Scaling Up
- Thread starter Kryslin
- Start date
Huh, I guess I just assumed the Lawful Good dragon god would be opposed by a CE entity.
FaerieKnight79
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Well, pesky adventurers keep killing evil dragons and taking their horde. Which means Tia doesn't get the horde on the dragon's death. Which in turn means said dragon gets punished for not having a sizable enough tribute. So other evil dragons go out and cause havoc in order to grow their hordes, only to draw the attention of pesky adventurers who kill said dragon and take the horde... Vicious cycle isn't it?
- Location
- Neptune
A small ragdoll full of patched chew marks with faded enchantments that at one time made it roar and blow a small flame when squeezed.
What kind of horde? Kobolds? Orcs? How are they armed?
- Location
- Sydney
I doubt most adventures would be able to carry around much or even most of a dragons horde without a line of carts or a lot of Bags of Holding. Neither of which would be particularly practical, its more likely they take a small selection and memories the location too return if they get low on cash. Assuming of course the location isn't well known and accessible by regular folk then it definitely get looted quickly.
FaerieKnight79
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By the time adventurers are facing dragons, they often have bags of holding or other ways to transport large amounts of loot. Often the party has several bags of holding. And if the party themself can't carry it, many parties in those levels have hirelings and several carts to transport their plethora of loot. And that's besides the fact the adventures have now "claimed" the dragon's treasure as their own, thus it can no longer be used to pay Tia's demanded tribute.
- Location
- Here
One resided in the Seven Heavens, the other guarded the Gates of Hell. Both the Seven Heavens and the Nine Hells are Lawful Planes in D&D. Plus, one of Tiamat's Domains (at least in 3rd edition) was Tyranny, and Tyrants often tend towards being organized, Lawful Evil beings who use a Code of Law in the nations they rule, unlike Warlords who rule through the might of their armies, and thus tend towards Chaos...
Kryslin
[Has Delusions of Authorship]
- Location
- Mythic Iowa
Kobolds. Special Forces Trained Kobolds. Complete with rings of Feather Fall and Water Breathing because SEAL Kobolds, complete with autoloading, autococking repeating light crossbows.
Funny story : Our group of adventurers had just finished the task of killing an adult red dragon that had been raiding the frontier of a duchy. Yes, we lived. Yes, we were walking wounded afterwards (like maybe 30hp between all 6 (L10-14) of us). Such that when the Duke arrived, with his 4 champions, mage, high priest, and head tax collector, we were in no shape to to contest him taking about 1/2 of it as taxes - a third of it was income taxes, the rest was lost sales tax revenue on the swords, armor, and other trade goods. At least the mage only wanted a couple of scrolls, and the priest took a weapon and a couple of potions of cure wounds. So yes, we got some nice magic items but we lost half the coinage. We got a pretty good deal on the gems, and the few items we couldn't use we traded with the local mage for a lot of Identify's being cast, since our wizard was still in bad shape (as in, while healed, his spell book had gotten torched by the dragon, and he didn't want to cast anything until he had written them down in a new book).
Crazael
Rehydrated Demon King
- Location
- Lost to the vagaries of time.
Man, that sounds like the kind of Kobolds that P'kard would fit right in with. Well, except for their choice of weapon. He prefers his customized Tau pulse rifle.
Note to self: next spellbook will be engraved on steel plates.
EDIT: And then a rust monster happens. Cut to bone plate spellbook. Repeat ad nauseam.
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Kryslin
[Has Delusions of Authorship]
- Location
- Mythic Iowa
Actually, it was done on Red Dragon vellum. I wonder where he got that?
FaerieKnight79
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And this is why any mage worth their salt has a well defended Tower (or at least an obscure hut) by around level 9 where they store their main spellbooks. They then take travel spellbooks that might not have their entire spell list inscribed in them, but do contain the most frequently used spells. That way if the spellbook(s) are lost in the field, the master spellbooks still exist.
Kryslin
[Has Delusions of Authorship]
- Location
- Mythic Iowa
This only works if your DM allows you to settle down in one area. Ours did not. The moment we stayed in one area for 'too long', things happened, usually resulting in the destruction of the area we were resident in. Otherwise, you turned in your character sheet, since the character was now 'retired.' He was the one who ran his adventures on rails.
FaerieKnight79
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When I had a GM like that, my wizard's tower was actually a permanent Magnificat Mansion with the entrance being a small stone doorway that on command would grow from it's one inch by three inch travel size into the full sized door (and attach to the surface it's resting upon). Once activated, the door could only be deactivated and removed from a surface by the one who activated it. This served both as my Wizard's Tower since in 2nd edition wizards get a tower at level 9 as part of the class's progression (fighters got a keep and start attracting followers at level 9) as well as a secure place to rest while we were adventuring.
- Location
- Neptune
Ah yes, the SPACs - Special Pikes And Crossbows. Now way is any adventurer gonna carry those away unless they allow it.
The answer is clearly an empty pie tin.
- Location
- USA
My plan when I make wizards is to get what I need to create my own pocket dimension. My Wizard Tower would be placed in there, alongside anything I want to keep safe. Depending on some things, I would hire servants to maintain it in my absence. Thus my wizard can continue to adventure while having a set home. Of course, he would need the means to reliably enter and leave his pocket dimension. So either a spell slot dedicated to getting to his pocket dimension, or a well crafted ritual. Not all wizards need to memorize rituals, and a well memorized ritual can be done from memory instead of a spellbook.
Speaking of red dragon encounters, back in 2nd edition, my party(which was down to two 3rd level multiclass halfelves at the time a cleric/thief/mage and a ranger/thief/mage as I recall, though it's been close to 20 years so my recall could be faulty) was galavanting about in Karmeikos Kingdom of Adventure. We had somehow managed to take down a red dragon, either a juvenile or a young adult, I don't quite remember which. Either way, it was a substantial haul. The dm random rolled the treasure and part of it ended up being a portable hole(which conveniently enough made absconding with all the treasure rather more doable). A few sessions and a couple new players joining the party later led to an encounter with a spelljammer ship whose captain needed help rescuing his crew from Neogi spacepirate/slavers at the end of that little adventure I asked the dm how much for the pirate ship(which while run by Neogi wasn't of their manufacture thankfully, because their ships are ugly). The dm, forgetting that I had access to a literal dragon's horde(well, half of one, but with a good plan I could get the other half signed on) quoted what he thought would be an outrageous price. Luckily for me we hadn't really spent any of the contents of that portable hole yet. I never did find out what the dm's original plans were, but shortly thereafter we had set sail through the sky heading for Glantri Kingdom of Magic.
FaerieKnight79
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Also back in 2nd edition, one group I was in encountered a rather odd dragon. It was an adult Red that had been pillaging the area for quite some time. When we managed, by dint of solid planning and clever ambush tactics, to take out the dragon after luring it partly out of it's lair we did the usual skinning, storing the hide to make a suit (or two) of dragonscale armor, and forced the remains out of the cave entrance. After that we strode in, already thinking about what kind of treasure we'd find. The dragon's hoard ended up being 10,000 or so gold, 16 magically shrunk castles (complete with the non-magic armory still inside the castles), and 16 princesses who had been enchanted to remain young and beautiful so long as they remained in the dragon's lair. As it turns out, this particular dragon absolutely loved having princesses wash his scales, cook for him, and do other household chores. Among other things which you can probably guess.
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
*Watches and laughs as the cleric of Tiamat casts raise dead true resurrection on the fighter's dragonhide armor.*
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FaerieKnight79
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I don't think that would work. Raise Dead requires a mostly intact corpse that's fairly fresh. Dragonhide armor is not a mostly intact corpse that's fairly fresh. Also, do clerics of Tiamat even get Raise Dead?
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
... does that result in the fighter ending up in the stomach of a dragon, or a very confused merger of the dead dragon and the fighter?
Can it possibly result in the latter? Because I kind of find that more amusing, although possibly a harsher loss of an ally if the fighter portion of the revived dragon isn't as in charge as the party would like.
... come to think of it this comment actually comes close to being relevant to the story as a whole given the two new dragons featured in it are a more intentional version of just such an accident.
FaerieKnight79
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I just checked the 2nd edition AD&D rules for Raise Dead. And guess what, the attempt to revive the dragon using dragonhide armor (while it's being worn) would fail because...
1) it has likely been longer then one day per cleric level since the dragon was slain
2) If the corpse isn't whole, any missing parts are still missing after casting Raise Dead. This means that you'd raise a dragon from the dead, but the dragon lacks it's bones, organs, muscles, and most of it's skin/scales. Or in other words, still dead.
The spell does specifically say it can only raise the player races, but it then says other races may be allowed to be raised at DM discretion. I'd have to pull out my 3.5 books again to check what the rules for Raise Dead are in 3.5, but I think it's similar.
Jonn Wolfe
(Verified Sarcastic) (Not a Wolf)
- Location
- Beyond Sanity Since 1971
Animate Dead would be my guess.
//Tiamat casts Animate Dead on fighter with Dragon Skin armor.
Tiamat: Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself.
- Location
- USA
5E D&D has the same limitations for Raise Dead.