While it did start off as a simple matter of "I don't want to do X, I don't think we're ready to even start thinking of doing X and here's why we can't do X" its also now part of a wider discussion. Although I will make this clear now I came here to kill undead and learn about the light, I did not come here to become dragon therapist or dragon politics and I'll be incredibly disappointed in the arc if that is what this turns into.
To expand on this there are two big things about the black dragons that make me disinclined to invest more than we need too into them at this time.
First, the old god stuff, which I have gone into in depth, where even at its least influential they've demonstrated they can do "assuming direct control" when they need too, have made the incredibly toxic culture of the black dragons even more so
and it is so fundamentally buried that the only two examples of it ever being removed happened when they were eggs, through the use of incredibly powerful unique artefacts and one of them only worked in an area.
Second even setting aside the old gods, the black dragons are just a terrible culture. They're paranoid, greedy, pride filled, racists and while before the old gods they were described as "steadfast" they were still prideful due to their role as earth wardens and protectors etc. after all there's a reason the Old Gods decided they were the easy mark to corrupt and they were, since they amplified what was already there.
As such in its current form old gods or no, we are left with a sub race of
dragons who are capable of easily disguising themselves, are incredibly power hungry, utterly a moral and willing to go to whatever lengths they want in order to accomplish their goals, such as Onyxia causing a civil war, mind raping Varian into two people (one of whom is dead now so he's basically dead now as well...like three times over) and caused hundreds if not thousands of deaths just by ensuring that people did not go to places to protect them from the Delfias bandits that she both created and funded and the black rock orcs.
And of course due to the whispers of the old ones, the fact that most adult dragons are incredibly old works against cause this means
@Professor Vesca 's suggestion of therapy becomes even harder, because how the hell do you distinguish between the voices that have been in your head your entire life-shaping your personality for thousands of years, and what's more you've grown up in a culture that considers all of what they're saying as examples of true moral virtue.
Bluntly put they're brainwashed and thoroughly so to the point that I'm very confident that were we able to get rid of the old god insanity I am very confident that for 99% of the black dragons in existence it would not make a single solitary shred of difference, in fact there's only one where I think it would.
I am 100% capable of sympathising with the black dragon flight, however I also consider going out of their way to try to save the adults irresponsible given the facts at hand.
While their situation maybe bleak and for many unfair (although it must be said for this to be the case you also have to accept the old god's madness is more defining for their actions), the fact remains
irregardless for the adult population, trying to "redeem" even one would entail somehow convincing a dragon with the moral compass of a satsuma to let us in, whose general orders are "manipulate the lesser races for world domination" relying on it having the self reflection necessary to essentially discard basically its entire personality, culture and loyalties, live monk like trying to constantly ward off the whispers of the Old Gods, all the while during that process the dragon is still out and about manipulating people into killing one another and burninating the country side.
Forgive me for spocking here, but I find it hard to work myself up about the dragons when pressed with the knowledge that by going out of my way to try and help even one instance of them I am likely getting hundreds if not thousands of people killed in the process, in fact this is my general view on "redeeming" evil characters, I'm all for it, but unless I've a damn good reason to try to do it over going out of my way to save people who are not presently interested in child murder I am not going to invest time that could be spent stopping child murderers.
In this case my use of child murderer is very deliberate since that was what Onyxia intended to do to Anduine and would have done it too, either by biting his head off or fall damage if not thanks to a well time knife and druid respectively.
Also
I would indeed react positively to attempts to redeem, engage with, ally, or various other things, the Black Dragonflight. I find them quite interesting, as I also find the Dark Horde interesting.
Can I just reiterate that while I know that its an inevitable part of questing and indeed creative processes in general I
really dislike that certain options are given more credence because the GM likes the idea.
Its the bleeding Wyvern storm all over again, and in this entire thing it is the one part that does genuinely make me annoyed-frustrated because it directly brings down my enjoyment of the
entire game.
Essentially it introduces a little voice into the back of my head that goes "we only failed this because Fractious doesn't like it" which is cruel and unfair, so I apologise for it but that voice is there now...again and I think its not unreasonable that it is there now.
This is fundamentally meant to be about everyone having fun the GM especially so it should not be surprising that they have things they enjoy or want to see more than others, but at same time the choices need to be balanced so that even if the GM's prefered option doesn't win we are not penalised for wanting to do something else. And yes I do consider it a penalisation if an action is made easier or even just possible because the GM likes it when other things are made more difficult by comparison or are impossible because they do not. That I think should be fairly non controversial.
And with that I'm going to bed I guess I'll see how this goes on the morrow.
