# Character Creation *Source: Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, p. 9* From the folk hero dreaming of liberating their people from a tyrannical blue dragon's reign to the idealistic acolyte who imagines purging the world of Tiamat's corruption, many adventurers aspire to be dragonslayers. In time, some have their dreams realized—or shattered in spectacular fashion, as they discover they are woefully unprepared for the threat a dragon poses. This chapter is for any D&D character who hopes or fears that they might one day face a dragon. But this chapter is also for the bard who has made a lifelong study of dragonsong, the cleric devoted to Bahamut, and the warlock who made an eldritch pact with a moonstone dragon. For dragons are not always adversaries. They can be patrons, allies, and benefactors; they can scheme in the shadows; and they can dramatically shape adventurers' lives. The following sections present a variety of options for creating characters with a tie to dragons: ""Draconic Races"" presents variant dragonborn race options to give characters a draconic heritage strongly linked to the three great dragon families. ""Subclass Options"" allows monk and ranger characters to explore deeper ties with dragonkind. ""Heroes of the Dragon"" includes inspiration for characters of any class to portray their training or magic as derived from a connection to dragons. ""Draconic Feats"" provides feats to forge connections to the chromatic, gem, and metallic dragon families.  ## Draconic Races > [!quote] A quote from Fizban > > It's all too easy to prefer a certain color of dragonborn, but what's inside is what really matters—which is to say, the sort of damage their breath can do to you. The "dragonborn" race in the "Player's Handbook" is the most direct way to reflect a character with dragons somewhere far back in their ancestry. But for players who want to try a more nuanced approach, this section offers three variant dragonborn race options that can be used to create a character with clear connections to a specific draconic ancestry. When you're making a new character using one of these races, use the rules under "Creating Your Character" to fill out the details. ### Creating Your Character When you create your D&D character, you decide whether your character is a member of the human race or one of the game's fantastical races. If you select one of the dragonborn races in this chapter, follow these additional rules during character creation. #### Ability Score Increases When determining your character's ability scores, increase one of those scores by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1. Follow this rule regardless of the method you use to determine the scores, such as rolling or point buy. The "Quick Build" section for your character's class offers suggestions on which scores to increase. You're free to follow those suggestions or to ignore them. Whichever scores you decide to increase, none of the scores can be raised above 20. #### Languages Your character can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character. The "Player's Handbook" offers a list of widespread languages to choose from. The DM is free to add or remove languages from that list for a particular campaign. #### Creature Type Every creature in D&D, including every player character, has a special tag in the rules that identifies the type of creature they are. Most player characters are of the Humanoid type. A race option presented here tells you what your character's creature type is. Here's a list of the game's creature types in alphabetical order: Aberration, Beast, Celestial, Construct, Dragon, Elemental, Fey, Fiend, Giant, Humanoid, Monstrosity, Ooze, Plant, Undead. These types don't have rules themselves, but some rules in the game affect creatures of certain types in different ways. For example, the [cure wounds](/Rules/Source/spells/cure-wounds-xphb.md) spell doesn't work on a Construct or an Undead. - [Chromatic Dragonborn](/Rules/Source/races/dragonborn-xphb.md) - [Gem Dragonborn](/Rules/Source/races/dragonborn-gem-ftd.md) - [Metallic Dragonborn](/Rules/Source/races/dragonborn-xphb.md) ## Subclass Options At 3rd level, a monk gains the Monastic Tradition class feature and a ranger gains the Ranger Archetype class feature. This section presents two new options for those features—the Drakewarden for the ranger and the Way of the Ascendant Dragon for the monk. - Monk: Way of the Ascendant Dragon - Ranger: Drakewarden > [!gallery] >  >  ## Heroes of the Dragon Sorcerers whose magic comes from a draconic origin, rangers with a drake companion, and monks who learn the ways of dragon masters are not the only adventurers whose skills, spells, and class features can have their source in the power of dragons. A character of any class can have strong ties to dragonkind. The Draconic Character Ties table provides ideas you might draw on as inspiration for infusing your character with draconic flavor. The classes noted in parentheses at the end of each entry are particularly appropriate for a given tie, but you are not limited to those options.  ## Draconic Feats A feat represents a character achieving mastery in one of their capabilities or discovering the ability to do something new. When this mastery arises from a draconic source—whether it's the gift of a dragon, the manifestation of some form of draconic heritage, the blessing of a draconic god, or a consequence of slaying a dragon—it can have supernatural effects. Here are feats that bestow draconic power, available to you if you use the "optional feat rule" in the "Player's Handbook". - [Gift of the Chromatic Dragon](/Rules/Source/feats/gift-of-the-chromatic-dragon-ftd.md) - [Gift of the Gem Dragon](/Rules/Source/feats/gift-of-the-gem-dragon-ftd.md) - [Gift of the Metallic Dragon](/Rules/Source/feats/gift-of-the-metallic-dragon-ftd.md)