Unlike with the Draconomicon I: Chromatic Dragons, Draconomicon II: Metallic Dragons doesn’t add a whole new swath of planar dragons to the game.¹ I’m pretty damn happy about this decision, not just because I’m so very tired of new planar dragons, but also because there’s much less to cover this time around. Hell, if I’d skipped this work completely I don’t think anyone would particularly care. But as with the previous draconomicon and Open Grave: Secrets of the Undead, there’s a new group of planar lairs added to the game, thereby expanding our knowledge of this dumb cosmology. I’m not going to cover the rest of the book, which has an overwhelming  amount of advice for GMs about running dragons, but if you’re interested in hearing about what else it has to offer I recommend Shannon Appelcline’s summary of it here. And given that Fourth Edition’s metallic dragons differ dramatically from the metallic dragons in every other edition, its general usefulness is pretty limited.

The first of the book’s planar lairs is “The Edge of Chaos,” now home to a mithral dragon who went crazy and wiped out a githzerai monastery because of the voices in her head. This dragon, Astridaria, doesn’t seem like a bad person,  just completely insane in a way that can be genocidally dangerous when you happen to be an elder mithral dragon. Incidentally, mithral dragons are the only planar dragons added to this book, and are mostly noted for their abilities to see into the future and teleport, which sounds amazing in theory but in game terms just allows them to teleport away when hit… and that’s it. There’s also the aspect of mithral dragons very existence that I find silly in that they feel like a fourth grader bragging that they know what’s cooler than a gold dragon—a mithral dragon. Anyhow, Astridaria’s purpose in wiping out the githzerai was to begin a war between the Elemental Chaos and the Astral Sea. This is a nonsensical idea for so many reasons, but that’s ok: she’s supposed to be insane, and I rather like the idea that she believes she’s receiving divine visions but in actuality she’s just committing atrocities. 

As for the lair itself, it’s a hollowed out monastery named Vyc Zaleeth that “sits upon an earth mote swaying between competing tides of a sea of fire and an ocean of water amid a particularly turbulent area at the edge of the Elemental Chaos.” Astridaria has angel henchmen, plus a dark naga follower that even the book notes is inexplicable, but it’s not a terribly interesting location in itself. Still, I quite like Astridaria, and though I wouldn’t use this location as it seems contrived in many ways (there’s essentially a laser trap for reasons I’m not getting into), I can see adapting this central concept, even in a Great Wheel version of the planes.

Citadel of the Golden Architect is set in the Shadowfell, where an enslaved dragon offered construction advice to death giants in ages past. The death giant civilization he helped build is long since gone, but his lair still moves about and captures people for him to eat and for his handful of death giant servants to devour souls.² Half of this sounds interesting, as seeing a super-powered dragon as the victim for once is an interesting twist (once again the dragon here is now insane), but the lair itself swooping around the Shadowfell is unimpressive. How it’s controlled, for instance, is never explored, and there’s a general wishy-washy nature to how all of this is supposed to work. There also isn’t really a hook here, and the dragon Golorax and his weird swooping citadel feels like just another part of the Shadowfell for the most part. It’s like 40% of a good idea, which isn’t nearly enough to make useful.

Last of these new lairs is The Earthen Dagger, “a great inverted mountain” that’s another massive earthmote floating amidst the Elemental Chaos. It randomly flits between this plane and the Prime Material Plane, i.e. “the natural world,” and a mercury dragon named Tananzinaen began using the place as his hiding spot in eras past. He’s now ancient and works as a mercenary for reasons not really explored. And, uhh, he just kinda chills there, and if players feel like it I guess they can be dicks and get all stabbity at him. The Earthen Dagger itself reminds me a tiny bit of the Planebreaker from Path of the Planebreaker, only infinitely less impressive. The lack of reasoning for why it moves back and forth between these two worlds feels contrived rather than compelling, and there’s very little to see on his earthmote besides Tananzinaen himself. 

So yes, three new lairs, none of which you’ll want to write home about. Fortunately, I believe that this is the last book in this small series, so hopefully we won’t be needing to run through another set of random planar lairs again. That means we get to focus on entire books filled with Fourth Edition planar material instead…yay….

1. By the way, I added those roman numerals in parity with online listings, and were I a more proper editor I’d use the actual names of the books even though I think that this naming convention adds clarity. This is the third draconomicon we’ve covered in this series alone… and really the worst of them so far.
2. Fourth Edition has been absolutely obsessed with the concept of consuming or otherwise obliterating souls, a fascination I find disturbing.