Dragon Hatchling

Overview

Dragons are among the most powerful beings in Rifts — immense, magical, near-immortal, and casually able to wear a human face. A hatchling is a dragon at the start of that long life: already stronger, tougher, and more magical than any human, already able to breathe destruction and assume a mortal shape, but centuries away from its true might. Playing a hatchling is playing the youngest member of an apex species, learning to be what it already is.

A dragon isn't a humanoid with a strong heritage, so the Dragon Hatchling is a fused ancestry-and-class package: this ancestry is locked to the Dragon class, and that class is available only to this ancestry. The ancestry carries the immutable draconic nature; the class paces the dragon's growth across 20 levels — so a level-1 hatchling is promising, not a monster, and a dragon player spends both their ancestry and their class on being a dragon rather than getting a dragon on top of a full class.

At a glance

• Bound to the Dragon class. A Dragon Hatchling must take the Dragon class, and that class can be taken only by a Dragon Hatchling. The two are one character concept — you can't multiclass out of or into the Dragon class.
• Draconic body. You have a jaws unarmed attack (1d6 piercing) and claws (1d4 slashing, agile), both in the brawling group with the unarmed trait. Your scales mark you unmistakably as a dragon in your true form — you pass as an ordinary creature only by taking the Dragon class's Two Forms feat (which lets you assume a humanoid guise).
• Old soul. Even as a hatchling you carry a dragon's instincts and pride. You're trained in Intimidation, and you treat your level as one higher when determining the effects of age, disease, and natural lifespan.

Heritages

Choose one at level 1 — the many Rifts dragon "types" collapse into two broad draconic lines to start.

• Brute-Scaled. Your line runs to size and muscle. Your jaws deal 1d8 instead of 1d6, and you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to Athletics to Shove, Trip, and Grapple.
• Storm-Blooded. Your line runs to sorcery and storm. You gain a damaging cantrip (such as electric arc) as an at-will innate spell-like using Charisma, and a +1 circumstance bonus to checks to identify magic.

Ancestry feats

The Dragon class's Draconic Evolutions own the heavy growth — flight, scales, breath upgrades, frightful presence, magic. These ancestry feats are smaller flourishes of body, blood, and bearing that deliberately don't overlap the class menu.

Level 1

• Lashing Tail. You gain a tail unarmed attack (1d6 bludgeoning, reach 10 feet, backswing). The Dragon class's Tail Lash Evolution can extend its reach further.
• Frightful Glare. Your draconic stare is unsettling. +1 circumstance bonus to Demoralize, and you can Demoralize a creature even without a shared language.
• Hoard Sense. A dragon knows wealth by instinct. You sense the direction and rough value of precious metals and gemstones within 60 feet, and gain a +1 circumstance bonus to appraise objects or find hidden valuables.

Level 5

• Draconic Willfulness. Your pride armors your mind. +1 circumstance bonus to saves against fear and mental effects, and a success on a save against a fear effect becomes a critical success.
• Wyrmtongue. You innately speak with and understand reptiles and other dragons, and gain a +1 circumstance bonus to Diplomacy and Intimidation against dragons, reptiles, and beasts.

Level 9

• Unsettling Bulk. Your sheer draconic presence makes foes hesitate. While in your true form, enemies treat the squares adjacent to you as difficult terrain when moving away from you (mundane wariness, not a magical effect).

Level 13

• Dragon's Majesty. Your true form is awe-inspiring. +1 circumstance bonus to Diplomacy to Make an Impression and to Intimidation, and creatures that have witnessed your true form take a −1 circumstance penalty to lie to you.