Help me BADD: Dragon Marathon (Longish)

[SpuneDagr]

I'm about to start the Hellbound: The Bloodwar campaign with three of my roommates. For this to work, they need to start out at about 8th or 9th level. However, I really hate starting characters at anything higher than 1st level. I just think those higher levels should be EARNED.

I have decided on a compromise. The characters will start out at 1st level, but they will fight a series of difficult (read: "boss") battles to get up to the level I want them. Think of them as "flashbacks" to the various battles of the fighting careers they would have had, if they had actually played through all those levels. After each battle, they will all gain a level and get all the treasure they would normally earn from 13.3 battles of their level CR.

Since I really like dragons and there are no dragons in this campaign anyway, I was going to have the boss battles all be dragons. I made stats for 9 dragons ranging from CR 1-9.

I don't want these to be just random, "dungeon-crawl" fights. I want a bit of background as to why they are trying to kill the dragon, etc. Can anyone help me with possible tactics or brief story ideas for these dragons?

CR 1: White wyrmling
CR 2: Green wyrmling
CR 3: Very young blue dragon
CR 4: Young black dragon
CR 5: Young Slarecian dragon (from the Creature Collection 2)
CR 6: Young red dragon
CR 7: Corrupted young black dragon (from the BoVD)
CR 8: Juvenile sapphire dragon (MM2)
CR 9: Juvenile mist dragon (Tome of Horrors)

 

[SpuneDagr]

If you don't have these books, here are the basics of some of these guys.

Slarecian dragon: has a large crystaline horn on its nose that stores spell levels like a rod of absorption.

Corrupted: tainted by the presence pure evil. It's slightly mutated covered in sores and tumors and stuff. It's attacks do extra damage just because of how EVIL it is.

Mist dragon: It can turn into mist to evade attacks and can create a fog cloud.

 

[chucku]

Unless these guys have never played D&D before I don't see the efficacy in your contrived plan to have them 'earn' levels. In which case fighting dragons right off the bat is not the way to start!

<reality check>IT'S JUST A GAME.</reality check>.

If the story you want to tell works better with them starting at 9th level, so be it. You can make it just as hard for them to get to tenth level as it was to get from first to ninth if you so wish.