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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 3988734" data-attributes="member: 3649">How does a dragon become a big player? All I need to look at is his INT and WIS score. Taking in mind that the monsters presented in the MM are the weakest of their kind, that means the weakest, most worthless specimen of the Old red dragons has a 20 Int and a 21 Wis. Who needs magic with those two advantages? We speak of those few people that have both a high Int and Wis with respect and admiration, and in our mundane world none of those men whose deeds and words ring down to us through history probably had over a 17 in either score. Now you're talking an inhumanly superior intelligence that is also tempered with a superior understanding of how people and the world works.I can't really convey in words what an astounding advantage that is. The kingdom undoubtably has people that are adept at the political game, who think they plan for the long game, who think they are masters at manipulation and deceipt and treachery, who comb their beards thinking they are The Top Dog. They're wrong. So wrong that they might as well be particularly stupid children playing with dried dog crap under the porch. They are outgunned and out-maneuvered before they ever enter the playing field compared with an Old Red Dragon. If he's taken an interest in, for some reason, becoming involved in the politics of a human kingdom then he'll wind up running the place inside of ten years just because he's much smarter than everyone around him. It's really hard to model the kind of advantage that gives you in D&D game terms, though. I simply consider a group to be 'out thought' at every turn.Just imagine what that must be like? Not only every plan you've made has been thought of, planned for, and taken into account but every plan you're capable of thinking of has been as well. How does the dragon gain and keep followers? Simple speech, backed up by gold and promises. There never will be a shortage of humans who will be content to follow the orders of another, and there has never been a human as adept at pushing living game peices around as a dragon. Our dragon finds a likely set of followers; say, a small mercenary troop. They can do nothing to it, physically, and so.. it talks to the leader. It convinces him - easy enough, since it's vastly smarter than he is - that with it as a backer then the commander can grow in power. What does it get in return? Why, it simply wants x, x being whatever it thinks the commander will beleive. It'll talk with him a time, and x will be something tailor-made to the man's beliefs, something he'll accept with little question.Battles are fought, and because of the dragon's superior tactical sense those battles are won. A brilliant and successful battlefield commander has tremendous pull, and the dragon speaks through him to the people of the kingdom. Eventually, our mercenary commander is Captain of the Guard, and has the ear of the king himself. Maybe the dragon is content to manipulate things through the captain (and, by now, other human servants) or maybe he makes sure that the handsome captain and the Queen get together once the King is out of the way. A hunting trip, a rousing chase across hill and dale after a prize stag, suddenly OMFGZ it's a dragon! Captain, having favor with the Queen, becomes King. A brilliant and noted military hero, the people welcome him with open arms. His fair and just laws, suggested by the dragon, guarentee him support from everyone in the kingdom. Then things begin to change.Taxes are raised a bit, and the arguements for doing so are just inarguable. I mean, how could you ever think differently? The dragon is pleased as extra golden mattress-stuffing begins to arrive by the cart load. Gradually over the years, a wedge is driven into the collective psyche of the land. Things that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable breaches of peace and morals are now common, and it's right and just that they should be this way. It's progress, don't you know? The country moving forward. Things have never been so good. Hey, that new work camp for criminal youths way back in the Blasted Hills? They had an accident there and six young men and woman were killed. How terrible, but then they were criminals anyway. The guards there know that the boys and girls went to feed the dragon's hunger, but probably no-one else does.Spies in the real world use a similar technique. They find a weakness in a person, and exploit it. They gradually, over time, widen that flaw. Soon it's just not a question that, hey, Mike would like to see the cool plans for the microprocessor we're working on and why not? Within a couple years, they can move from cold contact to having a person routinely bringing home ultra-classified documents for the spy to copy, and think absolutely nothing of it. This is how a dragon operates. Now, a word about the servants. The dragon not only has an inhumanly keen insight into his subjects, but he has a level of personal experience that no human can match due to his age. Give that dragon even marginal conditions and he can tear down a person's personality and then rebuild it in the space of a few weeks, just by talk. He's the ultimate psychological torturer, able to strip-mine a man's personality and then install a new one, one more loyal to the dragon.Our captain has long ago become basically a shell through which the dragon speaks. His personality has been hollowed out and cored, and what gets poured into that mold over the months and years is something that is totally the dragon's creature.</blockquote>

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