Let's pretend it's still 2024. It may now be the Year of the Snake, but in my heart it's still the Year of the Dragon!
Here's something from OD&D:
And here's a similar excerpt from AD&D:
In OD&D, groups of multiple dragons encountered in the wilderness are always a family group (a mated pair with or without very young dragon children). In AD&D, mated pairs with young are encountered only in their lairs (mated pairs without young can still be encountered outside their lairs). If three or more dragons are encountered outside their lair, all dragons in the group will be sub-adults.
What's mildly interesting about this is that a mated pair of dragons can only ever have two young at most (all dragons in AD&D appear in groups of 1 to 4 except the gold dragons, which appear in groups of 1 to 3). Thus, it's impossible for a group of 3 to 4 sub-adult dragons to all be of the same clutch. They will all be the same type of dragon, but at most only two of them can be siblings.
Furthermore, dragon children encountered with a mated pair are only ever very young dragons. For clarity, here is the breakdown of dragon age categories in AD&D:
So let's say you roll up a random encounter with a dragon/dragons. If you roll up one dragon, it can be of any age category (you roll d8 to determine which, as described above). If you roll up two dragons, they will be a mated pair, and each can be either an adult dragon, old dragon, very old dragon, or ancient dragon. If you roll up three or more dragons in their lair, they will be a mated pair with one or two eggs or very young dragons. If you roll up three or more dragons outside their lair, they will all be sub-adults.
This suggests something of a lifecycle for dragons, which I'll detail below.
Very young dragons can be encountered alone in the wilderness or in the lair with their parents. They typically live with their parents. If you encounter one on its own in the wilderness, it has either snuck out of the lair (and perhaps its parents are looking for it!), or it's an orphan - its parents were killed and it was driven from its home. Sad!
Young dragons are only encountered alone. They are kicked out of the lair at 6 years of age to make it on their own. Sad! Dragons are not particularly great parents. Since you can't encounter more than one of them at this age, siblings do not stick together (this is presumably when rivalries between sibling dragons develop - maybe this is why they're kicked out, or maybe this is simply when dragons begin to experience angst and wish to go it on their own).
Sub-adult dragons are only encountered alone or, in the wilderness, with groups of two to three peers. At this age (late teens to early 20s), lonely dragons of different parentage come together to form roving wilderness gangs. Since solo sub-adults can be encountered in their lair, presumably those encountered alone either have a lair somewhere (and thus no need to be part of a gang), or are just on the cusp of sub-adulthood and have not yet found a gang to join. Because all such dragons will be of the same type, these dragons must be drawn together by a shared identity but not necessarily a maternal bond (since siblings part ways at the young stage).
Young adult dragons are only encountered alone. Perhaps this is when dragons tire of the company of their peers or begin to form rivalries with them, as they did with their siblings. Those who don't already have a lair will now seek to claim one.
Adult, old, very old, and ancient dragons can be encountered alone or together, without young in the wilderness and with or without young in their lairs. This is the age at which dragons look to "settle down", find a mate, and start laying eggs. They only do so with dragons of the same type, so ignore that part in my last post where I suggested that the black and green dragon encountering one another might be engaged in a mating ritual. Or don't! Perhaps two dragons of different types will get busy with one another but wouldn't stoop so low as to have children together (or are incapable of doing so for biological reasons). It can be whatever flavor of weird you want.
Anyway, this seems like it could be a cool way to flavor your encounters with dragons. Is the very young dragon sneaking out to explore? Are its parents looking for it? Are they dead? Is the young dragon angsty and bitter? Is the sub-adult a weird loner, a confident bachelor, or a stooge in some other dragon's gang? Does the young adult dragon have a friend-turned-rival? Is the adult, old, very old, or ancient dragon looking for love or happily in a relationship?
I just like the idea of a gang of teenaged dragons swooping down out of the sky. Maybe you do too!
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