
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 4, 2020
What about song dragons? I’m wondering because it’s my impression that they don’t just assume a human form, but have one. What about druids in wild form? Dead druids return to their own form, and their bodies can be personally recognized, but retain traces of the form they died in (hue, feathers if any, scales or other skin covering).
Song dragons do have a human form; they stay in whatever form they were slain in.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 4, 2020