Café de Nuit

Well, my own Draconic Darklord is cursed with Kobold size and inability to harm kobolds.

... A dragon normally has no need to harm Kobolds. They worship evil dragons.

Rock of the Fraternity wrote: Fri Jan 09, 2026 3:54 pm ... A dragon normally has no need to harm Kobolds. They worship evil dragons.

But can eat a bunch now and there to make a point. He can't. He is also forced to play the advisor for them. Basically he went from master to servant.

While those 3 are draconic dominant characteristic traits, in the red dragon microcosm a major error-sin would be: weakness of any kind.

Care for one's own young might provide a possible issue. In Dragonlance canon at least, the red wyrm Matafleur ("Flamestrike") went insane after the death of her young during the first war of the lance. If such strong parental instincts are consistent for the whole draconic strain, then harming your own offspring could be a draconic sin.

This is if you go with Always Chaotic Evil Red Dragons. If you go with any alignement as I do, well, you have more options. My own Dragon Darklord was an oathbreker who killed his own family up to the youngest wyrmling to get power and immortalutyas a Dracolich.

Baron Von Stanton wrote: Fri Jan 09, 2026 11:34 am

Isolde wrote: Fri Jan 09, 2026 4:04 am 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?

Thank you very much!
So far I was thinking about it from dragonborn perspective (my original plan was to give a domain or adventure concept for every playable species) and centering it around dragonborn culture's fears, but I really should think about dragon ones too.

Mistmaster wrote: Sat Jan 10, 2026 10:18 am This is if you go with Always Chaotic Evil Red Dragons. If you go with any alignement as I do, well, you have more options. My own Dragon Darklord was an oathbreker who killed his own family up to the youngest wyrmling to get power and immortalutyas a Dracolich.

I usually interpret the stated alignments for species as strong tendencies (driven partially from neurology and partially from culture), not absolute rules.
I.E. Something about the transition to undeath tends to make vampires more narcissistic, but someone with a strong moral framework and a lot of self-awareness could hold it in check at least for a while; Orcs have a stronger 'fight or flight' instinct than most species, often causing them to get violent over minor disagreements as we often see in media, but it's not like they lack compassion. Stuff like that.

Anyway, I didn't say my darklord is a red dragon.
I was actually debating between a metalic dragon (to have this ultimate 'fall from grace' vibe) and a gem dragon (cause they have psionic powers, which dragonborns are said to regard with fear and associate with madness)

Rock of the Fraternity wrote: Sat Jan 10, 2026 5:28 am Care for one's own young might provide a possible issue. In Dragonlance canon at least, the red wyrm Matafleur ("Flamestrike") went insane after the death of her young during the first war of the lance. If such strong parental instincts are consistent for the whole draconic strain, then harming your own offspring could be a draconic sin.

From what I can discern from sources, harming one's own offspring is considered heinous and taboo among chromatic dragons, even when justified, as is turning other dragons into undead servants.
Also, talking too much about Tiamat, or worse, building shrines for her too close to their hoards is also taboo.

Baron Von Stanton wrote: Sat Jan 10, 2026 11:32 am

Rock of the Fraternity wrote: Sat Jan 10, 2026 5:28 am Care for one's own young might provide a possible issue. In Dragonlance canon at least, the red wyrm Matafleur ("Flamestrike") went insane after the death of her young during the first war of the lance. If such strong parental instincts are consistent for the whole draconic strain, then harming your own offspring could be a draconic sin.

From what I can discern from sources, harming one's own offspring is considered heinous and taboo among chromatic dragons, even when justified, as is turning other dragons into undead servants.
Also, talking too much about Tiamat, or worse, building shrines for her too close to their hoards is also taboo.

I recall that the latter is because chromatic dragons know Big T has all their vices dialed up to 11 and squared, and might get ideas about tithing or outright robbing them if her shrine is located too close to their wealth.

Baron Von Stanton wrote: Sat Jan 10, 2026 11:32 am

Rock of the Fraternity wrote: Sat Jan 10, 2026 5:28 am Care for one's own young might provide a possible issue. In Dragonlance canon at least, the red wyrm Matafleur ("Flamestrike") went insane after the death of her young during the first war of the lance. If such strong parental instincts are consistent for the whole draconic strain, then harming your own offspring could be a draconic sin.

From what I can discern from sources, harming one's own offspring is considered heinous and taboo among chromatic dragons, even when justified, as is turning other dragons into undead servants.
Also, talking too much about Tiamat, or worse, building shrines for her too close to their hoards is also taboo.

So for extra bonus dragon horror, a draconic Darklord that turns its own offspring into undead would violate a whole bunch of their cultural taboos (honestly, that would probably hold for most human/demi-human cultures as well). To add to the fun, there are rules for creating undead dragons for 2e in Dragon #234, from skeletons all the way up to vampire dragons. (And it should be easy to do undead dragons in 3e by slapping templates on them).

Summarizing - the process requires the necromancer to save vs. spell, modified by Wisdom, -1 for each "point" of difference in alignment between the dragon and the undead*, -1 for each age category above adult, and then a couple more variable ones of +4 if a dragon is a "preferred" species for that type of undead*, and a bonus or penalty based on undead type ranging from +4 for skeleton or zombie to -8 for vampire. Success creates the undead dragon.
Failure by less than the sum of the negative modifiers means the necromancer must rest for a number of days equal to the margin of failure but can then try again if the roll modifiers can be changed (usually by switching to a different type of undead, but if the body can be preserved the necromancer could wait until their save improves). If the roll would have failed even if there were no negative modifiers, the dragon spirit has escaped to the Outer Planes and the body can only be used to make a zombie or skeleton dragon.
There are price and time requirements for each attempt based on the type being created. They range from 500 gold and 1 day for a zombie to 18,000 gold and 8 weeks for a vampire.

*Alignment and species preferences don't apply to zombies or skeletons because they're animated by random spirits rather than the spirit of the dead dragon.

Preferred undead types for each chromatic type:
Black - ghoul, ghast, wight
Blue - wraith, mummy, spectre, ghost
Green - wraith, spectre, ghost
Red - ghoul, ghast, wight, vampire
White - ghoul, ghast, wight, vampire

As far as metallic or other nonevil dragons become tarnished, one thing to do is to take the dragon's good qualities and warp them so far as to turn away from the path of light. A possible example: A gold dragon's passion to lead and protect, but it sets up a false utopia that binds its people into a cult, completely cutting them off from society and demanding control over the fruits of their labor to contribute to its hoard before all other things for example. You can highlight how nobler aspects of a nonevil dragon's existence could become blended with a dragon's more typical evil characteristics (as in, arrogance, desire for control, greed, wrath, etc.)

A good inspiration for something like this might be Mengkare and his land of Hermea from Pathfinder.

My first idea was around the dragonborn slavery in Abeir.
The thing about being an oppressor, is that after a while, you don't even realise you are one. When you've lived your life in a broken system, it starts looking like the natural order of things. Even if it causes suffering to some, no one can be held accountable for that, because it's not a wrong people do to eachother: It's just the way things are. The lion might feel a tad guilty about the poor zebras that have to die so he can eat, but it would never occur to him to become vegeratian.
So my idea was a gold dragon who was just this sort of clueless. Who genuinely thought ze's a kind and fair master to the dragonborns in their service. So when the rebellion started, ze didn't care too much: those fools in Skelkor treated their slaves too cruelly, and now they're paying the price. It has nothing to do with me, obviously - my dragonborns are like my hatchlings: I tell them what to do, but I also take care of them, and they love me as I love them! Children won't revolt against their parent!
And ze were right. The dragonborns and other humanoids in their kingdom didn't make war on their master - they sent a representative to negotiate the terms of liberation. The dragon laughed in the diplomat's face: Why on earth would the people here want liberation? What's wrong with the way things are? The representative sighed and left. But others came in the years to come. Begging at first, then asking, then demanding - but ze would not hear of it.
Eventually ze got pissed off, and... Ehm... Burned to ashes every single one of zir 'ungrateful children' - and that's when the Mists showed up (I'm telling this so badly... It's fine, this is just my first draft.)

And now ze was given a new kingdom, and the powers of all dragon colours, and endless wealth - but with one catch. Ze now knows all too well that their new peasants obey zem only out of fear. Ze sees it in their sore faces, their hunched backs, their hushed voices. Their hate for zem is only thinly disguised under politeness whose sole purpose is to avoid becoming zir next meal. The dragon gives zir people many gifts to appease them, but zir curse is that every single one of these gifts - except for the one gift ze's loath to ever grant: freedom - will end up harming the one it was given to, thus only earning zem more hate.

I do not see a Gold Dragon do that just because they are annoyed. I mean they have the sleeping breath weapon the can use

Mistmaster wrote: Sun Jan 18, 2026 4:26 pm I do not see a Gold Dragon do that just because they are annoyed. I mean they have the sleeping breath weapon the can use

Yeah, I need to work on it. It's all about the balance between making it the decision logical, but still evil enough to qualify as Act of Ultimate Darkness. Like, if the rebellion had turned violent and he'd fight back, he wouldn't be any worse than the other dragons in Abeir.