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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6057135" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I would keep it but change the back story.  I would listen to pemerton's advice here:  However, a couple of things that need clarification from you and a couple of things to clarify for pemerton since he isn't fully versed in the source material.   Infyrana (the Ancient Red Dragon in question) is assumed to be the oldest and most powerful Red Dragon perhaps ever.  She is also an archmage of the highest order.  Given her age, she has accrued an extreme number of enemies.  Toward the end of evading them, she has enchanted her lair (the mountain) with High Magic (perhaps from an artifact) causing it to literally plane shift through the cosmology in an unpredictable fashion.  Every so often, it shifts to the Prime Material Plane.  As both color (and primarily a contrivance to make it a closed adventure setting, impermeable to the power of epic level PCs), teleportation/extra-planar magic do not work in the mountain...as well as, presumably, summoning spells...a product of Infyrana's high magic.  Further, she is basically an epic level Diviner, with spies everywhere (one of which is herself polymorphed as a kobold), as well so pretty much nothing happens in the mountain that isn't known to her.  So a secret coup with a rival dragon, and then summoning the dragon would be quite difficult.   All of that being said, I don't know how this is being played.  Highleaf currently has a level 14 antagonist, so this seems to be mid-paragon tier.  As such, there must be some adjustments to the implied setting (and the main antagonist - Infyrana) that has been made that I am not privy to. So then, the way I personally would run it is something like this: - Kargonoth and his clan long ago infiltrated the mountain in an attempt to conquer the mighty Red and claim her for their kingdom.  Infyrana routed them but left him and his major lieutenants (perhaps 3 of them) alive, humilitating them by polymorphing them into the lowly form of kobolds, serving as an example to usurpers and enslaving them to her will forevermore (both unbelievable slights to mighty fire giants).   - They are extremely demoralized but growing desperate and bitter as the centuries progress.  If the PCs are able to defeat them in battle and show their potential, they will seize upon the opportunity to possibly win back their form and their freedom.  Perhaps Kargonoth knows a secret weakness...something in her lair...something that a Skill Challenge must activate in order to permanently undo the magic and return them to their form, stop the plane-shifting and bind the dragon from being able to escape her lair (if defeat is imminent).  Perhaps he knows of a location or of a means to carry on a parlay (possbily another Skill Challenge) that isn't under the watchful eye of Infyrana (thus allowing them to broker their secret deal).   - If the Fire Giants are successfully un-polymorphed, they will be an assett in the final fight.  However, their attacks are all Fire keyword and thusly irrelevant to Infyrana.  You'll either heave to refluff their martial attacks to not have the Fire keyword or figure something else out.  - So.  Bloodied equals a short suspension of the polymorph magic (like death by lycanthropy polymorphs a beast back to human), revealing their true form and the fight is on.  After they are defeated (or maybe 5 minutes), the magic reasserts itself and they are transformed back to kobolds.  Therefore, make their defeat be turning back into kobolds and attempting to submit to the PCs and invoke a parlay (and then go the route above).Or.  You could go pemerton's route and have them be agents of one of Infyrana's powerful extra-planar enemies.  If you go that route, you're going to have to reflavor some things or you're going to have to have a strong explanation for the ability for them to maintain their duplicitous ends (while under the watchful eye of Infyrana) and then find a way for them to summon the extra-planar enemy while in the mountain.  Perhaps the Skill Challenge to destroy the artifact in her lair that maintains the High Magical protections and teleportation effect?  You could do something nifty with the Skill Challenge and have the PCs "recode" the artifact to briefly suspend the anti-teleportation/summoning magic, program it to plane-shift to some remote area of the cosmos and then kersplode.  The two powerful creatures could be tearing each other apart while the PCs engage in a Skill Challenge to get out before the place plane-shifts and kersplodes. At the end of it all would be an interesting situation with the Fire Giants and the PCs.  A nice thematic conundrum embedded into the whole.</blockquote>

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