I got around this by being a Path of the Beast Barbarian Dragonborn. I was a Weredragon and when I Raged I became more dragon like. I almost exclusively used the tail function for the shield reaction while still messing people up with a Magic Maul.
Canon is wrong, dragonborn have tails
the official canon states that tieflings can’t be purple, and yet the official artwork for a tiefling is a purple tiefling
Official Dragonborn PHB description say Dragonborns are brown/rust coloured, with some being rust-copper green.
Artwork on the same page is a red scaled dragonborn.
The full sentence is “Their small, fine scales are usually brass or bronze in color, sometimes ranging to scarlet, rust, gold, or copper-green.” So a red one is kinda like a real life human with ginger hair; uncommon, but not weird. There’s also the bit about dragonborn with a particularly strong influence of their draconic ancestor shortly afterwards that says, “These dragonborn often boast scales that more closely match those of their dragon ancestor - bright red, green, blue, or white, lustrous black, or gleaming metallic gold, silver, brass, copper, or bronze.”
Possibly the most ignored sentence in the PHB, even by Wotc themselves:
Their skin tones cover the full range of human coloration, but also include various shades of red.
I can do you a few of the most ignored pages in the PHB: I’ve yet to meet a table that uses Trinkets
You want a tail, play a Kobold!
Speaking as a person playing a soot-black tiefling…
