D&D General Memorable dragon encounters

[Reynard]

Because the Neil Gaiman thread has flown off the rails...

Let's share some memorable dragon encounters have have run or played through. It doesn't matter if it is an official adventure or home brew, or what edition (although specifying edition is a good idea).

One that spring immediately to mind for me happened in 2E in the middle of what would become my longest running campaign (spanning 20 years and 2 editions of D&D plus another game system entirely). The PCs were working their way to the bottom of the Evermines (a megadungeon) and found themselves in a made of magically dark maze of tunnels. What they did not realize is that it was stalked by a young adult (if I recall) black dragon. The session played out like an extended scene from Alien, with desperate groping in the dark and spontaneously acid breath and attacks from nowhere.

It was while in the Evermines that the PCs accidentally woke The Great Beast of the Earth, the lord of evil dragons and an ancient red the size of a castle. When it finally emerged and called all its progeny to it was a few levels later but this is where it started.

 

[jasper]

Ticked off my players during Forge of Fury 3E. The dragon smacked the party hard and they retreated back to town to heal. They came back to lair empty of the dragon, and half it loot was gone. I forget what note the dragon left for the group said.

 

[Imaculata]

My players just recently fought a copper dragon inside a watery cave, where it had made its nest on top the wreck of an old ship. The dragon could summon figments of dragonlings. They won in the end, although not without a lot of injuries and missing eyebrows.

 

[Monayuris]

Ticked off my players during Forge of Fury 3E. The dragon smacked the party hard and they retreated back to town to heal. They came back to lair empty of the dragon, and half it loot was gone. I forget what note the dragon left for the group said.

Ha.

My group had a similar experience in that encounter in 5E (Tales of the Yawning Portal version).

They were in marching order moving around the lake and in perfect line for breath weapon when the dragon appeared.

Two PCs slain, the rest turned and ran. It was pretty brutal.

In my case, the dragon remained (overconfident in itself). The players did manage to return with reinforcements and a better plan and got their revenge.

 

[Reynard]

When the Great Beast of the Earth did emerge, the first thing ti did was summon all the lesser dragons in the region. They attacked the town, but for a specific purpose: the PCs found the dragons attacking merchants and banks as the dragons tried to collect (by swallowing) all the gold in the area. It turned out that the gold mines that made up the upper levels of The Evermine WERE the GBotE's hoard.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Hall of the Fire Giant King.
Brazzemal the Burning.
When we met the great beast we were already tired, and we knew we were in big trouble.
In the first round we had initiative. The cleric (Anja) could only cast Slay Living and hope. She overcomed the 80% Magic Resistance, then Brazzemal rolled a natural 1 on the Saving Throw. Cheers.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Into the Wormcrawl Fissure (Age of Worms AP).
Dragotha.
I was DMing and had advanced Dragotha from Wyrm to Great Wyrm. My PCs were truly overpowered at Lvl 19 (one was an invincible Frenzied Berserker) but I knew Dragotha was so strong that could wipe the floor with them. So I had Lashonna gift the party with a magic orb that could simulate the fight in a "white room" (also, in the simulation Dragotha was alone and without magic items). They were humiliated multiple times (at first they didn't mind fire immunity and were all incinerated in the first round; in the second simulation they were all paralyzed by the Dracolich's gaze and didn't made the second round; the third time they learned that Dragotha had a second breath that could steal their souls...), so they could prepare well. When they finally reached the Tabernacle of Worms and met Dragotha, he was surrounded by powerful allies, mastering strong items, with layers of precast spells; then, the Sorcerer/Paladin (the true mastermind of the party) surprised me starting the fight with a Mordenkainen's Disjunction. It was the first time he used the spell, and the first time the party sacrificed some magic items to overcome a foe.
The fight lasted the entire four-hours session, and in the end the ancient beast had to submit and fall into oblivion.

 

[Nebulous]

In 2nd edition I had the party rescue Drizzt and Guenhwyvar from a black dragon. It had them hanging in a cage down in its lair. I used to occasionally drop in popular Faerun characters, but we never followed the canon much. I would't even say it was a GOOD encounter, lol, but it was memorable.

I had a red dragon attack the party about halfway across the Stone Bridge in PotA. That was memorable and fun and scary. They had nowhere to run, but they did so much damage to the thing via ranged magic it had to flee.

 

[uzirath]

In my early days of AD&D I recall working with a friend to design the lair of a white dragon. The entrance to the lair was a hot spring hidden in a glacial crevasse. The spring wasn't scalding but was hot enough to avoid freezing over and create a dense mist that obscured vision. The dragon would dive into the spring and zip through an underwater tunnel before rising into a large icy cavern. Its nest was on a ledge above and behind the entrance pool. This was one of the first times I really used the environment as a challenge in an adventure. The dragon-hunting PCs had to first traverse the underwater tunnel and then clamber out into a foggy, freezing, slippery ice cavern with the dragon perched above and behind them. It was both brutal and insanely fun. The first set of PCs was nearly wiped out, with only one character barely escaping. This whetted their appetite for revenge. New characters joined the lone survivor and a great deal of planning went into another raid. I don't recall how it all played out in the end, but I remember it being a new level for my developing encounter design skills.

More recently, in a D&D turned GURPS campaign, the party faced a dragon illusionist living in the crater of a dormant volcano. It was extremely fun working out all of the things a dragon could do with subtle magic rather than the more humdrum combat spells.

 

[Reynard]

In my early days of AD&D I recall working with a friend to design the lair of a white dragon. The entrance to the lair was a hot spring hidden in a glacial crevasse. The spring wasn't scalding but was hot enough to avoid freezing over and create a dense mist that obscured vision. The dragon would dive into the spring and zip through an underwater tunnel before rising into a large icy cavern. Its nest was on a ledge above and behind the entrance pool. This was one of the first times I really used the environment as a challenge in an adventure. The dragon-hunting PCs had to first traverse the underwater tunnel and then clamber out into a foggy, freezing, slippery ice cavern with the dragon perched above and behind them. It was both brutal and insanely fun. The first set of PCs was nearly wiped out, with only one character barely escaping. This whetted their appetite for revenge. New characters joined the lone survivor and a great deal of planning went into another raid. I don't recall how it all played out in the end, but I remember it being a new level for my developing encounter design skills.

That sounds like great fun!