Tail, Wing, Fang and Claw

[Vorpal Dragon]

Ah yes, quite right. Thank you for pointing that out. I think TSR is what I should have said.

[Rucht Lilavivat]

Can one blame WOTC in making their flagship creature the most powerful (by default, and ignoring Gods)? In Western Lore, I have not heard of one magical dragon, but what about other cultures? Did the Chinese and Japanese cultures have any such dragons? That I'm not sure about that.

You've never heard of magical dragons in Western Lore? Well, dragons are a sort of hobby of mine. There are a lot of dragons in Western Lore. Some of my favorites include:

The traditional Tarrasque, fought by Saint Martha.
The nameless dragon in the story of Beowulf.
The Lambton Wyrm - this is probably my favorite! Very Ravenloft.
Tiamat - the ancient Babylonian god. Not the Dragonlance diety.

But don't take my word for it. Here's a gigantic list of historical and popular dragons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dr ... _mythology


Anyway, the best use of a dragon in Ravenloft I had was presenting the dragon in a very medieval fashion. I looked at alot of old woodcut pictures of dragons and fashioned my monster after those. It wasn't the CGI, giant lizard, super-intelligent creature presented in alot of fantasy games.

My dragon had three heads - one was human, one was a baboon's head, and one was a serpents. It's hind quarters were goat's legs, and its forepaws were those of a lion. It lived down in the bottom of a cave, the source of a blight that was infecting the entire village of Vallaki.

[AdamGarou]

My group has actually had some fun using dragons in Ravenloft--or at least, one dragon. It took a bit of tweaking, but it can be done.

IIRC, the dragon was a rogue gold whose alignment had shifted to Lawful Neutral and was beginning to tip toward Lawful Evil. He still possessed the polymorph ability to change his shape several times a day (we're talking 2e rules, here, of course), and had actually been captured by the Mists as they--the Mists--sought to entangle someone else. That is, when they came for this particular villain, the dragon--in his polymorphed human form--was brought along for the ride.

Well, he went a little nuts, as might be expected, and after several years turned completely to evil. Given that he started out as such a paragon of LG, the Dark Powers were apparently able to tempt him, and he started down the path of darklordship.

Mostly, he functioned--as far as our group of PCs ever knew--as a behind-the-scenes manipulator, somewhat like the Gentleman Caller. In fact, one of our players (being familiar with Malocchio's dad) was SURE it was the Gentleman Caller, or at least one of his minions, that we were facing. I forget the specifics of the investigations our party conducted, but it was basically upsetting the dragon's plans in some serious way--again and again. Well, he was understandably miffed at us...

When that handsome, smirking gentleman turned into a 100-some-odd-feet-long winged lizard creature with flashing golden scales, claws the size of swords and death breath in both spicy and minty-fresh varieties... well, it wasn't a pretty sight. IIRC, everyone in the party except two PCs failed a string of fear, horror, and madness checks (and those two only succeeded because they were from Darkon and had seen/heard of Ebb before).

The dragon didn't even bother attacking anyone--we players were all so shocked and the PCs so cowed that it was all we could do to get our characters out of there, eventually being forced to leave at least two of our number behind, rolling on the floor, muttering nonsense. All this, without a single claw attack, bite, wing buffet, breath weapon or spell--just revealing his true form.

And the PCs realized that anyone they met from then on might be the dragon in disguise, seeking revenge for us upsetting his long-range plans, whatever they might have been.

They never encountered the dragon again (not that they knew, at least), but none of them were ever quite the same.

[Vorpal Dragon]

Rucht Lilavivat,

Sad, I know, that I haven't found the time to read up on Dragon mythology. Though the link you provided is extremely useful. Thank you for that as this my be the catalyst for me to fill in the missing details.

I knew about Tiamat when I was performing my research on Pazuzu.

AdamGarou,

Great story. Such a dramatic effect on the players. If I could stop the other players from wanting to run their own campaigns (I'm not the only budding DM in the group) then this the kind of thing I would love to do.

In fact, I'm was planning a fairly (with emphasis on the 'fairly' - okay maybe almost not all them ) similar character for my soon to start campaign. I've been thinking about him on and off over the last week or so.

In brief:
Lord Tenebris was a follower of Tiamat that unfortunately got teleported fairly deep into the ethereal plane during a battle with another mage. There was also Lazarus the Shadow Dragon (or maybe a Fang Dragon...) who was a rival of Tenebris. When Lazarus found out what happened to Tenebris, he decided to make the problem permanent and arranged to have himself sent into the ethereal plane to kill Tenebris.

The battle between the two, when they finally met, didn't last long as the Mists swept in and pulled them into Ravenloft.. together. Their souls were merged, in the same mortal coil, and a struggle of who was in control ensued. Initially, Lazarus won and assumed his Dragon form. Both souls had full access to each others thoughts and memories, so Tenebris had to struggle with gaining the Dragon's many years of memories, while Lazarus had to deal with comparatively fewer new memories.

It goes on for a bit, but to cut the story short: The two know each other very well now and have formed a permissive alliance, which is occasionally broken. Depending on which soul has control over the body determines whether the 'mortal coil' takes Tenebris' Human form or Lazarus' Dragon form.

They are trying to establish some sort of organisation with which to handle their unique needs in Ravenloft. The players are likely to find themselves involved in acquiring materials, making contacts and dealing with a few other competing monsters (or just getting in the way...). Unless the story goes on for long enough, the players are not likely to meet the Lazarus form (but one day, just maybe one day I'll get my chance).

I will concede that this not the finished product. I'm open to ideas and suggestions. I must admit that I'm not totally happy with the ethereal plane bit, but it was reasonably close to Ravenloft so that the Dark Powers couldn't really help, but notice.. (like time and space is a problem for the Dark Powers? )

I know this sounds at least little similar to a particular Dark Lord. I'll have to read up on him in more detail once the 'Secrets of the Dread Realms' (correct title?) comes through to me.

Post Scriptum: I apologize to everyone for so many long posts. I hope this isn't a problem. Would it be better if broke this down into several, smaller posts in future?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Of Fafnir and the Beast of Revelations, are these alternative names for smaug and St. George's Dragon respectively, or are they separate?

Fafnir was a dragon from Norse mythology -- actually, he had originally been a dwarf IIRC, but his phenomenal greed caused him to involuntarily transform into a dragon -- and is the primary source of the classic image of the greedy dragon lounging upon its hoard of gold. Smaug, from "The Hobbit", was inspired by Fafnir.

The Book of Revelations is the last (canon) book of the New Testament. It predicts the end of the world, in which the forces of evil are led by a great Beast which alternately takes the form of the human Antichrist and a nightmarish, multiheaded dragon.

[Gemathustra]

Has anyone ever thought of using a dragon in Ravenloft as a "false god"?
In that, a dragon masquerades as a protective spirit of some sort, promising various boons in return for offerings of treasure and or human sacrifices?

[Augustus]

Yeah I can see that. Treasure, praise and food= Happy dragon. Seems like something a lone Illithid, Beholder or an Aboleth would do as well but that's obvious. I love teh Aberrations.

[The Lesser Evil]

Elena's dragon is fake. It's her excuse when a village is destroyed because of her rages.

Actually, if the word spread of this dragon and Elena's propaganda was successful, I think this might call for some sort of draconic boogeyman.
Perhaps it was spawned from a place particularly hard hit by one of Faithhold's brutal tirades.

Although maybe too high fantasy for Ravenloft, I've always liked the idea for an obsessed dragon hunter that decided to fight fire with fire by making his own dragon to kill all others. Essentially an Emille Bollenbach equivalent for dragons, this mad dragonologist would make a dread version of the dragonflesh golem/drolem (from Mystara 2E MC or the 3E MMII) as his answer to the killing of all dragons. Perhaps it might work in Nidala if rumors of Elena's dragon became widespread enough.

[Gemathustra]

Elena's dragon is fake. It's her excuse when a village is destroyed because of her rages.

Actually, if the word spread of this dragon and Elena's propaganda was successful, I think this might call for some sort of draconic boogeyman.
Perhaps it was spawned from a place particularly hard hit by one of Faithhold's brutal tirades.

Although maybe too high fantasy for Ravenloft, I've always liked the idea for an obsessed dragon hunter that decided to fight fire with fire by making his own dragon to kill all others. Essentially an Emille Bollenbach equivalent for dragons, this mad dragonologist would make a dread version of the dragonflesh golem/drolem (from Mystara 2E MC or the 3E MMII) as his answer to the killing of all dragons. Perhaps it might work in Nidala if rumors of Elena's dragon became widespread enough.

I wonder what would happen if, after becoming so obsessed with his quarry, that this hunter were to find himself turning into one?

[AdamGarou]

I wonder what would happen if, after becoming so obsessed with his quarry, that this hunter were to find himself turning into one?

Now THAT would be interesting. Another nice twist might be that instead of turning into a dragon, the hunter's obsession gave life to his dragonflesh golem in a slightly different way... maybe by unintentionally transferring his own mind into the golem.

If he wasn't already off the deep end...

[Smeazel]

I did use a dragon in a Ravenloft campaign once...but it was sort of a special case, and the dragon arguably sort of didn't exactly exist.

There is described in one Ravenloft book--Forged of Darkness, IIRC, though I can't find my copy of it right now so I can't check--a magical book of fairy tales, with a sinister power. Readers of the book may be drawn into twisted versions of the tales, and if they don't manage to survive the events of the tales they'll be trapped in the book forever. (I may be getting some of the details wrong; as I said, I can't find my copy of Forged of Darkness right now, so I can't check, and this was a long time ago so my memory of the matters may be faulty.) Anyway, Forged of Darkness specified that this book was only one of a series. So...in my campaign, the PCs found one of the other books in the series, a book not of fairy tales but of (IIRC) tales of exploration. And one character ended up being drawn inside, and the others went in to rescue him...

Anyway, in the tale within the book, the characters encountered a shadow dragon. So...as I said, I have used a dragon in a Ravenloft campaign. But only that once, and not exactly as an inhabitant of Ravenloft, per se.

Actually, come to think of it, it's not entirely true that that was the only dragon I used. Later on, while crossing the Nocturnal Sea en route to the Nightmare Lands, a ship the PCs were on was attacked by sea wyrms, a type of dragon described in Dragon Magazine. And then there was a half-dragon NPC they encountered...

Eh. Anyway, in summary, I'd say dragons might have their place in Ravenloft, but definitely not as a common occurrence. And really only in certain domains. Necropolis and Vechor are probably the domains I'd be most likely to use dragons in; places like Souragne and Zherisia I definitely wouldn't except maybe in really unusual circumstances. But I'd say dragons should be used very sparingly in a Ravenloft campaign, if at all.

[Vorpal Dragon]

The Dragon posing as a False God, could be a dire omen of a Dragon actually rising to become an actual quasi-deity. Given the amount of treasure they need to do this, it makes sense to start a cult to amass it (especially if they were pulled into the Ravenloft and lost access to their original hoard.. hhmm.. that would make for one very angry Dragon).

I think it would have been useful if one or two Ravenloft-specific True Dragons were created. Quite a few changes may have been required (less magic et cetera.. perhaps). As for keeping them rare, perhaps they originate from an undiscovered Island of Terror and occasionally find their way into the Core.

hhhmm... I see why the developers have steered away from Dragons. I also see a challenge there; creating a True Dragon, set of rules, feats, prestige classes or something that would somehow fit True Dragons in with the Gothic Horror fantasy of Ravenloft (obviously not to encourage them as a common sight).

The Dread Wyrm was interesting from Quoth the Raven.

[Manofevil]

If an actual TSR type dragon was ever found in RavenLoft, It would probably be very disruptive to all the area around it. To the point of legendary status, probably. Until someone killed it, that is. Perhaps a lesser S type character should begin traveling the lands chasing legends of dragons for one of the universities. They could find pieces of the carcasses (something that large isn't likely to disappear very quickly) and sendiong them back to the university. He could prove or disprove the actuallity of the legends. Might make for an interesting netbook

[Vorpal Dragon]

I think that could be a very interesting idea. I've thought about the demographics and all in loose terms it's intresting to know how few Dragons Ravenloft can support (Ravenloft also seems to have very few other Huge size or larger living [id est must sleep, eat et cetera...] creatures.)

I could pen my thoughts and write up an article for QtR, though would anyone be interested? Is this the sort of thing that should ever be published for Ravenloft?

[Bloody Morgan]

It does however manage to support a huge population of lycanthropes, who all must consume a very large amount of meat on a daily basis.

Bloody Morgan