The Lorekeeper's Tome

The Black Dragon is the wyrm of ruined and broken places - the works of men brought low: the crumbling tower, the corroded castle, the great hall pitted and eaten away. And the ruin is often the dragon's own doing. A Black Dragon takes some proud fortress for its lair, and over years its caustic breath and acid presence eat the stone hollow, until it broods at the heart of a dripping, half-dissolved shell of what was once a stronghold. Its breath is a spray of searing acid that shears through armor, shield, and flesh alike. Black Dragons are spiteful and cunning, and there is a particular cruelty to their nature: they are drawn to magnificence so that they may ruin it, and they take a slow pleasure in the dissolving of fine and proud things.