Draeden

In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, draedens are massive, ancient beings that predate the multiverse.

Publication history

The draeden first appeared in the Dungeons & Dragons Immortal Rules set (1986).^[1] The creature later appeared in Wrath of the Immortals (1992).

Description

A draeden's rarely-seen true appearance is a cluster of about forty tubular strands, all symmetrically attached at a central node. Each strand has a mouth at its end, and opens upon a digestive passage that leads to the central node. The node is spherical and ridged, resembling a human brain, and is the creature's equivalent of a stomach. It contains several boulders to aid digestion. A draeden's nervous system spans its entire body. The creatures's total length varies from 19 to 38 miles, tip to tip. The central node usually comprises one-tenth of the creature's total diameter. Draeden usually appear to other creatures as the most deadly thing imaginable to those creatures.

Draeden dislike matter, and if they ever encounter it they try to eat it. They have near-perfect anti-magic capabilities. That plus many other defenses serve to protect them from most attack forms.

The exact population of draeden is unknown but thought to be at least one thousand. Draeden consider the entire multiverse to be their domain, but they will not attack Immortals to assert their dominion. Instead, they wait until Immortals are absent to assert themselves. Draedens have conflicted with the immortals and deities in the past but they generally avoid each other whenever possible.

The 92nd layer of the Abyss, known as Ulgurshek, is actually a draeden who lay dormant while the Abyss formed around it.^[2]

Other draedens may exist in dormancy deep within the Paraelemental Plane of Ice, entrapped in similar fashion to Ulgurshek, eons ago by the waxing reality of the Great Wheel's inner planes.^[3]

References

1. ^ Mentzer, Frank. Immortals Rules, Dungeon And Dragons Fantasy Role-playing Game Set 5 (ISBN 0-88038-341-0) (TSR, Inc., 1986). Pages 38-39.
2. ^ Jacobs, James, Erik Mona, and Ed Stark. Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss (Wizards of the Coast, 2006). Page 126.
3. ^ Cook, Monte. The Inner Planes (ISBN 0-7869-0736-3) (Wizards of the Coast, 1998). See pages 72, "The Sleeping Ones," and 79, "The Monolith."