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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wik" data-source="post: 5866246" data-attributes="member: 40177">Here's how I would do it.First, I'd make it the centre piece of the campaign, and try to tie much of the campaign's events into the dragon finale.  Loonook has a good point in the dragon's origin story - I think it'd be much more interesting for the dragon to be a unique monster, as opposed to something that is lifted as is from the Monster Manual.  If he were a corrupted warlord, or a fallen god, or a merchant cursed to acquire and acquire without rest... all of these are much more interesting.  And also, much more rewarding for the PCs to defeat, since they eliminated a scourge from the world, not just removed a single creature of an entire species.So, how do you do this?First, set up your main plot - save the king, kill the orcs, whatever.  During that first part of your story, have the PCs come across a burned village, and have a few scattered survivors tell the tale.  The Players will take note, but will probably just go on their way, maybe helping a few people out.Then, later on, have another village, in the middle of nowhere, trying to set up a virgin sacrifice or something similarly superstitious - they're going to sacrifice to the dragon.  Let the PCs react as they wish - rescue the virgin and flee (and the rather selfish villagers are left to burn), watch the process but don't interrupt (in which case they get to see the dragon) or maybe even try to fight the dragon (in which case one or two PCs will almost definitely die).  Then, as the group approaches sixth, have them go after the dragon.  And in the first fight, weight the fight in the dragon's favour - the PCs can't get past DR, take huge fire damage, and so on and so forth.  The PCs are outmatched, and have to flee.  This is when you introduce magical items that will help in the dragon's defeat - legendary items in the setting that you could even have introduced earlier in the game (maybe one was worn by a great king, and another was used by a noted villain in the setting's history).  Some ideas would be some sort of item of fire resistance (one for each PC, of course, although it'd be cool if this fire resistance was conditional, and granted by a wood nymph), a magical weapon that pierces the dragon's DR and does additional damage, a staff or wand that prevents the dragon from flying, and so on, and so forth.  The idea being that, once the PCs are pimped out, they can take on a CR 12+ monster and hope to win.  Of course, this final, epic battle needs to be in a suitably epic location (I'd prefer glacial mountain, with chunks of ground breaking off into the waves and shrieking winds, all illuminated by the northern lights).  And make sure there's a time limit on this final encounter, and a "fleeing is not an option" clause built in there.Anyway, that's how I'd do it.  All while trying to make it non railroady and allowing the PCs to approach things from multiple angles.</blockquote>

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