Amassing a horde

[Michael Morris]

This sorta happened in my thought processes, but it makes sense and I thought I'd share. Chromatic (Evil) dragons in my world win hordes through either direct theft or by luring foolhardy adventurers into their lairs where they kill them and take their stuff.

Fine, but what about "Good" dragons. Well, for a long time I didn't want magic item traders in my world, but now I do allow it - but the Metallic dragons (in human guises most of the time) have cornered the market And they amass hordes by charging for magic items quite a bit more than what they are worth (100% to 200% markup on most items).

My players have ran across a young silver and an adult gold dragon (the latter disguised as a human) for their trading needs.
Thoughts?

 

[Tonguez]

Amassing a Horde probabaly takes high ranks in Diplomacy

As for a Hoard I use Dragon Bankers so Dragon Merchants is a natural extension,

 

[greywulf]

I always thought Good dragons got their hordes by defeating Evil dragons. Either that or Amway.

 

[Ambrus]

I always thought Good dragons got their hordes by defeating Evil dragons. Either that or Amway.

Why limit themselves to evil dragons? They can use their considerable might to defeat all manner of evil creatures such as demons, devils, undead, vile spellcasters, etc. It's my opinion that good dragons accumulate their hoards the same way most adventurers do; by killing bad guys and taking their stuff. Why mess with a system that works?

 

[Michael Morris]

Because killing the baddies is the PC's job??

 

[Cedric]

I actually once ran a homebrew where a small rural area was experiencing a dramatic growth in ambushes, crime and the like from evil humanoids. This started slowly but was growing steadily when the PCs were turned loose on it.

In game terms, the Gold Dragon which had been keeping the evil humanoids at bay, was on an extended vacation. Dragons were very much extra-planar in my game world, this one was on a decade or so long vacation to another plane.

When he returned and found the PCs fighting a stalemate battle against the evil humanoids, he lended a hand and became a casual ally of the PCs.

It worked well in that campaign...

 

[Hairfoot]

I think treasure comes in hoards, with an 'A'. I'm not nit-picking, it just cracks me up to think of dragons jealously guarding their precious barbarian hordes from thieving adventurers.

 

[Tonguez]

Because killing the baddies is the PC's job??

Yes this the problem with Dragons killing bad guys, it begs the question of why the world even needs PCs and how any adventurer ever manages to reach high level.

IMC Dragon Banks collect the tons of gold brought back by Adventurers and store it in there hoard. In return the Dragon Banks issue Dragon Marques which are tradable promissory notes - thus the dragon gets a hoard and the wealth of the adventurers is protected (relatively).

The biggest city imc 'Bishnagar' is ruled by a Dragon of the same name who heads the Company of Merchants. The city is at the center of the East-West Spice route and the North South Gold/Salt trails. The Dragon is relatively passive in the city affairs appointing a Provost from the local humanoids

 

[Cedric]

Yes this the problem with Dragons killing bad guys, it begs the question of why the world even needs PCs and how any adventurer ever manages to reach high level.

That can all be adjusted by the size of the game world and relative rarity of Dragons, as well as how active they are.

In a game where Dragons are territorial and therefore widely spaced and are additionally on a fairly inactive cycle of hunting and roaming, it is entirely feasible to have good dragons that sustain themselves from hunting bad guys, as long as you make the bad guy numbers fairly robust.

 

[drothgery]

Yes this the problem with Dragons killing bad guys, it begs the question of why the world even needs PCs and how any adventurer ever manages to reach high level.

Dragon PCs!

(or maybe Dragons need XP to advance to the next size category; just waiting around to get older doesn't work ...)