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dragonborn game
- Thread starter sammy
- Start date
Why not hybrids? (I prefer them, personally.)
Anyway...
Perhaps something is endangering a traditional hatchery...some kind of seemingly natural disaster that is found to be unnatural in origin. Perhaps it is a periodic threat that happens every so many hundred years. See Stephen King's Storm of the Century.
Perhaps there is a war within Dragonkind, a hidden war that nobody outside of Scalykind knows about, and they've been picked for a special mission.
Anyway...
Perhaps something is endangering a traditional hatchery...some kind of seemingly natural disaster that is found to be unnatural in origin. Perhaps it is a periodic threat that happens every so many hundred years. See Stephen King's Storm of the Century.
Perhaps there is a war within Dragonkind, a hidden war that nobody outside of Scalykind knows about, and they've been picked for a special mission.
Cor_Malek
First Post
Idea from a book by A. Sapkowski:
(mind you, the dragonborns will take the side of dragon, but I'll describe whole situation, so bare with me ;-) )
Situation: a dragon that usually leave the town alone, starts to hunt a lot. Before local prince reacts, a peasant stuffs a sheep carcass with anything poisonous that he can find, and leaves it between herd. Much to everyone surprise, the dragon ignores all the happy sheep and goes straight for the McCadaver. After a few hours of excruciating pain, he slowly crawls and hops away into the mountains.
4 groups are sent after the dragon: yer typical DragonSlayers hired by Prince (and led by said heir, who wants to be able to say he was in the group that killed a dragon since he anticipates dying beast), a mighty wizard with strong connections to jewellers guild, and... a large group of peasants from initial town. They decide that they should just kill off the probably dying dragon and take all the credit that is due.
And there are also your dragonslayers, sent to retrieve X from the dragon before anyone else reaches him. When they reach the lair, two things become apparent:
a) it's not an item, but a dragon hatchling.
b) his momma has already fought the toxins, and now is not only healthy - but also mighty pissed. She will be able to hold her own against those sent against her and there some. The cave with treasure will collapse securing everything, but the young one has to be escorted safely to Y. The dragon will mislead the adventurers (that is NPC's) long enough for your party to get away.
To add a bit of flavour, and some level appropriate enemies, the peasants have been kicked out of main expedition. And since the wizard focuses his divination powers on our female dragon, they have to rely on more conventional tracking - which in this case happens to be more reliable. and puts them on PC's trail.
Note - the little dragon is newly hatched, but is already independent. However, he is still avoiding combat and is fairly vulnerable. He doesn't know it's own power either, so any burping near dry wood might cause some serious fire ;-)
AFAIK, the story was not translated into english, as it's one of short story's preceding The Witcher saga.
(mind you, the dragonborns will take the side of dragon, but I'll describe whole situation, so bare with me ;-) )
Situation: a dragon that usually leave the town alone, starts to hunt a lot. Before local prince reacts, a peasant stuffs a sheep carcass with anything poisonous that he can find, and leaves it between herd. Much to everyone surprise, the dragon ignores all the happy sheep and goes straight for the McCadaver. After a few hours of excruciating pain, he slowly crawls and hops away into the mountains.
4 groups are sent after the dragon: yer typical DragonSlayers hired by Prince (and led by said heir, who wants to be able to say he was in the group that killed a dragon since he anticipates dying beast), a mighty wizard with strong connections to jewellers guild, and... a large group of peasants from initial town. They decide that they should just kill off the probably dying dragon and take all the credit that is due.
And there are also your dragonslayers, sent to retrieve X from the dragon before anyone else reaches him. When they reach the lair, two things become apparent:
a) it's not an item, but a dragon hatchling.
b) his momma has already fought the toxins, and now is not only healthy - but also mighty pissed. She will be able to hold her own against those sent against her and there some. The cave with treasure will collapse securing everything, but the young one has to be escorted safely to Y. The dragon will mislead the adventurers (that is NPC's) long enough for your party to get away.
To add a bit of flavour, and some level appropriate enemies, the peasants have been kicked out of main expedition. And since the wizard focuses his divination powers on our female dragon, they have to rely on more conventional tracking - which in this case happens to be more reliable. and puts them on PC's trail.
Note - the little dragon is newly hatched, but is already independent. However, he is still avoiding combat and is fairly vulnerable. He doesn't know it's own power either, so any burping near dry wood might cause some serious fire ;-)
AFAIK, the story was not translated into english, as it's one of short story's preceding The Witcher saga.
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Your easiest story might relate back to -why- are there 5 dragonborn together?
a) Perhaps they come from a place (city/mountains/entirely other continent/etc) and are "here" to explore human lands and basically get reactions for being so alien. Some want to befriend them, others want to kill them, others want to use them. and so on.
b) perhaps the focus is inside a dragonborn-centric community (be it city, etc). and something is going on in this community if you want something politically based. or there are some ancient dragonborn ruins to be explored that will give some rich insights into the dragonborn of ancient times and so it's an archeology mission
c) these 5 dragonborn were captured and brought here for experimentation/research (as if aliens). and you start with them trying to escape and get home, which would include out of the building as well as figuring out where they are (which may best be handled as on another continent; but maybe they have to find somesympathic people to do a favor for in order to get the resources to figure out that they are in fact on another continent) and then some adventures to get the resources to be able to afford (or steal) a ship to be able to sail home (or to find a portal that can return them home). And the final battle would be on the ship as they try and push off, or at the portal as they try to activate it to get home. ...victory means they toss the enemies overboard and are able to eventually sail home (or go through the portal, etc). (of all these choices, this type of thing is the easiest to do if they don't know each other or if they are all different 'types' of dragonborn, etc).
a) Perhaps they come from a place (city/mountains/entirely other continent/etc) and are "here" to explore human lands and basically get reactions for being so alien. Some want to befriend them, others want to kill them, others want to use them. and so on.
b) perhaps the focus is inside a dragonborn-centric community (be it city, etc). and something is going on in this community if you want something politically based. or there are some ancient dragonborn ruins to be explored that will give some rich insights into the dragonborn of ancient times and so it's an archeology mission
c) these 5 dragonborn were captured and brought here for experimentation/research (as if aliens). and you start with them trying to escape and get home, which would include out of the building as well as figuring out where they are (which may best be handled as on another continent; but maybe they have to find somesympathic people to do a favor for in order to get the resources to figure out that they are in fact on another continent) and then some adventures to get the resources to be able to afford (or steal) a ship to be able to sail home (or to find a portal that can return them home). And the final battle would be on the ship as they try and push off, or at the portal as they try to activate it to get home. ...victory means they toss the enemies overboard and are able to eventually sail home (or go through the portal, etc). (of all these choices, this type of thing is the easiest to do if they don't know each other or if they are all different 'types' of dragonborn, etc).
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Five-Chinese-Brothers-Paperstar/dp/0698113578/ref=pd_sim_b_2]Amazon.com: The Five Chinese Brothers (Paperstar) (9780698113572): Claire Huchet Bishop, Kurt Wiese: Books[/ame]
or
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Chinese-Brothers-Blue-Ribbon/dp/0590420577]Amazon.com: The Seven Chinese Brothers (Blue Ribbon Book) (9780590420570): Margaret Mahy, Mou-Sien Tseng: Books[/ame]
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Maybe they are on a quest to find the last dragon!
knightofround
First Post
A standalone in the paragon teir for a mere 2-3 levels would be tough. Is this an existing party that needs new ideas? Or a brand new party that needs hooks for 5 paragon-tier dragonborn to team up?
If its the latter, I think you pretty much need to "play the race card" to hook them, since that's not a lot of time to build up a true story. I think you'd almost need to do a one-shot somehow related to true dragons. It doesn't always need to be dragon-slaying; perhaps there's another band of adventurers out there who are trying to slay a good, vegetarian dragon, and the PCs are there to foil the "evil villians" (who are truly no more or less than the stereotypical adventuring party)
If its the latter, I think you pretty much need to "play the race card" to hook them, since that's not a lot of time to build up a true story. I think you'd almost need to do a one-shot somehow related to true dragons. It doesn't always need to be dragon-slaying; perhaps there's another band of adventurers out there who are trying to slay a good, vegetarian dragon, and the PCs are there to foil the "evil villians" (who are truly no more or less than the stereotypical adventuring party)
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