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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edena_of_Neith" data-source="post: 255453" data-attributes="member: 2020">Ok, all of you out there, imagine this ...  You're an American Citizen living in your home (or, maybe, you're a British, or Canadian, or Australian, or French, or Belgian, or Japanize, or a Citizen from another Country.)  You're living in your home, minding your own business, not bothering anyone - just living a normal life.  In this theoretical and abstract scenario, the Government either no longer exists as far as you're concerned, or they cannot (or will not) aid you in any way.  Now ...  They are coming to get you.    I do stress the They, and They have an agenda on their minds.  Their Agenda, is to kill you.  Killing you is very important to them.    So important that they will probably do whatever it takes to succeed.  They will come for you, and They are stronger than you are.  They will break into your home by force, and They intend to attack you, and kill you where you stand.  If you fight, They have more weapons and firepower than you.  If you run out of the house, they will pursue you to the death.  If you hide in the house, They will search through the house, overturning every piece of furniture and firing into every floor, wall, and ceiling, to find you, and kill you.  If you get in your car to drive away, They will get in their cars, and give chase, and will never stop until They catch you and bring you down.  If you have family in your home, They will kill your family, in the process of trying to kill you.  If you have anything of value in your home (you probably do) then They will take it.  What They cannot take, they will destroy, or leave a guard over until They find a way to take it.  And remember, you cannot call on the authorities, or on friends, or on neighbors, for none of these will willingly aid you against Them.  If you somehow overcome Them, then Their allies will come to avenge Them against you.  There is no end to the resources They can call upon, whereas you have only your own strength.  Does this sound like an unpleasant situation for you?  Well then, in the D&D game ...  You are a dragon.  They are adventurers (and Them refers to more adventurers and their NPC friends.)  Your home is just that ... your home, wherever you as a dragon have made it.  The items in your home are, of course, what most would call your treasure.  And your family is, in all likelihood, your eggs and your dragonmate, and perhaps your human or demihuman familiar, and any friends who frequent your home, and so on.  Remember that the word Adventurer means, in this case, not only the Good Guys (good aligned adventurers or good aligned NPC groups) but the Bad Guys (neutral or evilly aligned adventurers, plus the NPC adventurers of that sort.)  Be you a good aligned dragon or an evil aligned dragon (or, a dragon to whom alignment has little or no meaning ...) They are coming for your treasure, and They are coming for you.  I can think of a lot of adventurers in my gaming career that would have loved to help their careers to the glory of a dragon-kill, and most of those were good aligned types (which leaves little question about all the neutral and evilly aligned types, and their motivations.)  So, your situation - as a dragon - is ... unpleasant.  I think most would call it rather horrific, really.  So, just what is a dragon to do?  (chuckles)  Everyone talks about how unreasonable dragons are ... hmmm ... I'd be unreasonable too, if I spent a thousand years dealing with Breaking-And-Entering thugs, and assorted beings trying to kill me and mine.  Most people accuse dragons of being antisocial.  Well, I'd be antisocial, if I had to stay up nights (getting no sleep at all for hundreds of years!) because would-be-murderers kept showing up at my door day and night on end.  Most people accuse dragons of being greedy.  I'd be greedy - greedy to save what I have - when everyone is constantly trying to take what I have away from me.  If I were a good aligned dragon, this is true in particular (for after all, those neutral and evil PCs and NPCs are after me just as much as before.)  If I were an evil dragon ... well, I'd BECOME evil, after a couple of hundred years of this kind of thing!!  Who wouldn't?!  So, what's a dragon to do?  Well?  Perhaps I destroy all the lands around my lair (ala the Desolation of Smaug.)    Then, at least, they have to trek a ways to get to my home, and trying to kill me (or rob me, ala that rat Bilbo) is inconvenient to them.  Or, if they have spellcasters, perhaps I have to destroy one or more of their cities, to teach the would-be-murderers to leave me alone (of course, I'm a rotten dragon, if I try to convince them to stop killing me, like that!)  What's a dragon to do?  I can befriend some of them (indeed, some of my brethren have done this.)  Yet I'm a dragon, and I'm not really comfortable around them - I just want to be left alone, to eat gems and lie on my bed of gold, and to sleep the long years away.  Is there some Rule saying I must befriend them, and must deal with them - and hold myself to Codes agreeable to them, and live up to their expectations, and hope these newfound friends don't betray me (they betray themselves on a whim ... how can I expect a short friendship of 100 years with one of them to possibly last?), and hope they are sufficient protection (they aren't), and thus be unable to sleep and unable to have privacy and unable to otherwise be a dragon, and live a dragon's life?  What's a dragon to do?</blockquote>

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