The Horror Of It!!

[Alcamtar]

In Mystara, there is a nation of dragons. The nation is composed of dragons of all colors. They have their own city in an extinct volcano, complete with dragon-sized towers, and a ruling council made up of all colors.

Dragons in the wild are one of two types: those loyal to the council who obey draconic law, and "rogues". Draconic law keeps most dragons from raiding human lands, and also offers a measure of protection, since you have the backing of a thousand dragons of assorted colors to come to your defense. Adventurers might slay a dragon, but the local ruler is not going to be happy when an army of dragons demands blood money AND the extradition of the murderers, to be tried by the dragon high council. The dragons are generally willing to live in peace with lesser races, as long as they are left alone and given plenty of territory for hunting.

Of course rogue dragons are fair game, but then, rogue dragons are also the strongest and proudest and most evil of the dragons. They make deals with humanoids, booby trap their lairs, and build a power base. Some rogue kings may have a dozen (or two) hench-dragons in their lairs! They hide from the council, since the other dragons hunt them down when they find them.

In one Mystaran storyline, when someone stole a sacred object from the dragon council, they immediately invaded two nations, destroyed several cities, burned a fleet of ships, then calmly informed the nations of the world that unless the object were returned they'd get REALLY angry and maybe decide to restore the ancient dragon empire. They were more than prepared to take on all comers, even eager, and no nations really wanted to confront any army of several thousand dragons. I mean, there are only so many adventurers, and then you have to rely on those 1st level warriors....

FWIW, when the dragons went to war, they fought intelligently and used teamwork and spells effectively. A key strength is the ability to stay airborne and make flyby attacks, as well as to have half a dozen dragons surround the enemy and attack from all sides simultaneously. If war machines are brought out, they slip in using magical invisibility or darkness and burn them. Shapechanged dragons make powerful spies and special agents. Cities are easily handled by flying high (out of missile range) and bombarding it with dropped stones; disintegrate spells are great for castle walls, as well as for lair-building.

Anyway, anarchy spells doom for any race, unless they are willing to be conquered and/or annihilated by a more disciplined race. Forming dragons into a nation with mutual support and a government capable of undertaking strategic action makes them FAR more formidable. Such a nation need not have geographical boundaries; in Mystara the dragons do have a mountain range of their own, but otherwise squat whereever they please. Their attitude toward human governments is "we were here first, we're stronger than you are, and you're only here at our indulgence. So if you leave us alone we'll overlook your petty complaint..." They are a bit overconfident actually, but overconfidence and bravado work in your favor if your enemies believe it.

 

[Henry]

Flexor, you hate the Dragons. The Dragons are our friends. You must Die!

Seriously, Edena has a point - it is the point on which the Great and Illustrious Wolfspider founded Our Order. Dragons, especially Adult and older ones, would have to be some of the toughest and craftiest sons of *****es ever to stroll the planet. They should have defenses prepared that only a giant being with immense power and magic force could have. If Kobolds are supreme trap builders, think about two things:

Where did even Kurtulmak learn his first skills eons past, and

What can a 100 ton dragon do with massive claws and spells, and plenty of prep time?

 

[wolff96]

Maybe the dragon, as evil as he is, exacts a protection fee from the local surroundings. Maybe, even the evil green bastard that he is, ACTUALLY PROVIDES SOME PROTECTION. Sure, he demands some tribute and he really still eats elves on sight but more than once he's come through and saved the city/state by destroying a threat to the local townspeople.

Funny you should mention that...

One of my favorite things about my old homebrew world was a port city with an unusual protector.

Atharxis, an Old Blue Dragon, created a lair in the high cliffs surrounding the port. Unlike most of his kind, he actually liked being near the sea and hearing the surf pounding the base of "his" cliffs. After years of conflict between himself and the city-dwellers (mostly started by them rather than him), they came to an agreement.

Atharxis would protect their coastal traffic from pirates. In return, he could keep whatever loot he recovered from the pirate ships and ships that ran aground and sank in storms or such. The townsfolk would keep his existence a secret and help camoflauge and maintain his lair occasionally, and do their best to discourage would-be dragonhunters.

The arrangement worked exceedingly well. With a DRAGON guarding their trade, Freeport became the best-known trading city in the world. That kind of wealth still attracted desperate pirates who gambled on the fact that Atharxis couldn't be everywhere at once -- and some of them would succeed, for a while. After a time, the dragon's existence was an open secret -- everyone knew of him. Atharxis kept up his end of the bargain, too, actually buying his supplies when he couldn't find them through hunting (hey, he is LAWFUL evil, after all).

Granted, when the pirate trade got slow, he would occasionally use his Hallucinatory Terrain abilities to run ships aground and loot them himself... But then again, he saw to it that no one survived those occasional raids.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

In my home campaign, the number of dragons has dwindled significantly- there are only around 300 left in the entire world, when in the previous age there were tens of thousands. After humans discovered wizardry and gnostic magic (psionics), they battled the dragons and their elven lackies for control of the world- and succeeded. Thousands of dragons died in the ensuing war, and many migrated to other worlds and planes of existence.

In the current age of my world, most of the remaining dragons are evil (only about 10% of the remaining dragons are of Good alignment), and of those evil dragons, they are divided into two groups- the "cynics", and the "reclaimers". The cynics are your stereotypical dragon- they prefer to sleep on their treasure horde all day, eat the occasional adventurer or steal the occasional cow, and generally stay out of the affairs of the world. The reclaimers, on the other hand, are dragons to be feared. Most of the oldest dragons are of this type- the type that wants to reestablish the rule of dragonkind over the inferior humanoid races. Luckily for the human/oids, most of them are too busy fighting among themselves to challenge the dominant human powers. The most significant dragons in the campaign at the moment are the five dragons who make up the Black Consortium, a small cabal that rules the island nation of Ignus, home of the refugee wizards (mostly necromancers and liches) who fled the destruction of the Jezhedian Empire. Most of these dragons (all ancients) have at least 15 Necromancer or Invoker levels on top of their draconic powers. In addition to this, they are also the commanders of the Knights of Tiamat, a multinational cabal of clerics, assassins, and blackguards devoted to the Dragon Queen, and can muster a small but very elite army when needed. They also have an airship under construction that, when complete, will be the most fearsome war machine that the world has seen in 500 years.

The Black Consortium is not a group of dragons to be trifled with- but they aren't the most threatening of the dragons in my campaign.

The most threatening dragon is a half-fiend/white great wyrm known only as the Ice Dragon. Living in a palace in the utmost north, he commands a nation of millions of orcs, goblins, and trolls who are eyeing the Damodrian Empire (the main setting of my campaign) with intent on conquest. They've sent forth a scouting party of a few thousand troops to take control of the elven ruins of Sarinimarinilath on the northern edge of the kingdom of Elanesse, and are merely waiting for their interior operatives to destabilize the nation enough to invade...

 

[Aaron L]

Typically, I believe dragons are not sought out and killed in their lairs simply for their treasure, unless the ones doing so are Neutral or Evil. The reason dragons are hunted down and killed is usually because of the maidens they demand as sacrifice, the rampaging and pillaging of the surrounding countryside, and the general bad things they are doing to the humans/elves/dwarves that live nearby. And in that, I think they slayers of the dragon are perfectly justified.

 

[Ace]

we seem to have 2 views of dragons here, theives and extortionist. and in both cases they are bullies. i say "sword-fodder, all of 'em"

Dragon Hater HISSSSS!!!!!!!11

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Cheers. Some great answers here.
And thanks for the compliments.

I sorta get the impression from the above that there are three good answers to the problem:

1: A community of dragons (ala the Dragon Council, Reprisal's dragon community, dragons working together to intimidate and extort from the humans, and the others.)

2: Dragons intermingling with the humans, demihumans, and humanoids (ala the Coven of Druids allied with the Green dragon, dragons assuming human forms, dragons making treaties with human nations, dragons forming secret alliances with human nations, and the others.)

3: Or both of the above combined.

You know, it seems to me (just my opinion) that dragons are much like humans in this: they must, like humans, band together into a civilization (government, armies, treaties, and all of that) for self-protection against a hostile world.
With humans, there is strength in numbers, and so it is with dragons.
With humans, civilization enables them to achieve ends impossible if they worked alone, and so it appears to be the case with dragons.

I guess that the dragon who sits alone on his pile of good (ala Smaug, the dragon of Landover, etc.) is going to go the way of the Dodo.

Whereas the Dragon Nations (Mystara, Pern, the Council of Wyrms Setting, and the others) flourish.

Even dragons with Epic power (the Epic dragons given in the ELH, which I do not have yet, but have heard of) are really, in the end, truly unable to stand alone.
For they must face Epic Level PCs and NPCs.

Now, that dragon that is a million years old, is another matter.
If one considers how quickly a PC or NPC (and dragons can gain PC levels now) gains levels (what, say 20 levels in 20 years of life?) there is no question about the power of a million year old dragon.

Of course, there are always intrepid (read: stupid) adventurers trying to come up with ways to do the impossible (such as killing a million year old dragon.)
That is, I suppose, why they invented Talismans of the Sphere ...

 

[-Ekimus-]

my next character = dragon disciple. dragons r way to cool to not be a part of a sorc/paladin of bahamut

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

(bumps this once)

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

There is nothing more satisfying than the pop a dragons neck makes as your greatsword cuts though the spine and removes it's head. There was one dragon, a huge Green, that we had the most difficult time beheading. It was dead and just laying there while we hacked at it's neck...man that took a lot of time! But it was fun killing!