D&D 5E What can a dragon do to accelerate its aging?

[jasper]

Hi! So I'm curious about making a specific dragon a recurring enemy, but I want her to grow stronger as the party does.

Of course, dragons do have several stages of life, but they grow slowly with age; the difference between a "young" dragon and "adult" dragon can be decades, and the difference between adult and ancient can be hundred of years.

So my question is... what can a dragon do if it decides to accelerate its own aging, in an effort to defeat troublesome adventurers?

The idea is that this young dragon failed to defeat the heroes within it's own lair, and although escaped, sees no other recourse but to "hit puberty quick!"

The dragon does have some humanoid assistance in local followers, including lizardfolk, ogres and bullywugs. What I want suggestions for are things like specific spells, rituals, items or patrons that the dragon would seek out to accelerate its aging.

If you can, point to a source in a D&D book where this has happened (I'm sure it has somewhere). But if you've got a great idea, I'd love to hear it!

EDIT: It's a black dragon, starting this as young.

You could give PC levels or.
Young Black Dragon, "Dear Mommy a bunch of evil adventures stole my horde. Could you send my Older brother Darrel, my older older brother Darrel, and Tell Darryl dad to come beat them up. Sign Darryl the youngest. PS. How is the egg doing? I hope it is a girl."

 

[Maxperson]

You could give PC levels or.
Young Black Dragon, "Dear Mommy a bunch of evil adventures stole my horde. Could you send my Older brother Darrel, my older older brother Darrel, and Tell Darryl dad to come beat them up. Sign Darryl the youngest. PS. How is the egg doing? I hope it is a girl."

No no no. One of those brothers has to be Larry.

 

[Umbran]

Or the ingesting of a dragon orb. An artifact fueling the change is rare enough and powerful enough to accomplish it.

Do remember that a young dragon is a whopping Challenge Rating of 7. They are nominally a medium challenge for a group of four characters of 5th level. How does it get an artifact?

Does it undertake the same sort of quest the PCs would? Would the PCs be able to complete that quest... at 5th level or so? Probably not. Anyone with an artifact is going to be much tougher than the dragon, and isn't going to be terribly into creating a nominally ill-tempered creature more powerful than itself.

Thus, if the dragon ages itself this way, that implies something even bigger than the dragon that's interested in helping the dragon... for its own ends.

 

[jasper]

Do remember that a young dragon is a whopping Challenge Rating of 7. They are nominally a medium challenge for a group of four characters of 5th level. How does it get an artifact?

Does it undertake the same sort of quest the PCs would? Would the PCs be able to complete that quest... at 5th level or so? Probably not. Anyone with an artifact is going to be much tougher than the dragon, and isn't going to be terribly into creating a nominally ill-tempered creature more powerful than itself.

Thus, if the dragon ages itself this way, that implies something even bigger than the dragon that's interested in helping the dragon... for its own ends.

See the adventurers moms are really tired that their kids never write or send loot home. So they are working with the dragon to make their kids give up on the adventuring life. And we all know Moms know certain people.

 

[Umbran]

See the adventurers moms are really tired that their kids never write or send loot home. So they are working with the dragon to make their kids give up on the adventuring life. And we all know Moms know certain people.

There's a campaign concept....

 

[Maxperson]

Do remember that a young dragon is a whopping Challenge Rating of 7. They are nominally a medium challenge for a group of four characters of 5th level. How does it get an artifact?

Does it undertake the same sort of quest the PCs would? Would the PCs be able to complete that quest... at 5th level or so? Probably not. Anyone with an artifact is going to be much tougher than the dragon, and isn't going to be terribly into creating a nominally ill-tempered creature more powerful than itself.

Thus, if the dragon ages itself this way, that implies something even bigger than the dragon that's interested in helping the dragon... for its own ends.

Sure. That's one way to do it. You could make something more powerful a patron. Or you could come up with another reason. It's not at all far fetched to think a wizard with an artifact walking through a forest might have a heart attack and die. There would be an artifact with absolutely nothing guarding it. Stuff happens. Or maybe the dragon's parent dies and the orbs are in the parent's hoard. The dragon might only need to come up with the proper ritual to allow ingesting the orb to enact the transformation.

There are lots of ways that a young dragon could acquire the orb with or without something powerful as a patron. Or we could go with no explanation at all and leave it mysterious.

 

[David Howery]

Send the dragon to a place full of ghosts and see how many times it fails the Horrifying Visage saving throw, aging by 1d4x10 years for each of the saves failed by five or more?

yeah, my first thought was 'get a pet ghost, hug him a lot'. But then you'd get the brain of a baby dragon in the body of an adult one. That could be interesting....

 

[Dausuul]

Do remember that a young dragon is a whopping Challenge Rating of 7. They are nominally a medium challenge for a group of four characters of 5th level. How does it get an artifact?

Artifacts don't always come with Mighty Guardians attached to them. Stumbling across an artifact, lying in a forgotten ruin or empty wilderness since the demise of its last wielder, is a staple of fantasy.

I mean, what CR was Gollum?