Few creatures can match the power and splendor of dragons. Armed with claws and fangs that can rend steel, armored in scales as tough as iron, faster than an eagle in flight, and strong enough to shatter castle gates, a full-grown dragon is an awesome foe. Dragons would be exceedingly dangerous creatures even if they were dumb, ordinary beasts, because of their size and power. But they are also gifted with cold, calculating reason and furnaces of elemental energy that provide them with terrible breath weapons.

In some places and times, dragons are scarcely more than legend, creatures so rare and mysterious that centuries pass without a sighting of one. In other times, dragons rule over the world, darkening the skies and destroying or subjugating lesser beings. The current age falls somewhere between these extremes. In the few centers of civilization, dragons are a rare sight. The typical farmer or merchant might see a dragon only once or twice in his life. But in the borderlands or the great wide wildernesses surrounding those domains, dragons are much more common.

A special thanks goes to Jon Schindehette, art director for this project, plus artists and cartographers Jason A. Engle, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, Dave Allsop, Kerem Beyit, Zoltan Boros & Gabor Szikszai, Chippy, Wayne England, Jason A. Engle, Tomas Giorello, Lars Grant-West, Ralph Horsley, Howard Lyon, William O’Connor, Chris Seaman, Franz Vohwinkel, and Todd Lockwood.