An Alternative Ecology of Dragons, Kobolds, and Dragonborn
Dragons. Massive, majestic, murderous. Few monsters evoke as much fear or awe as the dragon, found in nearly every world mythology in some form or another. But a monster of such size and power raises a number of critical questions about where it fits into the ecology of a world, if at all.
The easiest response is to say that they don't. That dragons are rare enough, (or even unique) that despite their size and power, they don't so much affect the ecology as perhaps destroy and disrupt it. That they are monsters in every sense, unnatural and damaging to the environment. But this does not suit the assumptions of many fantasy worlds. Dragons are rarely common, exactly, but they are by no means extremely rare.
All that being said, here is one particular take on their ecology, and a bit of their society, as it were, that gamemasters can use to deepen their worldbuilding.
It all starts with the egg, as one might expect. Female dragons lay large clutches on a semi-annual basis, whether or not they have mated recently. There is some indication that like some terrestrial species, a female dragon or 'queen' can save sperm from matings for years at a time, and indeed, can choose to fertilize her eggs (or leave them unfertilized) from any number of past mates, even in the same clutch. This allows them to have any number of true dragon offspring from a clutch up to the total number of eggs laid, or as few as none. Very rarely does a queen choose to fertilize more than a handful of her eggs, even if she has laid several dozen. She also seems to be able to choose the sex of her offspring, and almost universally chooses to have 4 males to every female.
So what happens to the unfertilized eggs? Well, much like a hive insect on our world, a dragon queen's unfertilized eggs produce a third sex, a neuter drone. Unlike the real world, these neuter drones have a very different morphology, and rarely get much larger than they are at the time of hatching. These neuter drones, otherwise genetic copies or clones of their queen, are humanoid in shape, and act as servants, gatherers of food...all the things workers do in a hive. External observers, unaware of the true nature of their relationship to dragons, call these drones kobolds. Servitor, or drone kobolds, are the same color as their queen.
So where do the common rust brown kobolds come from? Sometimes, when a kobold colony loses their queen, or members travel too far from the queen and cannot make their way back, the drones differentiate into two different sexes, while usually retaining the same base morphology. In other words, they remain kobolds (except when occasionally one becomes a winged kobold or other sport, which also occurs in a queen's nest from time to time), but now are able to mate, and propagate their own 'species'. Over time and several generations, they lose the color of their queen and become what we see as 'common' kobolds. Even then, they often seek to return to the service of a queen. Such is their basic instinct. On rare occasions, in a region nearly free of dragons, a kobold matriarch (they do retain the draconic matriarchal structure) will, over time, with sufficient treasure and magic, develop back into a dragon...but that is exceedingly rare.
Enough about kobolds, for now. What about dragons themselves? Remember, the ratio of sexes is four males to every female. In addition, females tend to be considerably larger and stronger than males, as well as more intelligent. This results in a strongly matriarchal 'society' if that term can be applied to so loose a structure.
Let's go back to the clutch, and the hatching. Newly hatched dragons are tended with differing levels of attention and affection based on the subtype of dragon and their individual inclinations, but become self sufficient very rapidly, even before leaving the wyrmling stage.
Dragons of all kinds are fiercely independent, and wyrmlings travel quite far from their original lair to find a hunting range. Only the females, however, establish extensive long term lairs. Only the queens establish hoards. Over time, each queen will attract as many as 8 or 10 lesser males as long term mates. Each of them hunts and patrols in a territory satellite to, and subject to, hers. All their territories belong to her, though there is often fierce competition between the males for the best hunting ranges. The queens compete fiercely too, on a much larger scale.
The quality of a territory, and the hunting ranges within it, is determined mostly by two factors: the availability of large prey, making hunting more efficient, and the availability of treasure. Male dragons have a magpie like attraction to shiny treasures, with a human or greater intellect causing them to prioritize certain high quality treasures over others. One of the reasons for this is that dragons require metals and minerals in their diet to maintain their scales and bones, and dragon queens require even more, to provide for their clutches and themselves. Such minerals are easier to take from others that have already mined them...but also explains why so many dragons take up residence in former dwarven mines, where such fare is plentiful. Magic is also prized, as the simple radiations from magical items are absorbed into the flesh and scales of a dragon queen through long proximity, fueling her growth, her powers, and her clutch.
When a male wishes to mate, or even simply to join a queen's harem and add his territory to hers, he brings her gifts of prey, and of treasure, and of magic. If she accepts him, she eats the offering, or stores it in her hoard for consumption or absorption. They then mate, at her discretion. If she does not accept him...she drives him off, if of a 'good' disposition, or eats him, if 'evil'. Either way, she always keeps the offering.
If she consumes so much of the treasure, why does she still have a large horde? There are two reasons, both having to do with how and why such a large creature can sustain itself without destroying everything near it. One, they are constantly gathering more. The mightier or more attractive the queen, the more tribute she receives, and thus the larger the hoard, constantly replenished. Two, even though she eats much of the hoard, there are parts of it she cannot digest, even with her nearly perfectly efficient digestive system. She cannot digest heavy metals like gold, platinum, and the like, so those accumulate over time, either never ingested or passed as fewmets. She cannot digest a hard gem if it is without flaw for her stomach processes to work on, and she cannot digest magic items until she has first absorbed all the magic therein. If she is slain, all the magic she has absorbed returns to the items remaining in the hoard, and some items that were not already magical become so.
Her extraordinarily efficient digestive system also explains the lack of traditional droppings anywhere near her lair...biological material is simply used in its entirety, and her fewmets are in fact indistinguishable from her hoard.
In canon, dragonborn have several different origins. In the old days, they were humanoids transformed by the power of Bahamut into dragonborn by choice. Some such dragonborn still exist. In the Realms, now, the main species came from Toril's sister world Abeir, where they might have been made as servants for the dragons by Io, or they might have sprung from Io's blood when he was slain.
Either way, they seem to have had a long existence as slaves to the dragons of Abeir. But in our own worlds, we need not be married to this backstory. That being the case, here is an alternate origin and ecology for the dragonborn species.
Previously, we discussed how kobolds form, naturally, from the unfertilized eggs of dragon queens, as drones, effectively. Let's follow that line of thought. In some species , like ants, that have worker drones, there are also soldiers. Specialized members of the species that engage in defense of the
group. It seems a fairly obvious extension, then, that at least the first dragonborn came about in this fashion. Dragon queens produce, from their unfertilized eggs, a standard ratio of about 90 percent workers (Kobolds) to soldiers (Dragonborn). Natural mutation explains some variation here, and like the kobolds, when dragonborn are separated from a queen for extended periods of time, they can develop gender and sexual characteristics, and breed true. Soldiers, by their nature, have to be more independent than workers, so far more of them go rogue, sometimes even by choice, and strike off on their own to gain freedom, or are freed by the death of their queen. Some might even revolt against their overlord and slay it. Such behavior has even been found in ants!
Nevertheless, as dragons are an ancient race, the grand majority of the dragonborn in the world today are descendants of the free dragonborn who developed genders and reproductive capability. The majority of dragonborn breed with other dragonborn of their own color. Those that do not, in most cases, breed true as the phenotype of one parent or the other. Sometimes, however, they do not, and hybrids occur, with a mixture of traits from parents. In such cases, you might find a dragonborn with both gold and red scales, or one that mixed blue and red evenly enough to appear purple. Their breath might match one parent or the other...or be a hybrid as well, such as a black and red breathing acidic flaming napalm...
Free dragonborn will cluster in dragonborn communities for the most part, while some of course will join in cosmopolitan societies. Servitor dragonborn will remain near their queens, and share their alignment and outlook, except for an inborn tendency toward lawfulness and obedience. Free dragonborn tend toward lawful and honorable due to this instinctive factor, and they favor classes and subclasses that reflect their codes, like Paladins, Cavaliers, Samurai.
Many free dragonborn hate true dragons, especially chromatic, as they had to fight for their freedom, at least in the ancient past if not recently. But some free dragonborn, especially metallic, might well have been allowed to leave in peace, and their people retain good relationships with the dragons from whom they long ago sprung. Note that free dragonborn, unlike their servitor cousins, are not required to have any similarity in alignment to the dragons of their color. Not that every dragon can be judged by their color anyway.
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