It's stated in FOTR: Shadows of the Past, "but there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough" (referring to melting the one ring)

...which implies that lesser dragons still exist and the Withered Heath seems a good place to find one!

And a dragon, even a lesser one, sounds like a fine enemy to inflict on a bunch of heroes at the end of the first major campaign arc!

Any thoughts on this?

Ooo...sooo gonna steal this one

Seriously - I think it would make perfect sense. Smaug was the last of the "true" dragons - but as you say it makes sense that there would be the smaller ones still around somewhere.

Already ahead of you and planning an expedition to Withered Heath in search of dragon bones and scales...

Sounds like a possible reward item item in the making to me... Dragon Scale shield, helm, armour...

Or maybe a Dragon Bone weapon!

I do like the TOR rules on Rewards. The player invests in Valour and the LM arranges the story to find the item in a horde of treasure!

There is an ICE MERP campaign module that describes an abandoned Dwarvish mine called "Silverplunge" somewhere in the Withered Heath, an area infested with drakes that is occupied by a flightless old dragon named "Khuza-drepa" which means Dwarf Bane.

I have always fantasized mounting an expedition there.

Unfortunately the company won't just find remnants in that place...

Diminished Drake
Attribute Level: 7
Endurance: 94 | Hate: 13
Parry: 3 | Armour: 3d
Skills: Personality, 2 | Movement, 2 | Perception, 4 | Survival, 3 | Custom, 3 | Vocation, 1
Weapon Skills: Dragonfire*, 3 [Attribute Level/E/16/-] | Bite, 3 [6/10/18/pierce] | Swat, 3 [4/E/14/disarm]
Special Abilities: Dragonfire, Fell Speed, Great Size, Hideous Toughness, Horrible Strength, Thick Hide, Thing of Terror
Dragonfire:
...my breath death...
The creature may strike an additional target with the same attack roll for each Hate point spent.

Thoughts?

In my above post the Old Dragon I mentioned had the ability to "leap" high over the heads of Dwarvish Warriors.

Simulated easily enough with Fell Speed.

Ahhh ok. I haven't got that far yet! Good to know though

Great Leap would also allow attacks against the rearward stance. Giant Spiders do that!

Haven't re-read the Hobbit yet, but the FOTR is a few years off yet, so there could be something else the size of Smaug out there that needs defeating. Or maybe Smaug is too small to melt the one ring anyway and the last truly big dragons were in the time of Melkor's reign. Either way, I think a dragon would make a brilliant campaign, and I love Caul's stat block above.

There's lots of mentions in other sources regarding dragons in the Grey Mountains and the Withered Heath that existed in the TA and beyond. I can't recall exact names, but I remember there being three broad categories:
Cold Drakes - Those that can't breath fire. Don't think they can fly either.
Winged Dragons - Of which Smaug was the greatest. They can both fly and breathe fire.
Fire Drakes - Flightless dragons, physically larger than their Winged cousins that, as the name suggests, can breathe flame.

There's also mention of lesser drakes, such as cave worms.

Any of these could make for excellent adversaries.

Although I would not use everything in it, the Lord of the Rings Online MMO has many such references in it. In the Ram Duath in Angmar they have Cold Worms and Rock Worms, both of which are flightless but draconic. They also have Drakes which are similar to Dnd Wyverns but without the sting, they are also capable of breathing fire.

In addition there is one Dragon called Naglangon which lairs in the area. There are also Worms, Drakes and an occasional Dragon in other s like the Misty Mountains and Forochel in the North.

E