What creature type is an Avangion?

[redking]

@Bdmdragon

Unique: I see why some people want this, given how difficult it is to come to a consensus. My objection is that no other advanced beings have a type of their own, and I think that if that route is taken then Athasian Dragons, being different as they are from dragons of other worlds, should also have a unique type. The issue is that in 2e Athasian Dragons were considered dragons for the purposes of a few magic items and effects, so the dragon type has a historical weight for them (also in 4e Borys had the dragon subtype).

In 3E, Borys is a type [dragon] subtype [augmented], generally written as ‘augmented dragon’. Augmented is when a creature’s type has changed for some reason.

Avangions as a unique type (and yes, I had agonized over this matter too, too much for an ostensibly normal person lol) creates the problem that you are dedicating an entire type for a virtually unique creature that has no other examples of its type anywhere in the multiverse. It just can’t be justified.

@Bdmdragon

Dragon?: As for dragon type, I think it’s a little absurd to make Avangions into dragons. There is literally no support of any kind for such an interpretation, except maybe some hearsay attributed to Troy Denning 25+ years ago that discussed his original thoughts on Nok and dragons in Dark Sun.

Absurd or brilliant? You could have [dragon] as the type, and [avangion] as a subtype that modifies creatures with the advanced being [trait]. This is where we can circle back to my OP.

@redking

I am starting to think that avangions are simply dragons on a different path than Borys and the Sorcerer Monarchs. Lets say that Borys is on the “ravager path” (taken from Wake of the Ravager SSI game) and Oronis is on the “avangion path”. Both are dragons, but like the chromatic and metallic dragons, they do different things

What I am thinking is that we can have advanced beings. Advanced beings have type [choose your type] and then subtype [ravager] (for defiler centric creatures) or [avangion] for (for preserver centric creatures). For example (subtypes in lower case, type in upper case):

Borys: augmented ravager DRAGON.
Oronis: augmented avangion DRAGON (alternatively augmented avangion ABERRATION).

By doing it this way we can harmonize the various types of advanced beings (whether defiler metamorphosis, shadow shifter metamorphosis and whatever other possibilities) as either ravagers or avangions (basically path of defilement or path dexter, from Defilers and Preservers: The Wizards of Athas). By having the ravager and avangion subtypes, it removes the moral judgment from the assignment of the type. Therefore, you could have a good guy dragon, and a bad guy aberration, for example, based on the subtype. It also takes a lot of the controversy out of the type issue.