In 2014's Monster Manual, in addition to the five chromatic and five metallic dragons, each in their four age ranges, we got two templates on which to create alternate versions of any of these dragons. The Dracolich is an undead dragon transformed via vile necromancy, and ostensibly combines the awesome might of a dragon with the baleful magic of a lich. The Shadow Dragon is an example of a dragon who has become suffused with the magic of the Shadowfell, becoming a kind of strange, dark, echo of its former self.
In 2014, the examples we were given were the Adult Blue Dracolich and a Young Red Shadow Dragon, but these were really just examples of how the templates could be applied to them - changing creature types, their breath weapons, etc.
In 2025, each of these now gets its own unique stat block. I wanted to take a look at these stat blocks and give my impressions.
We'll start with the Dracolich.
The Dracolich presented here is CR 17, but evidently is meant to represent both Adult and Ancient dragons who have undergone the transformation, as they can be either Huge or Gargantuan. Like a Lich, they have a container for their Soul that allows them to regenerate after being destroyed. The gem actually has statistics, and can be destroyed if it takes 50 damage in a single turn (and is immune to necrotic, poison, and psychic damage). The Dracolich can create a new gem if its old one is destroyed if they expend a bunch of gold and use a 1000-gold gem and 8 hours.
The Dracolich, naturally, flies and has Rend attacks along with a breath weapon, and like most (though not White) adult and older dragons in this Monster Manual, can cast a spell as one of their attacks, in this case being a 2nd level Ray of Sickness.
Their breath weapon is a 60-foot cone that deals an average of 52 Necrotic damage, but no other effects.
They can also cast Finger of Death once per day, as well as an 8th level Create Undead (though as a spell that takes more than an action to cast, I think you might just have to make it so that it has already cast the spell by the time the party fights them. Interesting question, though: do the Ghouls or whatever they create not count against the XP budget in this case?)
I will say that the CR here is a bit lower than I had been hoping. Given that a Lich as well as most Ancient Dragons are both higher than CR 17, a Dracolich, in my mind, should be scarier than either of them. Instead, I think a Dracolich, at least based on its CR, is likely to only be about equivalent in threat to an Adult dragon anyway.
That said, there's one wrinkle: creatures within 60 feet of the Dracolich cannot regain HP. Thus, the party will need to really try to kill it as quickly as they can, as they can't rely on healing to give them extra longevity. One odd consequence of this is that, technically as written, the Dracolich itself shouldn't be able to regain hit points either - meaning that they can't just take a long rest if the party makes a hit-and-run series of attacks on it. Frankly, I might simply interpret this as "other" creatures within 60 feet cannot regain HP, given that I feel like what this is meant to represent is the Dracolich kind of sucking in all vital energy around it.
In older lore for the Dracolich, such as in 2014, the status is actually somewhat distinct from that of a Lich - where Dracoliches are usually manipulated into taking on this undead form, and that it kind of makes them lesser than their majestic natural forms.
I could thus imagine a Dracolich villain actually working to restore itself to true life, and the party is incentivized to destroy it before it can become the menace it once was. One could even imagine a Dracolich as a questgiver, trying to get the party to help it lift its curse.
Now, let's move on to the Shadow Dragon.
We actually get two variants here: the Juvenile Shadow Dragon is CR 4, and Medium sized, representing something like a Wyrmling. The standard Shadow Dragon is Large or Huge, representing a Young or Adult specimen, and is CR 13.
As before, Shadow Dragons have a particularly deadly breath weapon, which will instantly kill those it knocks down to 0 HP and raise them as Shadows under the dragon's control. The Shadow Dragon gets resistance to all damage except Radiant, Force, and Psychic when they're in dim light or darkness, and thus their lairs, which prevent normal sources of bright light from generating any but dim light, go a long way to protecting them. (Notably, this lair effect is just any source of bright light, so in theory even magic that creates bright light will not remove this protection.) Naturally, they're also fully immune to necrotic damage regardless.
Shadow Dragons are sneaky, making use of the darkness around them to use Shadow Stealth, a bonus action that allows them hide if in an area of dim light or darkness (it still requires the usual requirements for hiding).
While still technically living, a Shadow Dragon really works in that necromantic realm not unlike the Dracolich. In my own homebrew setting, the local region of the Shadowfell was conquered by a powerful warlord who had used aberrant magic to dominate a brood of black dragons, and in the century since his conquest, the surviving dragons have become shadow dragons. I might have liked to have an ancient-equivalent version of the shadow dragon, but these are still quite deadly monsters.
Even the Juvenile Shadow Dragon is going to be a real menace to tier 1 and early tier 2 players, flying out of reach of melee combatants (their Rend has a 10 foot reach).
Shadows make for obvious minions for a Shadow Dragon, along with most incorporeal undead, thanks to their necrotic immunity, and so you could easily see Wraiths and Specters acting primarily to grapple targets and hold them within the area of the dragon's breath attack.
Overall, I think that the true, campaign-boss dragons are going to be your ancient dragons, the lowest CR of which I think is the white dragon at CR 20. Still, these variants can add some spookiness to your fantasy world, and a suggestion of something deeply wrong or at least deeply ancient.
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