Wanna help me with a dragon domain?

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

Lately I've been thinking about a domain or even cluster centered around dragons and related creatures. It's part of my general quest to create more non-human Ravenloft content, and I think it's going to be a fun challenge.
The problem is, I don't know enough about dragon lore in DND. Like, I read some of the Dragonlance novels, but it doesn't explain their history, just how they suddenly showed up to give humanoids trouble, and for obvious reasons it gives no information about dragonborn, that (if I'm correct) were introduced only later.
So where can I research?

[Baron Von Stanton]

Lately I've been thinking about a domain or even cluster centered around dragons and related creatures. It's part of my general quest to create more non-human Ravenloft content, and I think it's going to be a fun challenge.
The problem is, I don't know enough about dragon lore in DND. Like, I read some of the Dragonlance novels, but it doesn't explain their history, just how they suddenly showed up to give humanoids trouble, and for obvious reasons it gives no information about dragonborn, that (if I'm correct) were introduced only later.
So where can I research?

Might I recommend https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Dragon ?

[The Dark]

There are going to be very significant differences in dragons depending on what setting they come from. Krynnish dragons typically act as mortal servants of the gods (unless they're the rebellious dragons that refused to take part in the Dragon Wars, in which case all bets are off). Cerilian dragons (from Birthright) are super-rare and not color coded for your convenience. Mystaran dragons are color coded, but it's a different code from every other setting. Council of Wyrms dragons are the peak of civilization on their world, and cooperate with elves, dwarves, and gnomes to take advantage of each group's relative strength and weaknesses (humans only exist in the setting as dragon hunters). The dragons of Kara-Tur are completely different again, being the various lung and (mostly) serving the Celestial Bureaucracy.

It might be better to decide what theme you want the Darklord/domain to have first, and let that help guide what setting the dragon(s) come from, since a theme might narrow down which settings and/or types of dragons would fit.

[Mistmaster]

You have Eberron Dragons too. Color coded butnot alignement bound, they are basically the peak civilization.

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

There are going to be very significant differences in dragons depending on what setting they come from. Krynnish dragons typically act as mortal servants of the gods (unless they're the rebellious dragons that refused to take part in the Dragon Wars, in which case all bets are off). Cerilian dragons (from Birthright) are super-rare and not color coded for your convenience. Mystaran dragons are color coded, but it's a different code from every other setting. Council of Wyrms dragons are the peak of civilization on their world, and cooperate with elves, dwarves, and gnomes to take advantage of each group's relative strength and weaknesses (humans only exist in the setting as dragon hunters). The dragons of Kara-Tur are completely different again, being the various lung and (mostly) serving the Celestial Bureaucracy.

It might be better to decide what theme you want the Darklord/domain to have first, and let that help guide what setting the dragon(s) come from, since a theme might narrow down which settings and/or types of dragons would fit.

Okay.
So it's for my 'demihuman dread thread'.
In case you didn't know, I have a thread where I occasionally try to give a domain or a plot hook inspired by a certain DND species.
My design philosophy is to take what we know (from DND and from the fantasy genre in general) about that species' culture and history, and analyze what this culture values (and through that, what are their taboos and what would it hurt most to take away from them) and what are the dark or tragic parts in their history (and through that, what collective memories they're suppressing.) I then hypothesize what would be that culture's 'shadow archetype', what would be their ultimate villain or nightmare - and then I do that. I usually combine shallow fears ('elves love nature so I'll do a curse that makes plants wither wherever an evil act had been commited') with deeper horror ('elves are originally based on the wild, capricious and morally-ambigious Fae, but in modern fantasy they're presented as pristine, and overly orderly and perfect. In DND this development happened in-world. How do elves feel about it? Maybe they're terrified of what they can do if they lose control? So for a darklord I'll go for a normal elf whose own hubris and uncontained rage led him to murder the people he loved most, and for monsters maybe I'll go for lycanthropes or other stuff that's about 'the monster within'.') Eventually I often tie it back to something I relate to, to make sure human players will be properly scared too, but part of the fun is putting myself in another creature's shoes.
I did hobbits, elves, aarakocra (I actually managed to spell that correctly with no reference!), and next I'm going for dragonborn.
I checked dragonborn lore in the Forgotten Realms setting, and found out that the dragonborn were created by the dragons as slaves, then rebelled. It heavily influenced their culture: they hate dragons to this day, and dislike religion because it feels like slavery to them. So what would be worse for a FR dragonborn taken by the mists to see than their people enslaved to the dragons again - or enslaved by one of their own?
And that's what I need to research.
Draonborn ancient history. The slavery, the rebellion, the aftermath, the different narratives, prominent figures... And it would also help to understand the context of draconic society.
Obviously I'd start with FR Wiki, but I'd like to see what other sources there are.

[Mistmaster]

To be exact Dragonborn where slaves in Abeir, not in Toril, and Abeir had no deities only Primordials. In Faerun has begun to come under the wings of old uncle Bahamut.

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

To be exact Dragonborn where slaves in Abeir, not in Toril, and Abeir had no deities only Primordials. In Faerun has begun to come under the wings of old uncle Bahamut.

thanks

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

To be exact Dragonborn where slaves in Abeir, not in Toril, and Abeir had no deities only Primordials. In Faerun has begun to come under the wings of old uncle Bahamut.

Rechecked now. Faerunian dragonborn who openly worship Bahamut are extremly rare and often outcasted - most of their kind think there's no such think as a good dragon or dragon-god.
(Also, does Abeir not count as part of the Forgotten Realms setting? If so, what setting is it part of?)

[The Dark]

Abeir wasn't a thing until 4e, when it became a separate world instead of being part of the full name of Toril (as Abeir-Toril, "cradle of life") and had one of its continents swapped for Maztica. From a Doylist perspective it exists to explain why all the 4e changes didn't exist on Toril before 4e, and I think it's safe to say the popularity of that move with the existing fanbase was close enough to zero to be a rounding error, which was why the 5e designers decided to use the Sundering to undo what had been done in 4e.

[Mistmaster]

I liked the idea.

[The Dark]

I'm mostly going off what friends of mine have said and a few discourses here and there on other fora. I did very little with 4e, mostly because I was moving multiple times when it first came out and that really threw a wrench into any efforts to maintain a consistent group. I also wasn't much of a Realms lore guy (that was my old group's other DM's specialty - I did the weirder 2e settings). Reading descriptions online now, it seems like in theory it should have been somewhere between "meh" and "good," but my only experience with 4e Realms was some rather disappointing efforts at getting involved with the organized play campaigns. The scenarios felt like railroads from the worst parts of TSR's history (*waves hello to the DL series of modules*), and either the writing wasn't very clear on what players were supposed to do or I consistently wound up at tables with terrible DMs. To be fair, I think most organized play scenarios tend to have tighter rails than independent scenarios so that a coherent plot can be maintained over seasons of play, but the plot incoherency was something I didn't experience with Pathfinder organized play.

TL;DR - I think I would say that I like the idea in a vacuum, but if the execution was on the same level as what I experienced of official 4e products, that could explain a lot of negative reactions.

[TheArcaneWeirdo]

I actually kinda grew up with 4e? I had a DND class after school in 4th grade, and they used 4e because it had the simplest mechanics (I think). The class had its own setting, though, so we didn't know about the spellplauge etc.
I did feel it was very railroaded and without enough flavour, but I thought it was just the DMs way to handle a long campaign with 10 primary-school gremlins.

[Isolde]

Regarding the dragon domain theme and not the particular thread question. The three things that should dominate as concepts in a dragon ravenloft domain are;

1)Gluttony, constant voracious consumption of everything possible. Pleasures of all sorts.
2)Greed leading to vast accumulation of goods, treasure and anything. Hoarding for it own sake.
3)Ego.

Three very basic, archetypal evil dragon traits among many.

[Baron Von Stanton]

Regarding the dragon domain theme and not the particular thread question. The three things that should dominate as concepts in a dragon ravenloft domain are;

1)Gluttony, constant voracious consumption of everything possible. Pleasures of all sorts.
2)Greed leading to vast accumulation of goods, treasure and anything. Hoarding for it own sake.
3)Ego.

Three very basic, archetypal evil dragon traits among many.

Each one of them are archetypical, if not stereotypical "arch sins," though, are we looking at the situation from a humanoid's perspective or a dragon's perspective?

It's one thing for a mere person to commit sin until one turns into a dragon, i.e., Fafnir or Borys of Ebe, but, what sort of sins would a red dragon need to commit to offend other red dragons out of principle?

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I present:
* Arantor, darklord of Monadhan;
* Yuhaehan, darklord of the Poison Sea

A while ago, I read about a domain with a dracolich darklady. She is reasonably content with her position and wealth, but cursed in that she dearly wishes to lay more eggs and rebuild her family - but as an undead creature, she never can.