Elemental Dragon

Five different flavors of dragon.

For as long as history remembers, stories about mythical beasts have been told from generation to generation. Among them, the most famous and possibly the most powerful of them all are dragons. There have been many different types of dragons in many cultures throughout human history, from Fairy Dragons to Draconic Abominations. But because of the Rule of Cool, many dragons have Elemental Powers.

Historically, Western dragons have been strongly associated with fire since the European Middle Ages, and fire remained their primary field of power in modern fantasy fiction. The earliest common deviations from this mold were ice dragons, typically presented as deliberate contrasts to and inversions of common fire-based dragons; even today, ice dragons tend to show alongside their fiery kind even when other types of elemental dragons do not. The appearance of dragons with distinct elemental powers implicitly opened the door for further explorations on this theme, and in modern fantasy dragons with varyingly abstruse powers, such as poison, acid and electricity, are common sights, often producing full elemental rainbows of dragons, especially in video and tabletop games.

Elemental dragons are often found in environments corresponding to their element. For example, fire dragons often live in very hot places such as lava fields, while water dragons are often found near or in bodies of water. There are even dragons that physically embody the element they possess. Elemental dragons also tend to have Breath Weapons corresponding to their element.

Many dragons have the standard classical elements (fire, water, wind, and earth), while others have elements related to the classics (lightning, smoke, ice, etc).

Air- and weather-themed variants in particular are often Feathered Dragons. Water dragons can also overlap with Sea Serpents.

Subtrope of Elemental Variation and Our Dragons Are Different; compare Underground Monkey (which this can help achieve). Sister trope to Elemental Zombie. Subtrope of Dragon Variety Pack, which covers general cases of multiple dragon varieties coexisting in a single setting.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Delicious in Dungeon: Each dragon type has a different element and a corresponding Breath Weapon:
  • Red dragons are wingless and breathe fire.
  • White dragons have ice breath capable of freezing a person solid.
  • Eastern dragons can cause storms and lightning strikes.
  • Leviathans are whale-like beasts that can spontaneously generate salt water wherever they are.
  • Wurms breathe poisonous gas.
• Fairy Tail: Dragons and humans with dragon slayer magic alike have elements they are associated with. Natsu is the most famous example because he is a fire dragon slayer.
• Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Kanna is a storm dragon with control over electricity, though her spin-off indicates that she's also capable of using more generic fire breath.

Card Games

• Magic: The Gathering: Dragons are the iconic creatures of Red (the color of chaos, fire, mountains, and raw emotion), although they've shown up in all other colors with less frequency.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Any Dragon- or Wyrm-type monster is associated with one of the six attributes, mostly FIRE.
  • The LIGHT-attribute Dragons can roughly be identified for their light/white colouring, like "Seleglare the Luminous Lunar Dragon", "Starry Night, Starry Dragon", "Albion the Sanctifire Dragon", members of the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" line and its correlated "Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon", "Dragon Spirit of White" and "Legendary Dragon of White"; and angelic wings, like "Lightsworn's Ultimate Light Dragon", "Light End Dragon" and "Gragonith, Lightsworn Dragon".
  • LIGHT-attribute Wyrms and Dragons can also be identified by the yellow/golden coloration of their bodies: "Ringowurm, the Dragon Guarding the Hundred Apples", the Tenyi Spirits "Ashuna" and "Sahasrara", "Aether, the Empowering Dragon", "Kaiser Glider - Golden Burst", "Number 100: Numeron Dragon", and "Radiant Vouirescence".
  • Some DARK-attribute dragons are variations on the "Red-Eyes Black Dragon" archetype, that is, an obsidian-coloured dragon with red eyes. Examples include "Black Skull Dragon" (a Fusion card between Summoned Skull and Red-Eyes B. Dragon), "Red-Eyes Black Meteor Dragon" and "Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon" (two dark blue-coloured dragons with red highlights over their bodies), "Red-Eyes Alternative Black Dragon" (a monstrously large dragon with dark crimson coloration) and "Red-Eyes Black Flare Dragon" (an emaciated/skeletal dark purple dragon).
  • The WATER-attribute encapsulates several ice-/snow-themed dragons. To wit, "Snowdust Dragon", "White Night Dragon" (a giant blue, crystalline dragon), "Snow Dragon", "Blizzard Dragon", "Dragon Ice", "Gungnir, Dragon of the Ice Barrier", the Trishula-archetype ("Trishula, Zero Dragon of the Ice Barrier", "Trishula, the Dragon of Icy Imprisonment" and "Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier") and "Invoked Cocytus" (the latter one is a bit of a Genius Bonus since Cocytus is the frozen prison of Hell in Dante's Inferno).
  • The WATER-attribute also has some dragons whose names/appearances allude to their watery connection, such as "Tidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls" and "Stream, Dragon Ruler of Droplets", and "Number 17: Leviathan Dragon" (since Leviathan is a mythological being linked to water).
  • WATER-attribute Wyrms follow the example of their draconic brethren: for the ice dragons, there are "Nidhogg, Generaider Boss of Ice" and "Phantasm Spiral Dragon" (whose card image shows a light blue dragon flying in an icy plain). As for the aquatic dragons, "Bixi, Water of the Yang Zing" is a cross between a wyrm and a turtle, and "Mudragon of the Swamp" is a blue dragon rising out of a swamp.
  • Some EARTH-attribute Dragons and Wyrms are explicitly connected to earth and plant life, like the Wyrms "Agave Dragon" (a multiheaded Planimal, and agave being a type of plant) and "Lindbloom" (whose wings and back look like a forest bed), and Dragons "Golem Dragon" (a monster made of solid rock), "Mythic Tree Dragon" (a dragon with arboreal implements on its back), "Naturia Barkion" and "Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders" (which looks like an ankylosaur with a hard rock carapace).
  • Among the WIND-attribute dragons, one can count "Strong Wind Dragon", "Lightning, Dragon Ruler of Drafts" (a small skeleton-like dragon inside the eye of a storm) and "Tempest, Dragon Ruler of Storms" (a giant dragon flying amidst storm clouds and with a thunder column behind itself), the latter two appearing in a Lightning/Wind Juxtaposition image.
  • As for the WIND-attribute Wyrms, one is "Tornado Dragon", which, despite the name, is a Wyrm, and its card picture shows its body made of literal tornadoes. Another duo is "Dragonlark Pairen" (that looks like a cross between a dragon and a phoenix) and "Mariamne, the True Dracophoenix", a draconic being with white plumage instead of scales.

Fan Works

• In The Angel of The Owl House, it's implied that there are lesser elemental dragons as well, but the main ones we see in the fic are the Supreme Dragons, which come in Fire, Ice, Lightning varieties.
• Destiny Intertwined: The comic expands on the system hinted at in The Legend of Spyro and fleshes out additional types of dragons. Their names are always derived from terms relating to their personal element.
  • The basic fire, ice, electric, and earth dragons are the most common and dominant types in Warfang. They're typically colored-coded to their elements — reds, oranges, and yellows for fire dragons; light to medium blues for ice dragons; yellows, greys, whites, and light greens for electric dragons; and browns and dark greens for earth dragons.
  • Dragons attuned to secondary elements came about from the interbreeding of primary elemental dragons. Water dragons, with blue scales, fins, fish tails, and a jet of water for a breath weapon, descend from fire and ice dragons; wind dragons, white and slender and provided with feather-like scales along their spines and tails, descend from electric and earth dragons. They have their own cities, respectively on the seafloor and on a flying island.
  • Dark dragons voluntarily corrupted themselves and lost their original elements in exchange for the artificial elements of shadow, fear, and poison. The original transformees are mentally very unstable, but their children inherit their elements without their psychoses. The only one seen in the comic is Hayze, a black-scaled new-generation shadow dragon.
• Ice and Fire (Minecraft): Dragons come in three elemental varieties, each with specific environments, breath weapons, and hatching requirements.
  • Fire dragons are either bronze, green, red, or black. They live in temperate biomes and breathe fire, and their eggs need to be surrounded by burning blocks.
  • Ice dragons are grey, white, or blue. They live in snowy biomes and breathe ice, and their eggs need to be placed in water, which they will freeze.
  • Lightning dragons are purple, black, copper, or blue. They live in jungles, savannahs, and badlands, and spit lightning. Their eggs will only hatch during thunderstorms.

Film — Live-Action

• Godzilla: The various versions of King Ghidorah typically have some form of lightning powers, often with it also having some form of gravity manipulation effects as well.

Literature

• The Aldabreshin Compass: Dragons are tied to one of the four classic elements (earth, wind, water, and fire) and hoard the gems associated with that element so that, once they have enough, they can meld them to form an egg.
• Dragonology: While the European dragon, Draco occidentalis magnus, is a traditional firebreather, its northern relative the frost dragon, Draco occidentalis maritimus, lives in the arctic circles and breathes ice.
• I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level: Dragons include the Red and Blue dragons. All dragons have Breath Weapons, but what it differs based on the faction; The Red Dragons are your traditional fire-breathing dragons, while the Blue Dragons have icy breath that freezes everything they touch.
• Night Dragon: The Conclave of Dragons is an alliance of dragons from all around Titan, each representing a natural element in correspondence to their colour; for instance, the Blue Dragons represent water and Green Dragons represent nature. With the most powerful Big Good of the lot being (unsurprisingly) the Gold Dragon.
• Trash of the Count's Family: There are only about twenty dragons in the world, each of which has their own unique color and special ability. These range from elemental abilities like fire or water to more conceptual affinities.
• Wings of Fire: Dragon tribes are categorized by the environment they represent, which oftentimes ties them to a specific element. SeaWings are water-attuned dragons that live under the sea, and one of the few tribes that can't breathe fire. NightWings are attuned to the moon, and their powers rely on the moons themselves. MudWings are attuned to mud, IceWings are ice-attuned and have frost-breath, etc. A plot point early on is that the Dragonets of Destiny, being raised under a cave for most of their childhood, don't seem to activate the full extent of their powers early on; For instance, Clay doesn't develop his fire immunity in full until he is exposed to mud for the first time, and Glory doesn't discover that she can spit deadly acid until after she has slept in sunlight for the first time.
• Villainess Level 99: Dragons in this universe are elemental, but their elemental affinity comes from the elemental affinity of who hatched them. For example, Yumiella, a dark-elemental human, takes in a dragon egg after defeating a couple of wind- and fire-elemental dragons. Based on the colourings of the dragon egg in the anime, the hatching dragon turned from a wind/fire bi-elemental to a dark-elemental.

Mythology & Religion

• Chinese Mythology: The lóng are associated with water, and, in one myth, certain dragons are in fact the origin of the country's major rivers.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons various different dragons, dragonkin and other dragon-like creatures have Breath Weapons that produce different elements. With true dragons and with dragonborn, these weapons are different depending on scale color:
  • The chromatic dragons fit this trope best.
    • The classic chromatic dragons are red dragons, which live in volcanic mountains and breathe fire; blue dragons, which live in deserts and spit lightning; green dragons, which live deep forests, breathe poison gas that's sometimes identified as chlorine in particular, and can control plants; black dragons, which live in swamps and spit acid; and white dragons, which live in arctic areas or high peaks and breathe ice. Tiamat, the goddess of chromatic dragons, has the body of a red dragon but also with the heads of the four other types.
    • Dragon Magazine #65 fills out the "color wheel" by working backwards to construct what the "intermediary" elements of other chromatic dragons would be, and ends up with orange dragons, which spit globs of elemental sodium (which reacts explosively with water); yellow dragons, which breathe molten salt (salt is sodium chloride and yellow is in between orange and green); and purple dragons, who breathe out a beam of energy as a combination of the blue dragon's electricity and a red dragon's fire.
    • A few other known types are the pink, brown, and grey dragons. Pink dragons are a Joke Character so their breath is a spray of slippery soap bubbles. Brown dragons live in deserts and breathe either acid or burning hot sand depending which edition of the game you are playing. There are at least two completely different versions of the grey dragon. One version from 2nd Edition was stronger version of the white dragon that breathes freezing cold air instead of ice, while in 4th edition they are instead derived from fang dragons, which previous had a life-draining bite instead of a breath weapon, that were modified to give them the ability to breathe caustic ooze that hardens on contact with air, and the power to turn creatures immobilized by breath or claws to stone.
  • The metallic dragons aren't as strongly themed around traditional elements as the chromatic ones are, but some associations are still present. In several cases their traits are more based on the element or alloy they are named after rather than a traditional element.
    • The classic metallic dragons are gold, silver, copper, bronze, and brass. Gold and brass dragons breathe fire, silver dragons breathe ice and usually live in high mountains, bronze dragons spit lightning, and brass dragons spit acid. The god of metallic dragons is Bahamut, who is known as the platinum dragon and has multiple breath weapons including cold, gas that transforms enemies into a gaseous form, a powerful roar that can disintegrate or deafen enemies, and a healing breath.
    • Other metallic dragons based on real metals seen throughout the editions are mercury, cobalt, iron, steel, electrum, chrome, nickel, tungsten. Mercury dragons naturally are The Mad Hatter of the metallic dragon family and breathe beams of light. Cobalt dragons breathe a beam of magnetism, and possibly are the progenitors of the kobold race (which is a reference to how the word "cobalt" actually is derived the word "kobold".) Iron dragons are much larger than most other types of metallic dragons and breathe a spray of hot sparks that does both fire and electrical damage. Steel dragons have wings that look like swords and their breath weapon varies depending on the edition and setting but it usually is a poisonous breath. Electrum dragons breathe gas that causes weakness or confusion. Chrome dragons are an evil counterpart to silver dragons and can breathe either a blast of super cold snow or a beam of ice. Nickel dragons are the smallest of metallic dragons and breathe corrosive gas. Tungsten dragons breath hot sand.
    • Song dragons (technically not a true metallic dragon, but resemble silvery copper dragons) breathe electrically-charged gas.
  • Gem dragons have the weakest elemental themes, and mostly have psychic and sonic attacks. Amethyst dragons have a cone of non-elemental concussive energy (which is also the same kind of breath weapon that Sardior, the god of gem dragons, uses), emerald dragons a sonic roar (in earlier editions) or a psychic attack (in 5th), sapphire dragons have a supersonic scream that triggers living beings fear responses (in early editions) or just deals sonic damage (in 5th) but also some innate spell-like abilities that let them move and shape earth and stone, topaz dragons have a cone of energy that induces rapid decay in water, metal and organic matter, and crystal dragons have cones and beams of light. Beljuril dragons breathe light or magma.
  • Shadow Dragons come from the Shadowfell and breath life-draining darkness.
  • This was even more emphasized in Third Edition and its 3.5 revision, which included elemental subtypes for various creatures, including most dragons. Some of them were obviouse (Reds, Golds, and Brasses were Fire, Whites and Silvers were Cold), some made sense (Blacks and Bronzes were Water because of their environments, Browns are flightless dirt-colored burrowers so they get Earth), but some of these associations could get arbitrary - Blue dragons are the color of the sky and have lightning breath, but were given the Earth subtype because they live in deserts, while Green dragons got the Air subtype despite having an earthy color and the ability to control plants (and unlike the Blues their environment can't be an explanation because the equally forest-dwelling Coppers do get the Earth subtype).
  • Fourth Edition adds catastrophic dragons, descend from mortal dragons who were captured by the Primordials in the distant past and warped into vaguely draconic Elemental Embodiments. They consist of the blizzard, earthquake, volcano, avalanche, tornado, typhoon, and wildfire dragons.
  • Elemental drakes are wyvern-like creatures imbued with the power of the Inner Planes, from the straightforward air, earth, fire and water drakes to the "Paraelemental" ice, magma, ooze, and smoke drakes.
  • The epic dragons, who are way more powerful than other kinds of dragons, are all based on non-standard elements. They are the Force Dragon, the Prismatic Dragons (based on light and rainbows), and the Time Dragon.
• Exalted: The Five Elemental Dragons are souls/children/creations (depending on the edition) of the Primordial Gaia, who inhabit and power Creation's geomancy. The Lesser and Greater Elemental Dragons are elementals who have developed sufficiently in power that they assume draconic form, generally resembling Chinese and Japanese dragons.
• Pathfinder: In general, all dragons have an elemental subtype tying them to one of the setting's elements, relating to their Breath Weapon and, less strictly, habitat preferences — for instance, gold and red dragons have the fire subtype, silver and white dragons the cold subtype, bronze and black dragons the water subtype^note they breathe acid, the damage type associated with the water element in-game, and so on. Some dragon families are more explicitly involved with this concept:
  • Brine, cloud, crystal, and magma dragons, collectively referred to as primal dragons, are natives of the Elemental Planes and closely tied to the elements of water, air, earth, and fire. In 2nd Edition, they are classified as both elementals and dragons.
  • In Second Edition, the imperial dragons follow a version of this based on the classical Chinese elemental model. Each variety is aligned with one element — fire, water, earth, metal or wood — and finds its powers hindered by an opposing element while becoming stronger if targeted with a specific third.
• Warhammer Fantasy Battle: The Storm of Magic supplement describes a number of dragon varieties, each associated with a specific lore of elemental magic, which their eldest members can wield like wizards, and distinguishable by scale color. Red dragons are tied to the Lore of Fire, black dragons to the Lore of Death, white-scaled frost dragons to the Lore of Light, green-scaled forest dragons to the Lore of Life, and blue-scaled storm dragons to the Lore of Heavens. The Tamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos campaign and the Monstrous Arcanum bestiary also describe carmine dragons, another variant deeply influenced by Death magic, and magma dragons, which breathe scalding, sulphorous gases and can also cast from the Lore of Fire.

Video Games

• ARK: Survival Evolved introduced this trope in the Scorched Earth DLC. The map contains three breeds of wyverns, each with a different breath attack; fire, lightning, and poison. The Ragnarok DLC introduced the ice wyvern with corresponding freeze breath.
• Banjo-Tooie has the dragon brothers Chilly Willy and Chillie Billi, the former of whom is an ice dragon living in a pool of water on a frozen mountain peek and the latter a fire dragon in a pool of lava at the top of a volcano.
• In the Borderlands 2 Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC, the Ancient Dragons of Destruction raid boss are all dragons of different elemental types.
• Bravely Default:
  • The series has recurring enemies called D'gons, small dragons selectively bred by the Eternian army's Monstrous Weapons Division for combat purposes. Their extreme sensitivity to changes in the environment eventually allowed for the creation of Fire and Ice D'gons, mutated species who as their names imply are capable of inflicting fire and water elemental damage.
  • There are also recurring Optional Bosses in the form of six dragons who revolve around the types of elemental damage, known as Salamander (Fire), Mizuchi (Water), Wyvern (Wind), Ladon (Earth), Shinryu (Light), and Jabberwock (Dark). They all possess monstrous stats and share the same gimmick of decreasing your resistance to their respective elements so their attacks can become powerful enough to cause a Total Party Kill.
• Chrono Cross: The Dragon Gods ruling over the El Nido Archipelago are six dragons that each represent one of the Elements present in the area. They include the Water Dragon (Blue) of Water Dragon Isle, the Earth Dragon (Yellow) of Earth Dragon Isle, the Red Dragon of Mt Pyre, the Green Dragon of Gaea's Navel, the Black Dragon of Marbule, and the Sky Dragon (White) of Sky Dragon Isle.
• Dangerous Adventure II has dragons corresponding to the five colors (fire for red, plants for green, water for blue, undead for purple, and the Non-Elemental gold dragon for yellow) with corresponding abilities (the green one blocks progressively larger areas of the field with vines, the blue one immediately counters any use of magic, the red one turns blocks to magma, the purple one uses poison). The final one requires all other dragons to be beaten, is immune to just about every status effect and takes half damage from any source, but is required to get the true ending of the game.
• Dragalia Lost: There are five different types of elements with dragons that have power over each one. Among those dragons include the greatwyrms who are each the master of their respective element — Midgardsormr the Windwyrm, Mercury the Waterwyrm, Brunhilda the Flamewyrm, Jupiter the Lightwyrm, and Zodiark the Shadowyrm. The story later reveals that The Greatwyrms are in fact the Elemental Embodiment of the five elements, created directly by the draconic creator of the world, Bahamut, and when given back all of their memories, regain their full power and complete mastery of their element.
• Dragon Age: Inquisition introduces this concept to the Dragon Age franchise. The base game features ten high dragons as Optional Bosses, each with the element of fire, cold, or electricity. The Jaws of Hakkon DLC campaign has the dragon form of Hakkon Wintersbreath as its Final Boss and the Trespasser DLC has the Qunari dragon Ataashi as the first Poison dragon (with acid-based attacks).
• Dragon City: The games' entire concept revolves around elemental dragons, from the traditional fire and water to metal and primal. In the game, dragons can have one to four different elements which change their appearance to match. Using Elemental Powers players' dragons battle each other, with each element being stronger or weaker than another e.g. water beats fire, fire beats nature. Breeding different elements together can create stronger dragons that tend to reflect a combination of those elements e.g. a fire dragon and a terra dragon can create a volcano dragon.
• Etrian Odyssey:
  • All games except Beyond the Myth feature a trio of Superbosses in the form of exceptionally powerful dragons which, collectively, invoke the Fire, Ice, Lightning ensemble: The Great Dragon (Playing with Fire), the Blizzard King (An Ice Person), and the Storm Emperor (Shock and Awe). In most games, they're accessed by starting sidequests that are unlocked during the Playable Epilogue, while in Legends of the Titan they appear early on as Drop-In Nemesis threats that can only be dodged until the postgame (when they can finally be challenged).
  • Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth: Despite not featuring the classic trio of elemental dragons, it does feature two bosses that showcase the trope differently: The Crystal Dragon is a powerful draconic monster whose attacks apply all three standard elements when its wings are razor-shaped (when they're shaped like jet engines, the dragon only uses melee attacks but also increases its defense against the elemental damage inflicted by the player's character party). The other example is the Zombie Dragon, an undead Superboss whose affinity is poison and can also exhale an inflammable dark mist that blinds the party and also makes the surroundings' visibility more difficult.
• EverQuest: The First Brood of dragons all have one of four elemental affinities: Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Earth. Fire and Ice, and Lightning and Earth dragons are forbidden from mating with each other because the resulting Prismatic offspring ends up becoming psychotically insane.
• Flight Rising:
  • The world of Sornieth is ruled over by The Eleven, a pantheon of draconic gods that each represent an element. They are the Earthshaker, Flamecaller, Windsinger, Tidelord, Shadowbinder, Icewarden, Stormcatcher, Lightweaver, Gladekeeper, Plaguebringer, and the Arcanist.
  • Regular dragons all have an elemental alignment based on the nest they are born in, affecting their eye colour and moveset.
  • The dragon breeds in the game also come from one of the eleven in-game flights (with the exception of Bogsneaks, which are Non-Elemental), and most breeds have traits of their home flight included in their design — for example, Guardian dragons, which are originally a Water breed, have fins on their bodies.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy, being inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, features several of the same dragon themes - Red Dragons are Fire, White Dragons are Ice, Blue Dragons are Lightning, and Green Dragons are poisonous, while Tiamat also appears as the Fiend of Wind with all four of the previously mentioned elements. The Dawn of Souls remake adds in the Black Dragons, Silver Dragons, Holy Dragons, and Yellow Dragons, although only the last two have elemental properties (Light/Holy and Lightning, respectively).
  • Final Fantasy II takes the same dragons from the first game and mixes them up a bit. The Red Dragon is still fire-elemental and the Green Dragon is still poisonous, but the White Dragon is now lightning-elemental while the Blue Dragon is ice-elemental. The Black Dragon appears in the Soul of Rebirth epilogue and is Non-Elemental, spamming high-level Flare spells instead of elemental attacks. All five of them appear as both Chest Monsters and late-game encounters.
  • Final Fantasy V features the Red, Blue, and Yellow Dragons, which each correspond to one of the main three elements respectively.
  • Final Fantasy VI: The game features the Eight Legendary Dragons as Optional Bosses encountered in the second half of the game. To wit, they are the Red Dragon (Fire), Ice Dragon (Ice), Gold Dragon (Lightning), Skull Dragon (Poison), Storm Dragon (Wind), Holy Dragon (Holy), Earth Dragon (Earth), and Blue Dragon (Water). In the Advance and mobile versions of the game, they return in the Dragon's Den Bonus Dungeon with updated gimmicks and improved stats, and serve as the prelude to the game's Superboss, the Kaiser Dragon.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has the Firewrym, Icedrake, and Thundrake, bipedal dragons that each have a Breath Weapon of their respective element and a stat-altering ability that Blue Mages can learn.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics A2 refers to a group of smaller elemental dragons by the same names as their Tactics Advance counterparts while using the bipedial sprites from the previous game for some draconic bosses. They keep their Breath Weapons and Blue Magic abilities while also gaining unique ranged attacks and status-inflicting abilities themed after their elements. There's also the Valigarmanda, a Superboss variant of the smaller dragons that has the abilities of both Firewyrms and Icedrakes while being fire-elemental.
• Genshin Impact: Much like how there is an Archon of each element, there is also a dragon referred to as the Sovereign. It is eventually revealed that the authority the Archons hold was taken from the Sovereigns by Celestia. As of right now, the known Sovereigns are Apep, a Dendro dragon residing in Sumeru's desert, and Neuvillette, a Hydro dragon who reincarnated into a human and now works as the Chief Justice of Fontaine. The Anemo, Geo, Electro, Pyro, and Cryo dragons have yet to be introduced. Regular elemental dragons also make up the world as evidenced by the Anemo dragon Dvalin in Mondstadt, Geo dragon Azhdaha in Liyue, and a whole population of them stated to be living in Natlan.
• Gothic II: Dragons in Mine Valley are based on elements along with changing enviroment to his one.
  • Pandrodor the swamp dragon creates a big swamp as his lair.
  • Pedrakhan the rock dragon hides in the Mountain fort.
  • Feomathar the fire dragon changes the Old citadel into a volcano.
  • Finkregh the ice dragon freezes the New Camp in which he hides.
• Hearthstone: The Stone Drake is both an elemental and a dragon. It originates from Deepholm, the Elemental Plane of Earth. It has Anti-Magic and Life Drain abilities.
• Heroes of Might and Magic Ashan: The Dragon-Gods are Elemental Embodiments, with each dragon being part of a brother/sister pairing with the dragon whose element is considered their opposite. Asha is the Goddess Of Order while her brother Urgash is the God of Chaos, and Asha's six children are Elrath (God of Light) and Malassa (Goddess of Darkness), Arkath (God of Fire and volcanoes) and Shalassa (Goddess of Water and the Ocean), and Ylath (God of the Skies) and Sylanna (Goddess of Earth and Forests).
• Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days: There are several variations of the first game's Wyvern that appear as bosses of different missions, each of which has a different elemental Breath Weapon and most have matching elemental affinities. The Tailbunker is fire-elemental, the Avalanche is ice-elemental, the Wavecrest is water-elemental, the Windstorm is wind-elemental, and the Phantomtail is illusion-elemental. Each of the Dustflier's abilities to deal damage of a different element and its Shockwave Stomp can hit with any element (out of thirteen) at random.
• League of Legends: Dragons/"drakes" are a recurring boss-like objective in the Summoner's Rift that can be fought and slain for important status buffs that stick with teams for the duration of each game, and they come in different elemental varieties that inform their combat, buff, and effects in map terrain. Elemental dragons were first added to the game in late 2014 of four different varieties based on the classical elements — Cloud, Mountain, Infernal, and Ocean Drakes — plus an endgame beast called the Elder Dragon, and 2022 saw the addition of two additional types based on the game's form of Magitek: the Hextech and Chemtech Drakes.
• The Legend of Spyro:
  • All dragons in the setting have control over at least one element, with the four primary elements most commonly featured amongst the dragons' power repertoire being fire, ice, electricity, and earth. Cynder, a unique dragon corrupted by the Big Bad, also has access to wind, fear, poison, and shadow. Dragons are Color-Coded for Your Convenience in accordance with the elements they wield (Ignitus the fire dragon is fiery red and orange, Cyril the ice dragon is an icy blue, Volteer the electric dragon is bright electric yellow with blue highlights, and Terrador the earth dragon is a dark forest green with brown highlights). Purple dragons are a very rare breed that can learn to control every element. Only two are known to exist, the main character and the Big Bad, and they are said to only be born once every ten generations. The game developers originally planned to include wind and water dragons as well, but these were ultimately absent from the final game outside of Cynder's ability to manipulate wind.
  • The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night: The final boss fight on the White Island, the Elemental Dragon, is a spirit in the shape of a dragon that cycles through all four in-game elements, forcing Spyro to keep switching his own attacks in order to be able to damage it.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Cadence of Hyrule has a lightning version of Gleeok called Gleeokenspiel that inhabits the Temple of Storms and spits out blasts of lightning out of its mouths at the player, which is made especially dangerous by the pools of water that cover half the room.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has the three dragons Faron, Eldin, and Lanayru, who watch over the regions of the same name and respectively have powers over water, fire, and lightning.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Hyrule is roamed by three immense, serpentine elemental dragons, each tied to one of the game's elements — Dinraal, the fire dragon, shrouded in flames, who flies around the volcano of Death Mountain and Tanagar Canyon; Farosh, the lightning dragon, surrounded by crackling ball lightning, who appears among the thunderstorm-wracked Faron jungles and the Gerudo Highlands; and Naydra, the ice dragon, cloaked in freezing mist, who circles constantly around the icy peak of Mount Lanayru.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild, sees the elemental spirit dragons return, alongside a fourth light elemental dragon. It additionally introduces Fire, Ice, Lightning versions of the series' recurring Gleeok boss, three-headed dragons that breathe either one of the three elements, alongside King Gleeoks that breathe one from each of their heads.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass has a version of Gleeok residing in the Temple of Ice whose two heads respectively breathe fire and ice. Defeating them requires you to use the grappling hook as a slingshot to redirect the projectiles of one head toward the other.
• Minion Masters: While most dragons only breath normal fire, Rimargaal's Breath Weapon is blue fire which freezes opponents while Jing Long is a Lightning dragon which shoots bolts of lightning and releases a short-ranged shockwave upon entering the arena or reappearing after a spell has been used by its Master.
• Monster Hunter:
  • The first two species of the Fatalis trio (standard and Crimson) are classic fire-breathing dragons, but the third one (White) employs electricity in its attacks instead. The bolts are strong enough to cause a One-Hit Kill to hunters with a very low defense.
  • The second-generation Elder Dragons that are introduced in the offline campaign of Monster Hunter 2 (dos) form an ensemble of powerful quadrupedal dragons, each showcasing a dedicated element in their attacks: Chameleos (a poison-powered chameleon-like monster that can also perform Invisibility and steal items from the player's character), Kushala Daora (a Blow You Away steel dragon that protects itself with wind barriers, can shoot tornadoes and imbue its attacks with ice when fought in snowy areas), and Teostra (a very dangerous dragon with leonine motifs that can shoot devastating fire attacks). There's also Lunastra, the female companion of Teostra that shares many of its fiery attacks.
• The Pokémon world is home to many Pokémon types, especially Dragon-types. Some are purely Dragon while others are mixed with another type. For example, Kingdra is a seahorse-like Pokémon that is Dragon/Water type. The fourth and fifth generation games lean into it with their signature legendary dragon trios, which form sets of Steel/Water/Ghost and Fire/Electric/Ice respectively.
• In Rune Factory, there are four Native Dragons who protect the land of Norad and each represents an element. There is Terrable (Earth), Fiersome (Fire), Aquaticus (Water), and Ventuswill (Wind). Two other dragons are later introduced named Lumenivia (Light) and Umbradea (Dark).
• Skylanders: The dragons of Skylands are described as being closely linked to the elements, and each element has at least one dragon, or dragon-hybrid, Skylander, such as Sunburn for the Fire element, Bash and Flashwing for the Earth element, and Blackout for the Dark element. Spyro, being of the Magic element, has the ability to use every element, but prefers Fire as his usual element.
• Warframe: Chroma is a dragon-themed warframe who can imbue his abilities with one of the four base elemental damage types: heat, cold, toxin and electricity.
• World of Warcraft leans into this somewhat with the various Dragonflights using different breath weapons and are associated with different domains and elements:
  • The Red Dragonflight is broadly associated with the preservation of Azeroth's living beings, but breathe fire.
  • The Blue Dragonflight are the protectors of its arcane magic. They breathe ice.
  • The Green Dragonflight are the guardians of nature and the Spirit World. They breathe noxious gas.
  • The Bronze dragonflight are the guardians of time and history. They breathe superheated sand.
  • The Black dragonflight looked after the physical earth, before their corruption. They breathe magma.

Webcomics

• Aurora (2019): Dragon eggs absorb elemental energy from the environment while gestating. These energies determine the traits and abilities of the hatched dragon. Examples include the Lightning-influenced storm drake that Tess fights in Chapter 7 and the Stone-influenced burrower wyrm that Falst encounters in Chapter 11.
• Slightly Damned: Dragons come in several different forms depending on the element that they're associated with — fire dragons, which resemble and act like wingless, bipedal European ones; water dragons, which are surprisingly playful and good-natured; earth dragons, rhino-like and targets of poaching due to their crystal horns; and wind dragons, which have four birdlike wings and talons but are now extinct, though smaller wyverns with wind powers still exist.

Web Original

• Find Out Your Dragon Name As Long As It Isn't Rugarth Because That One Is Mine:
  • Kelvorax has red scales, lives in a sulfurous cave in the Magma Mountains, and breathes fire.
  • Illystria has white scales and breathes ball lightning.
  • Tyndallion has blue scales, roams the oceans of the world, and breathes jets of water.
  • Rugarth has green scales, lives in a deep forest, and breathes wind.
• Periodic Table of Dragons is a 4chan-created concept for a setting inspired by D&D's metallic dragons where there is a dragon for every element of the periodic table.

Web Video

• Critical Role: As Exandria operates on Dungeons & Dragons statistics, the realm contains many types of elemental dragons. Most notably, Vox Machina faces the Chroma Conclave, a faction of five ancient chromatic dragons who band together to take over Exandria, each wielding a different ability: fire, poison, acid, lightning, and ice. However, the lighting dragon Brimscythe was killed by Vox Machina pre-stream, though he is discussed in "The Story of Vox Machina" and is adapted as the first villain in The Legend of Vox Machina.

Western Animation

• DOTA: Dragon's Blood: Dragons come in eight different types. Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Ionic, Luminous, Void and Chaos. The eight Eldwurm Dragons, such as Slyrak, are also both Elemental Embodiment and pillars of creation.
• The Dragon Prince: Like the setting's elves, dragons are divided into six types based on which of the primal sources of magic they are attuned to — the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, and the sea.
  • Sun dragons are the most traditional kind — they tend to come in warm-spectrum colors ranging from gold and yellow through orange and to red, although green and gray-blue ones have also been seen, and breathe fire.
  • Storm dragons are gray to blue in coloring, possess numerous horns and thick manes of white hair, and spit lightning. Their eggs are blue with colorful specks, pulse with light, and can only hatch during thunderstorms.
• How to Train Your Dragon: There is a percentage of dragons capable of using elemental abilities other than breathing fire. Notable examples include the Skrill whose attacks utilize the electricity it stores in its body and the Bewilderbeast who possesses a powerful ice breath.
• In Jackie Chan Adventures, Drago initially just had the traditional dragon element of fire, however, in the final season, he sought out the seven powers of wind, water, earth, moon, sky, thunder, and mountain from his uncles and aunts, with him succeeding in the Grand Finale.
• Jade Armor: Lan Jun's Dragon Beasticon Chinlon is the elemental creature of water and ice granted her power over these elements when transforming into Jade Armor.
• The Legend of Vox Machina: As in the original campaign, in the first two episodes, Vox Machina face a lightning dragon, and in Season 2 have to deal with the rest of the Chroma Conclave, four other ancient dragons whose opening salvo is to level Emon with fire, poison, acid, and ice damage.
• Miraculous Ladybug: When Kagami puts on the Dragon Miraculous and becomes Ryuko, she gains various elemental powers, including water and electricity.
• Ninjago:
  • Dragons are shown to be attuned with elemental properties due to many being the Masters of the 4 Elements of Creation (Fire, Ice, Earth, Lightning). The first 4 dragons shown are the guardians of the 4 Golden Weapons, would become mounts to the Ninja, and later fused together to become the Ultra Dragon.
  • It's shown that Elemental Masters can conjure up an Elemental Embodiment of their power in the form of a dragon once they conquer and control their fears.

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