The Origin of a PoL setting

[Scrollreader]

If dragons in your world are social, then they make a great example. The local dragon might care if a little kingdom is expanding, but that's probably it. Once you start throwing around the kind of power some of the fallen empires have, then the parliment/council/whatever of dragons gets concerned. An old dragon isn't worried by a kingdom, even a big one. But a massive empire, and perhaps more inportantly, the heroes and magical wonders it spawns are a different matter. They /also/ are on a long, slower timeline than mortals, and are capable of everything from rampant destruction (few cities, in even the greatest empires could handle a concerted attack of a couple of wyrms and lesser dragons), to subtle manuevering, especially if dragons are still capable of innate shapechanging (as many of the metallics were in 3.X, even without spells). It makes dragons more mysterious, and more adversarial, but the latter is something 4e is doing anyway. And it makes Dragonkilling /special/ and important. Especially if they're social, and keeping the mortal races in check, people that can kill dragons go on the watch list, and just this could generate whole adventure paths at the paragon and epic tiers, as worried dragons devote more and more resources to trying to stop these dragonslayers.

EDIT: if you want more moral ambiguity in your dragons, or to keep your chromatics and metallics separate, simply put them on opposite sides of some prophecy of statement. Maybe the metallic "Wardens" wiped out Bael Whatever, due to the infernal taint, and try to shepard civilizations along, even if they are a bit pedantic and overprotective. And maybe the chromatics are trying to keep the mortals from fulfilling their eventual destiny of surpassing the glory of dragonkind, and are responsible for the fall of the dragonborn empire.

 

[Pale Jackal]

as it would force the characters to pick something they want to protect while the rest of the world burns down in front of them.

That could be really fun, especially? if the party was a bit conflicted, but needed to concentrate their might.

if you want more moral ambiguity in your dragons, or to keep your chromatics and metallics separate, simply put them on opposite sides of some prophecy of statement. Maybe the metallic "Wardens" wiped out Bael Whatever, due to the infernal taint, and try to shepard civilizations along, even if they are a bit pedantic and overprotective. And maybe the chromatics are trying to keep the mortals from fulfilling their eventual destiny of surpassing the glory of dragonkind, and are responsible for the fall of the dragonborn empire.

This is a similar thought, and you might've meant it:

But the metallics AND chromatics could've destroyed Bael'Turath, but for different reasons.

Heh, "Wardens" and "Crusaders."

 

[Scrollreader]

Heh, "Wardens" and "Crusaders."

I've goven a slight bit of thought to Dragonborn as Clansmen, evacuated from the known world by the last of the dragons, a dying breed, who was an ancient silver also known, in human form as Kerensky. And now coming back ...


Whaaaaat?



In all seriousness, though, call them whatever you like, if you don't want all dragons to be PC enemies, give them factions. If you don't mind them all being enemies (if some perhaps, misguided ones) then you can have a unified "Council of Wyrms' kind of thing.