what would you do with a Dragon's body?

[arwink]

or you can plot-weave

The body is originally picked up by a necromancer/evil cleric, who figures that the preserved corpse of a dragon is just the ticket for his next undead servant. Using his magic, he brings the corpse back as some low-key but powerrful undead (a zombie, ghoul or mummy, depending on the power level of the PCs), continually binding new magic into the creature to make it more dangerous. Given the preservation of the corpse, it still looks real enough that people may mistake it for a living dragon with strange new powers. It becomes a part of the necromancers neferious plots, and rumors abound of this strange new dragon that has returned from the dead.

At the same time, the spirit of the dragon is left wandering the afterlife. You don't necessarily see a lot of animated dragon corpses, largely because the God of Dragons (or some similar deity) is afronted by the raising and molesting of his children's corporeal remains. Aroused to anger at both the Necromancer and the Adventuring mercenaries that allowed this blasphemy to take place, the God grants the dragon's spirit a chance at repay the insult being made to his remains. Slap the feindish template on the original dragon, followed by the ghost template, and send him back to the material plane as a spirit of vengance.

The dragon spirit starts interfering with the necromancers plans, aided by the servants of the dragon god. the necromancer is peterbed, and starts looking for reasons why this incorporeal spirit is after him.

Once he works it out, he uses standard necromancer logic to place the blame on the PC's who sold the corpse to him in the first place. He starts laying bait for the dragon spirit, leading him towards the Pc's. At the same time, he uses the animated corpse to lure the PC's towards the spirit.

In the end, they're trapped between two opposing forces, both of whom blame them for the current problems.

If they defeat the dragon's spirit, then perhaps the necromancer tries to trap it before it returns to the afterlife - giving him more power. If they defeat the necromancer, perhaps the dragon spirit has the chance to possess his animated body, gaining some semblance of life with much more power.

 

[Duncan Haldane]

Well, thanks for the great ideas everyone.

I've been one of the unfortunates who has been unable to contact Enworld for the last week or so, and now I'm finally back.

I've finally started running the adventure for the PCs, and here's what I've been working on.

I decided to have the body used by a dracolich. Although the game is not set in the realms, I have the FRCS, so that's ok. The dracolich is aided by a group of kobolds, led by a kobold sorceror/dragon disciple (and his half-dragon Ogre Barbarian bodyguard). I will probably through in a cleric too.

Unfortunately for the dracolich he has been unable to take over the body because the spirit of the dragon is around as a ghost, and the ghost needs to destroy or be destroyed by those that created it (the PCs).

So, the PCs have been searching for a missing NPC - the one who actually did the selling of the dragon body. He was taken by the kobolds to lead the PCs to them.

The kobolds then laid a trap for the PCs - lead by a kobold ranger, with a bunch of archers. The PCs arrived, and defeated the ranger, and have now followed his directions to the lair.

There they will face the ghost of the dead dragon. Once he is destroyed the dracolich will be able to take over his new form. Unfortunately he will only be a proto-dracolich at first, and not nearly so powerful. His kobold companions will give their lives to allow him to escape.

And hopefully he will escape, so the party can be plagued by the full dracolich at a later point.

I would just like to point out that I put all this together before I got to read Arwink's post - so I'm rather amazed at how much those suggestions match my own plans.

Anyway, again, thanks everyone for the suggestions,

Duncan