The True Dragons for which Dragon Pass is named are immense creatures whose main occupation is sleeping, dreaming of greater days during the God Time, and entertaining emissaries of the warring factions of the area. If the dragon likes an emissary, he joins its side. If he doesn’t, he eats him.
True Dragons cannot be bothered by individual Heroes or even small armies. And since they are above such things as the collection of gold, they have no hoards to tempt the unwary.
However, the mind of a dragon is a powerful thing. While it dreams, its baser nature, the suppressed desires for blood and gold, comes out. The dreaming thought of a dragon can wander about the entirety of Glorantha at will, and when blood and gold are available to those thoughts, a dragon may stir. His dreams take tangible form as a sort of “mind child” of the dragon.
Dream Dragons
The dream dragon has physical form, created by the mind of the true dragon. Taken from the subconscious mind of its creator it cannot match the true magnitude of an awake dragon. The full dragon thinks of its creation as a dream, of course, but dragons have traditionally been unable to separate dream from reality. Like a human dream, the dream dragon may manifest all the unfortunate subconscious traits of its creator, expressed in greed and bloodthirstiness. They are usually found alone, sitting on a heap of money and gems. Their usual form is serpentine with four legs and a pair of wings. They often have a fiery or poisonous breath. There is no way to tell just what a particular dragon can or cannot use as a “breath weapon,” as each is individually created at the whim of a full dragon’s subconscious. They are called dream or pseudo dragons by sages acquainted with their origins. Others call them serpentine dragons, or just dragons.
Those that attack dragons face their terrible claws and horrible breath, be it poison, fire, or frost.