Dragons: More Than Just A Hoard
Over at Big Purple, someone was asking about ways to make dragons "more than just a stat line and a hoard". I think this is a worthy goal. The majesty of dragons is long diminished in D&D (and many other games). The world of Glorantha (Runequest) has preserved a lot of that majesty, but its dragons are so often asleep that it's unlikely the PCs will ever actually run into one. So, I had an idea. Here it is, C&P'ed from my post there:
"I'd ditch the hoard entirely, at least in the sense of piles of money and warehouses of magic items.
The dragon's "hoard" becomes the territory itself and everyone in it.
Servants, peasants, humanoid nobility. Its political control. Think
like elders in Vampire: the Masquerade. Dragons are all about territory
and control. Not mounds of gold pieces. They would influence and
direct many generations of bloodlines. They would influence development
of magic and technology. They would accumulate people and land and libraries and factories.
This requires dragons to be active critters, of course, and not slumbering lumps, like cats writ super-large. They would be involved,
manipulating everything through servants, threats and occasional
outright mental domination. They would weave plots upon plots upon
plots. They would change their shapes and create many mortal humanoid
identities to make sure things stay on the right track. Some might even
fall in love with humanoids, and we know where that leads.
Y'know. Like Mystaran Immortals and gods from many other worlds.
Slaying a dragon would become something between regicide and deicide. Not just a tough fight to get access to goodies and save some farmers' cattle in the valley below the dragon's lair. You'd be going up against the ancestral power behind an entire nation. Not only would it be the fight of your life, you'd have to face the dead dragon's servants -- an entire country of them. Unless you were following a Dark Sun-like "liberation by way of murdering the Sorcerer King" arc, of course."
What do you think?
That’s a great take on them!
ReplyDeleteThe best dragons I’ve run were
A) in my 3.0 game where they were literally solidifed sin, manifesting where great evils had been perpetrated as a curse on the land
B) in my B/X game where the players found a clutch of dragon eggs buried wirh their “starter hoard” and lost a party member when the eggs hatched abd tbe ravenous infant dragons fell to eating each other. When “mom” overflew the area to check in the players were face down in the mud trying to avoid notice as the dragon snatched their panicking mules for a snack.