How to incorporate raising a dragon into the story?

[dragonis111]

Well last night, the game I am DMing ended with the party gaining a bronze dragon egg kept in stasis by magic, finding it in a burial ground(ruins) of a battle between ogres and goblins.

Since my party only has 3 characters I figured adding a dragon in the mix as an ally would be good because they advance slowly but still have some good power early on, my party just needs to find a way to break the enchantment and then incubate the egg until it hatches.

The sorcerer has a bronze draconic bloodline, and the egg will play a major character development role, but I am kinda confused as how to incorporate this into my campaign's story?

Because if I end up focusing too much on the dragon my players might start to get bored and feel unimportant.

A bit of helpful information is my players already agreed on eventually saving up and then building a base of some sorts, and I thought this could also end up doubling as the dragon's first lair, what do you guys think?

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[Epametheus]

Unless you plan on having big time skips or accelerating the dragon's growth, the party will outstrip their hatchling in power pretty quickly.

It's also a bronze, so it's got an inclination towards coastal lairs.

Aside from being born able to kill ogres and hold intelligent conversation, the hatchling "grows up" at around the same rate as a half-elf, reaching adulthood around 25 years old. That's a lot of time to pass in your campaign.

The party may be better served going on the search for a bronze dragon that could give the hatchling a true home...

 

[Tovec]

From experience the only real way to raise a dragon during a campaign is either to skip large amounts of time so it can advance naturally or somehow give it a hybrid class-race system.

If you are really interested in this and in the development and nearly anything to do with dragons I would recommend the DnD book Draconomicon. I LOVE the book as it has so much pretty fluff and crunch for dragons.

 

[Rampant]

Well there's a savage species style progression for dragons in the dragon magazine. So it can level up with the party.

The other thing might be to have the sorc take the dragon cohort feat and use it as a mount or something. How big is a bronze wyrmling? I know some wrymlings can become familiars.