Who is Ashardalon? (Adventure Path Spoilers)

Irda Ranger · Feb 21, 2003

I have decided to run the Adventure Path series from beginning to end, but naturally I want to adapt the adventures to my PCs and my campaign.

One of the questions I want to answer is who is Ashardalon? I know he comes up in future adventures, so I don't want to ruin the "Adventure Path" by saying something like "Oh, he's a Dragon" when he's really a God of Dragons, or vice versa.

I also was also thinking of deciding that followers of Ashardalon were mostly Dragon Disciples. Would that screw things up?

Are there any other things like this I should look out for? I don't own the entire Path yet, and will probably only buy them one step ahead of the PCs. Right now all I have is Sunless and Forge of Fury.

Thanks ever so much.

Kamard · Feb 21, 2003

No, it wouldn't screw things up to make followers of Ashardalon Dragon Disciples. I think it would be kind of interesting too, if you set up a dichotomy between his "children" and these other wanna-bes.

Ashardalon, for himself, is a great huge powerful old dragon with a demon for a heart.

For what its worth, I would DEFINATELY not do the Adventure Path the way you plan. I would buy them all, that way you can seed ideas from the later ones way back even in Sunless Citadel times.

That way, it is more satisfying when your PC's get to the end and go, "So that's why things are how they are."

Dr Midnight · Feb 21, 2003

I'm currently running the last in the series, and Ashardalon is going to smack my PCs around very soon. I had the PCs go through the Sunless Citadel when they were 2nd level, so now I'm going to tie in some old things- Meepo's return (and revenge), for one.

See my story hour for more details and HELLISHLY GOOD ENTERTAINMENT THAT REX REED CALLS "WICKED AWESOME"!

Lars Frehse · Feb 21, 2003

Ashardalon is a fiendish red dragon of the oldest category of nearly godlike power. You can use dragon disciples as his followers. It would even make a lot of sense: There is one adventure in which the group encounters one of Ashardalon's half-dragon descendants- that happens in the adventure before the final one. So, the dragon disciples could have a little of his blood in their veins.

There are undead Ashardalon cultists as well, since allegedly, he was killed a thousand years ago, but of course, over the time it turns out he wasn't completely destroyed. When I played the adventure series, I introduced a lot of sideplots revolving around his followers, and even though I always had just the adventures which were published at the time, I never had many troubles integrating my own plotlines.

You see, except for the final adventure, all other adventure only deal on a tangent with Ashardalon: The players find the place where he fought some druids in "Standing Stones" or battle his former followers, who are now undead in another one. All you gotta do is never let the group actually encounter Ashardalon until the end, and never get too specific regarding whether he is still alive, and where he is, and you will be fine.

Alzrius · Feb 21, 2003

Ashardalon was an ancient red dragon who disappeared somewhere around a millenia ago, after being mortally wounded in a battle, and has not been seen since. However, from what little is known, he isn't dead, leading to some cults and such springing up around him.

Iirc, the only adventures that have anything to do with him are The Heart of Nightfang Spire, Lord of the Iron Fortress, and Bastion of Broken Souls. Your best bet is probably to get all the Adventure Path adventures, look them over the way they are, and then make the necessary changes you want them to make, since as they are there is no set over-arching story.

Making his followers Dragon Disciples is a good idea, especially since near the end of the Adventure Path series you meet some of his half-dragon descendants. The way to go is probably to barely mention him at first, then slowly increase the "dragon-ness" of things as you go along. Have the characters meet villains who have been contracted by NPC's they'll meet in later adventures. Have some characters be low-level dragon disciples, and others could be draconic (a character with very diluted dragon blood in them, debuted in a recent issue of Dragon - 301 or such I think). As the characters go on, they meet the NPC's they heard about before, who are half-dragons and higher-level dragon disciples, etc.