Rite Publishing was one of the oldest and most prolific of 3rd party Pathfinder publishers in terms of the sheer volume of content. The company did not restrict itself to that one system and made OGL material for many other games which permitted such a license. In the Company of Dragons was one of its most popular products for making in-depth rules for dragon PCs in Pathfinder, and a conversion to 5th Edition was in the works almost as soon as said system got a proper OGL.
In the Company of Dragons is initially written from an in-character perspective by a dragon by the name Thunders in Defiance, offering his knowledge of dragon society to the reader as payment for said reader saving his young from an undefined danger.
This book’s fluff presents a specific setting for dragons a la Council of Wyrms. There’s a separate plane of existence home to a chain of islands known as the Lost Isles forged by Our Lady of the Rainbow Scales, a deific figure in draconic culture. A cancerlike magical taint was formed from uncertain origin and contained in the Well of Oblivion, where dark mockeries known as undragons spawn from and threaten the rest of their kind.
This book’s dragons are known as taninim, who are a distinct species from true dragons. They are primarily differentiated by their plane of birth: an egg which hatches on the Lost Isles becomes a taninim baby, while anywhere outside it becomes a true dragon wyrmling. In terms of thematics there’s not really any difference: both can fly, breathe lines or cones of harmful energy, grow large, and so on. The major difference is that taninim are not forever locked into a single alignment. Taninim dragons are divided into three major groups: the Organizers, or Lung dragons tasked with watching over the world at the behest of spirits; the Feykin, small dragons who have butterfly wings and claim to be spawned from dreams; and Truescale taninim of whom the writer belongs and are the prototypical European-style dragons.
On a metagame level I feel that in the Pathfinder era the taninim distinction was meant to explain how dragon PCs lacked many of the more powerful features of the monster type. But in 5th Edition, where the rules for building PCs and NPCs are completely different even for the same race, this seems a bit unnecessary.
Taninim society is a feudal gerontocracy, where older dragons capable of holding the most land grant rights to less powerful dragons to live upon said land in exchange for service. The Elder Voices are a council of the five oldest dragons who only converge in times of crisis that affect the race as a whole. The creation of children and egg-laying has religious significance, where parents undergo magical rites to ensure the safe growth of their offspring.
Like true dragons their moral outlook has an effect on the physical make-up of their bodies, but unlike true dragons they are capable of changing their ethical outlook much as any human who undergoes a moral or philosophical re-examination. This causes taninim to be more guarded from their peers when they sense disillusionment with an ideology, and true dragons find taninim to be a bit disconcerting.
Finally, taninim names are varied but gained in three major ways: a hatchling name chosen by their parents, a deed name granted by the Elder Voices for some service, and a personally-chosen name. Tananim do not view names as an inherent part of one’s nature, and a dragon viewed as unworthy by the community or a rival of said name can be challenged for it much like a duel.
Taninim Race
Taninim are a race all their own with 3 subraces from which to choose. They can take classes like anyone else, but also have a Draconic Exemplar class unique to their race which emphasizes the stereotypical dragon traits.
Base taninim...don’t have much. In terms of advantageous traits they gain +1 to Constitution and Charisma, have darkvision, a natural bite attack, and proficiency in Insight and Perception. All base taninim can create lairs and hoards, the former granting an effective line of sight to all creatures within said lair regardless of cover, invisibility, or other conditions, while the latter grants advantage on saving throws and +1 AC if the tananim keeps a number of valuables equal to 1,000 gp times their level within said lair for a month.
Their (non-dangerous) foreclaws are manipulative enough to be as nimble as human hands, but that’s where the positives end. They are quadrupedal, meaning that they are limited in what kinds of equipment they can wear, all armor is more expensive, and they are never proficient with shields. And finally, you are a Small sized dragon: if you want to grow in size categories, you’ll either need to take appropriate feats or level up in Draconic Exemplar.
The three subraces are rather different in what kinds of boons they can give. Truescale gains +1 Strength and Wisdom, a true flight speed of 30 feet, along with a natural tail attack and a 1/long rest AoE air buffet wing attack. Lung dragons gain +2 Strength, a 40 feet speed in walking and climbing, +1 AC, natural claw attacks, and 1d10 bonus piercing damage to foes engaged in a grapple. Finally, the Feykin are Tiny size, have +2 Dexterity,a flight speed of 30 feet, elf-like resistances to charm and sleep effects, a sorcerer cantrip of their choice, and their size category can never change either short-term or permanently from any source.
In terms of the subraces, the Truescale is the most attractive one in terms of being a big honkin’ dragon. It has flight and unlike the feykin is optimized for melee combat. The Lung’s climbing ability is overall inferior to flight, and its natural claws deal less damage than the truescale’s tail attack and unlike said tail does not have reach. I can’t really see the Feykin as being appealing to most who’d buy this book save for one-off gimmicks, as there are already options for playing
small fairy-like beings also from the same publisher.
Tananim also get 3 new subclasses exclusive to their race: the Scaled Juggernaut’s a fighter subclass which grants increased bonuses to attack and damage rolls with claws, treat said claws as magical at 7th level, resistance to fire and cold damage, proficiency in all saving throws, and can Dash and knock an enemy prone with a claw attack. Its 18th level capstone is a Cleave-style ability which allows them to move their speed and make a claw attack for free for every foe they drop to 0 hit points to a maximum of 3 times per short rest. There’s also a new Fighting Style for base Fighters where a tananim gains +1 AC and 1d8 claw attacks or increased damage if they had them already, making the Lung even less appealing.
The other subclass is the White Worm Apostate domain for Clerics, which marks your character as an undragon pledged to the service of the god-like White Worm as your scales become infested with mold and worms. It grants bonus spells related to sickness, madness, and weakness, and its other class features include immunity to disease, using Channel Divinity to reduce the damage from any attack to 0 as a reaction, vomiting a swarm of worms which are treated as their own monsters who can gain hit points and attack/damage bonuses as you increase in level, and a 17th level capstone where 1/day you can spend a reaction to revive to full hit points with 1 level of exhaustion whenever you fail a death saving throw.
The Trueblood is a Sorcerer origin who represents the innate magical might of all dragons. They gain a draconic essence* which effectively grants them a breath weapon of scaling damage (max 6d6) in exchange for a moral compulsion, the ability to treat their own body as an arcane focus and not consume material components save on a natural 1 on a unique d20 roll, and at later levels gain more uses with their breath weapon between short rests and bonus essences. The 18th level capstone grants the ability to use a breath weapon as a bonus action for 3 sorcery points.
*described in the Draconic Exemplar class below.
The Scaled Juggernaut’s a bit of a one-trick pony, although proficiency in all saving throws is very nice. The White Worm Apostate has great defensive options, while the Trueblood is a bit overly-focused on breath weapons which makes it lack the versatile oomph of other sorcerer types. The ability to almost never need to worry about consuming material components is pretty nice, though.
But forget about those measly options. Do any of them help us grow into a mean, lean, greater-than-Small fighting machine? Well the
Draconic Exemplar is the answer to all your woes! This class is heavily martial but with a few utility abilities: it has an impressive d12 Hit Die, is proficient in Strength and Intelligence saving throws, and chooses 3 skills from mostly-cerebral options: Arcana, Athletics, History, Insight [even though the race is already proficient], Intimidation, Nature, Persuasion, and Survival. The class has absolutely no proficiencies in any weapons, armor, tools, and doesn’t even start with any gold or equipment. But you don’t care because
you’re a motherfucking dragon. When’s the last time you’ve seen Smaug wield a sword like a toothpick?
A Draconic Exemplar has a natural bite and claw attack whose damage dice and natural reach increase as they gain size categories: both attacks start out at a respectable 1d6, but at Gargantuan they are a mighty fine 2d10 and 1d12 respectively. You’re also proficient in them, and to make up for the lack of armor you add both your Dexterity and Constitution modifiers to the base 10 AC.
At 1st level the class has two important choices: a Draconic Gift and a Draconic Essence. The Gift determines the dragon’s preferred tactics: Gift of the Behemoth is all about strength, and includes options such as knocking people prone or flinging them into the air with natural attacks, immunity to the frightened condition, restoring hit points via sheer grit, and barreling through multiple opponents with a charge. Gift of the Ancients emphasizes one’s elemental nature, granting bonus energy damage to natural weapons, emitting a damaging energy field which also restores the dragon’s hit points, and can reflect magical spells back on the caster. The Gift of the Third Eye embeds a magical pearl in the dragon’s forehead, which gives them increased mental control over targets ranging from charm effects to mental suggestions and even damage just by glaring really hard. Even the magical and subtle abilities of the last gift add the Strength modifier to the DC, meaning that you can totally charm a target with your incredible reptilian pecs.
A Draconic Essence determines the specifics of the dragon’s scale color, breath weapons (which is a static 2d6), and a matching energy resistance based upon said breath weapon. There’s quite a lot representing existing true dragon clans, but each comes with a Compulsion that forces you to make a Wisdom saving throw when one acts against the nature of their Essence. Not all Compulsions are equal, and some are more deleterious to the typical party than others. For instance, the Balance compulsion forces a save whenever the dragon tries to commit an overtly good or evil deed, meaning that they may very well end up standing around doing nothing when the evil overlord’s army invades a city and is engaged in combat with their fellow PCs. Meanwhile, the Just compulsion forces a save whenever they’d commit an unjust action or allow one to happen without intervening, which isn’t very much different than how many good-aligned PCsoperate.
Draconic Exemplars also permanently grow one size category every 5 levels, to a maximum of Gargantuan at 20th. Feykin do not benefit from this but instead gain the ability to cast a new specific illusion spell (or Sleep at 5th) 1/day each every time they’d grow. The text explicitly calls out that size increases your weight and melee attack reach, but leaves the damage dice of your natural weapons unmentioned which implies that Feykin can still do some good damage even if they’re Tiny. But if you wanted to be optimized for melee, you’d be a Truescale or Lung who have Strength bonuses, and the bonus spells aren’t enough to make the Feykin on par with a Bard, Rogue, or illusionist Wizard.
For those times when going around as a dragon is too unsubtle, draconic exemplars can transform into a single identity of a humanoid form at 3rd level. They cannot use most of their form-specific class features while in this form, and given that the class has no real spells or weapon/armor proficiencies so one cannot really do much in said form.
At 5th level onwards the majority of their class features are combat-related: extra attacks at 5th and 14th level, advantage on initiative rolls and immunity to surprise attacks at 7th, counting natural weapons as magical at 9th, an AoE belly-flop at 13th, and at 18th an AoE roar which can frighten and deafen all targets in a cone.
Existing Class Comparisons: As a class the Draconic Exemplar is good at one thing: doing dragon things in combat. More utility features such as Gift of the Third Eye and the Feykin’s spells can be better accomplished by casting classes who have far more choices on top of that. But when it comes to wreaking havoc the Draconic Exemplar kicks ass. Only the Fighter gets more Extra Attacks, but the Exemplar has higher damage dice and reach on said attacks, while also being able to impose additional conditions with the right Gift and gains limited-use AoE attacks with their breath weapon, roar, and belly-flop. In comparison to the Barbarian the Exemplar has some similarities (hit dice, Con modifier to AC, advantage on initiative, etc) but in terms of superiority the barbarian can do better in terms of raw staying power from raging and Strength rolls at higher levels. In terms of damage in melee combat, a dragon’s bite as Large (2d6) catches up with a 1d12 greataxe, and the bonus extra attack at 14th level can outdamage the barbarian in most cases barring Brutal Criticals.
Making one’s natural weapons count as magical is a good idea,
given that there’s quite a bit of enemies in the Monster Manual which are either resistant or immune. In most cases they are extraplanar entities. It still doesn’t solve the problem of silver/adamantine/etc defenses, but is a step in the right direction.
The final section of the book are 12 new
Taninim Feats, which as usual are specific to their race. 3 of them relate to enhancing one’s breath weapon, such as imposing disadvantage on ability checks of the dragon’s choice to those caught within the line/cone, the ability to breath twice in two different directions as part of the same action, and the ability to reshape one’s breath weapon and avoid friendly fire for up to 2 targets. 3 more feats relate to biting, such as giving the incapacitated condition on a critical hit for 1 round, the ability to swallow a small enough target whole and deal acid damage to those inside,* and the ability to behead a creature on a critical hit which can kill a target provided they need said head to live and aren’t a boss monster (aka have legendary actions).** Two of the feats raise the dragon’s size category by 1*** as well as granting +1 to an ability score of their choice, while the remaining feats are miscellaneous effects. Complex Essence grants a bonus draconic essence which can make your scale colors dual or mixed colors in addition to choosing from 2 kinds of breath weapons; Dreaded Presence grants +1 Charisma, can make your voice up to three times louder, and gain advantage on all Intimidation checks. Flyby Attack allows you to avoid opportunity attacks provided you use your movement to fly out of a creature’s reach. Finally Greater Crush increases the damage of a belly-flop from 3d8 to 5d8 and deals half damage on a failed save rather than no damage.
*but an unfinished sentence on how to escape and said attempt’s DC.
**in which case it adds 6d8 bonus damage in addition to the critical hit effects.
***can’t be taken as a Draconic Exemplar.
The feats centered around breath weapons are both useful and cool, although the bite-based feats are more situational. Flyby Attack is great as it allows for reliable hit and run tactics. I am a bit mum on the size category increasing ones. Although the +1 to an ability score each time prevents it from being too much of a tax, you can only grow to a maximum of Large size and the only benefits greater-than-Medium categories grant in 5th Edition are increased reach. Meaning that you’re making a long-term investment to hit up to 10 feet away (15 if Truescale with tail) with your natural weapons, which a human Fighter with a reach weapon can effectively do without any feat expenditures.
Final Thoughts: In the Company of Dragons is an okay book. The sample race on its own is not exactly impressive in terms of delivering on the “be a badass dragon” angle, and given their similarities in roles and styles I cannot see any player picking a Scaled Juggernaut Fighter over a Draconic Exemplar. The truescale subrace is way too appealing an option in comparison to the others.
The product’s new class is the star of the show, and it provides both a simple yet effective 20 level class. The Draconic Exemplar’s major weaknesses are that there’s not much it can do outside of combat, but the same can easily be said of the Barbarian and Fighter. The breath weapon is a bit weak at a static 2d6, and only a Trueblood Sorcerer increases its base value. As it is a once per short rest ability, I’d personally make it scale like the Sorcerer archetype given that said class already has a bunch of damage-increasing blasty spell options while the Draconic Exemplar doesn’t.
The discussion of taninim society feels a bit tacked on, and is actually cribbed from the much larger Pathfinder supplement. The fluff on the Council of Wyrms-flavored setting cannot help but make one feel that the word space could’ve been given over to further development on mechanics. I imagine that most players aren’t going to care about the differences from “true dragons,” and given how many settings handle the nature and culture of dragons differently the race and class are good enough as-is for a settingless Dragon PC option.
Join us next time as we teleport around in the air like we just don’t care with the Mist Walker!
