D&D 5E The Role of Dragons in Your Game

[Shiroiken]

My group has encountered 5 dragons. Despite this, they've never lost their fear of them.

Two Adult White Dragons in the Air Elemental Node of the Temple of Elemental Evil had a monopoly on the water supply (a glacier), and the level 5 party "worked" with evil Cloud Giants to kill them and break up that monopoly. The party worked both sides, trying to see if they could get them to kill each other, because they though they needed something hidden in the dragon's horde (it wasn't there). Most of the party went down, mostly due to AoE when they were between the two groups, and the Life Cleric was slain. They did manage to kill the remaining White Dragon, who was grievously injured after killing the last Cloud Giant (~ 30 HP left). The party wanted nothing more to do with dragons after that!

While wandering the Yatil Mountains, a Copper Dragon swooped down on the party in a narrow canyon. The Gold Dragon Sorceress used Minor Illusion to summon the rune for "Peace" in Dragonic in front of her. It snatched her up and flew off with her. The rest of the group tried to follow, but got lost in the mountains. They gave up, considered her dragon food. It turns out the dragon regularaly snacked on the creatures the party was tracking down. It snatched up the Sorceress, because she knew draconic, and was lonely for conversation. In exchange for a night's discussion, he returned her to the group with directions to the lair they sought. The party was still pretty terrified of dragons, but less so.

Two Adult White Dragons were allies of the Frost Giant Jarl, and the players stumbled into their lair. While much higher level (11 vs. 5), the battle was epic, with half the party dropped, and the Bard slain. She was restored with Revivify, but once more Dragons are on the Do Not Mess With list.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

The role of dragons in my game differs frequently.

Sometimes they are barely more than animals that have a deadly cunning, a spoken language, and a lust for wealth that draws other greedy beings into their orbit as worshipers or subservient users (trading doing stuff for the dragon's benefit for, hopefully, protection and/or wealth from the dragon).

Fairly often they are the last lingering vestiges of an ancient time of splendor and magical power - rare, and hiding out to try and outlast their enemies (metallics vs. chromatics) as the last ditch effort to "win" the war that is directly responsible for their all around dwindling numbers. These sort are also often willing to impart potent items or "forgotten" knowledge to adventurers they take a liking to, and often functionally hire on other creatures to protect their lair against treasure-hungry adventurers and their other enemies.

In one campaign the role they serve is two-part. The first being that a clutch of five silver dragon siblings are companion-mounts to the party, renewing the ancient and lost tradition of the Dwarves (and in this case their allies) riding into battle on the backs of allied dragons to fight in the name of Law and Good. The second part being the most powerful known form of intelligent life, representing a great source of power to turn toward a cause (which is largely serving as a foil to the opposition in the campaign involving a cult that worships ancient undead dragons and seeks to end all existence, so I guess maybe you could say the role of dragons is three-part, with the third part being "to let me use these cool minis I got from the Bones kickstarter").

And I'm also not opposed to using settings in which the role of dragons is something entirely different (like how in Dark Sun, a dragon is more of what a high-level wizard can become than it is a different species of creature), or even non-existent or undefined because there either aren't any dragons or as-of-campaign start no one has heard of such a thing as a dragon even though they do exist somewhere out in the world.

 

[Jester David]

In my world ancient dragons are rare. They hide in their hidden lairs guarding their treasure, spending much of their time sleeping. They're almost like Great Old Ones in that they're around and a constant threat, but not particularly active.
The exception being one ancient red dragon on the far side of the world that ripped apart the dragonborn empire in a method akin to Godzilla tearing across Japan.

Adult dragons are around, scheming and trying to build their hoards. They're active villains and figures in the world. They're dwindling in numbers though, not replenishing themselves fast enough. In their arrogance they often perform deeds that lead to their demise, attracting the attention of would be dragonslayers, adventurers, or armies.

Younger dragons are around but often captive.
See, in my world sorcerers gain their powers by consuming the blood of arcane creatures. Such as dragons. No everyone gains magic (there's still a bloodline component) but you can't activate your sorcerous power without drinking blood. The older the dragon, the longer you retain magical abilities. Young dragons, being easier to capture and hold, are sought as sources of blood: penned and regularly bled.
Kobolds have found sleeping ancient dragons and slowly (gently) bleed them for their highly valuable and extremely potent blood.

 

[Draegn]

In our world all creatures of the draco family breathe fire, expectorate acid, exhale noxious fumes and have venom. They can be of any colour, regardless of tint, tone or shade.

There are four varieties within the draco family:
Dragons with four legs and wings.

Drakes with two legs and wings with functional finger talons, they are not as strong as dragons but are far faster and more agile flyers.

Wyrms with four legs and lacking wings are far bulkier and stronger than dragons.

Serpents both legless and wingless are the weakest, however, they can burrow through lose earth, sand and other unpacked materials. They are the best swimmers and need not fear drowning.

Very few creatures have been named. Only the meanest, toughest, and most intelligent live long enough to be given one. Draconic beings when hatched without a mother are cannibalistic. Only one in twenty eggs will contain a single being that has the potential to grow to adult size. The remaining eggs will contain a number of creatures ranging in size from a ferret to a horse. The more beings within the egg, the smaller the size. These smaller creatures have at best the intelligence of the creature they correspond to in size. These little ones are collectively referred to as drahonnets and are thought to be a food source during lean times. They completely lack the flames, acid, fumes and venom of their larger siblings.

 

[Blue]

Dragons are named NPCs with motivations. And often ones that develop on a much-longer timeframe then the PCs - it's easily possible for "evil" dragons to be allies with good PCs for things because it furthers the dragon's ends fifty years down the road.

I don't introduce them just for "a combat", though like a villain they can end up with a combat or many. I prefer to have them reoccurring.

 

[cmad1977]

I like to dress them in frilly tutus and play tea party,


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[MechaPilot]

How do you use dragons in your campaign? Do they have a special place, or are they "just another monster"?

I have two homebrew campaign settings: Wildwood and Tenesia.

In Wildwood, dragons are not a species. They're manifestations of the wrath of nature, who acts as the overdeity of that world. Consequently, all dragons are legendary ancient dragons who slumber in forests, swamps, and volcanoes until roused by nature's ire to destroy a civilization that has sinned too much against her.

In Tenesia, dragons are massively powerful creatures of base motivation. They hibernate for centuries only to awaken and glut themselves on whatever nearby life they can find, people included. If a wakened dragon spots a settlement too close to its den, it will exterminate the entire settlement. They cannot speak humanoid languages, though they can understand them, and they cannot use magic. Their hides are virtually impervious to normal weapons (crits still hit, but only for normal damage, not double damage), with only blessed and magical arms able to pierce them regularly. Consequently, they hate magic, and they will attempt to destroy it when they become aware of it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I haven't been able to do much with dragons in my world yet.

I know they are one of the oldest species/races in the world. I know they do not have the scale colors of common in D&D (I hate how it ID's them and removes the fear and worry of is this an ally or enemy from the occasion). I know they were born from the blood spilled during the enternal battle between Bahamut and Tiamat (Which I think I will make as not only the ultimate expressions of "Good" and "Evil" [PHB lists them as the only gods with good or evil in their domain list] but as the Avatars of the Heavens and the Abyss, so the tale is more metaphorical). Oh, I do have a cabal of shadowdragons and dracoliches.

But honestly, no one has bothered going to look for them. I did have some sort of Dragon creature show up, shrouded by the mists that cover the land, to drive home to the players that there are things outside of the Towers that see them as fleas.

But yeah, spellcasters, powerful, dangerous, intelligent, and more as I see fit.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Evidence? Like a leaked "let's stage a fake contest" memo or something? Heavens no, that'd've been quite the scandal. I'm just cynical. I see a 'contest' and, in the end, the winner is the professional game designer who submitted a setting that he'd been running for the guys judging the contest for years...

Wait, so you're claiming that they're all liars? Keith is lying when he talks about only having the basic elements worked out before the contest as ideas, about the whole process of building the world based on their feedback. You're accusing him of lying about all of that?

I generally respect you, Tony, but that...I really hope that isn't what you mean.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In published setting I run dragons how the setting presents them, mostly.

In my own settings, it varies more.

In the archipelago world setting of Albaron (working name. It's also the name of the kingdom which is he focus of my campaign) which is a sort of Mediterranean corsairs/Musketeers/Zoro meets Final Fantasy 9 sort of world, dragons fill two distinct roles. In the unknown west, dragons rule as god-kings, but as quiet enough in the last century or two that their vassals began to trade with Albaron and it's neighbors.

Then the dragons woke, and saw the goods their servants had gained in trade, and sought to crush these foreign kingdoms, consume their gods, and rule over them. They lost that war, but vowed to return.

OTOH, Albaron is also home to several other draconic species. Arkoskans (dragonborn), also called Sea Dragons, are similar to Polynesian people in culture, and make good neighbors most of the time, and terrifying enemies when appropriate. Then there are dragonlings, which are basically the little dragons from Riders of Pern, but they can talk. And there used to be a species of mountable drake, but it is believed to be extinct.

In Chevar, the great dragons are stupifyingly awesome creatures. Basically gods. The Red Dragon of Wales, the White Dragon which is the adversary of the Red and patron of necromancers and granted Vlad Tepes power over death in exchange for his humanity, etc. lesser dragons are more like NPCs, guardians, gatekeepers, etc