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View Full Version : [3.5] evil dragon war campaign ideas please



Tahlathali
2010-03-11, 03:58 PM
Ok, so I've had the D&D mini figures of the gargantuan black, blue and white dragons now for a while and I really want to use them in a campaign. I was thinking about possibly have them working together somehow, maybe under guidance of Tiamat, to wage war for some reason or another. My players (currently only 2 other guys) are really into a lot of hack-n-slash and I was going to take ideas from HoB to have a large scale war. They have been used to playing gestalt but I'm wanting standard class progression for this one. Though I am allowing leadership and the player controlling the ONE cohort they get. That way they can have at least a semi-balanced 4 person party. Anyway, my question for the playgrounders is this.
Can anyone give me some ideas on motivations for the dragons and the types of minions they would have? Judging by the stats, I would assume that the blue would be the overall leader more-or-less with the black and white dragons as next in rank. Other than that, I'm kinda at a loss. If anyone has any ideas, please send them my way.
I have most books available to me in one form or another. I'm also allowing some 3rd party books. Thanks in advance

AslanCross
2010-03-11, 05:15 PM
Red Hand of Doom focuses mostly on goblinoids, but they're led by a Tiamat cult, and the players fight a dragon in every chapter (I still count the behir in Chapter 3 as a dragon, since she works with them and serves Tiamat). You might have to tweak it significantly to include Wyrm+ dragons, since it's only Levels 5-10. It's still a start for ideas, though.

I ended up using my own Gargantuan White in place of a Huge Red (I didn't have one), and will end up using my Gargantuan Blue later on.

Minion suggestions:

1. Goblinoids for low levels.
2. Lizardfolk (Monster Manual 3's Blackscales are big bruisers who like working for Black Dragons)
3. Spawn of Tiamat (MM4) are natural minions.
4. Abishai (Fiendish Codex II) are low-level devils who serve Tiamat.
5. Rakshasa (since I run Eberron, I introduced a lot of Rakshasa enemies, since in Eberron the tiger-fiends serve demon overlords like Tiamat.)

Tahlathali
2010-03-12, 09:45 AM
thank you, Red Hand of Doom is one thing I do not have, but should be able to obtain it fairly easily.

For higher level minions I was thinking using half dragon template and some class levels on like lizard folk and others. Am I gonna be putting more work on myself than I need? Are there better ideas for higher level minions?

AslanCross
2010-03-12, 06:20 PM
Half Dragon is pretty good for stronger minions, but it's mostly just for melee types due to its massive strength bonus. Some of the Spawn of Tiamat have innate caster progression (The Redspawn Arcaniss, for one) so it's easy enough to give it extra sorcerer levels.

The Greenspawn Zealot from MMV also makes a good cleric or crusader. According to its entry, many of the Greenspawn are high-ranking members of Tiamat's army, while they may not be as physically impressive as say, the Bluespawn Godslayer.

You could also get a few devils and give them the half-dragon template. A half-dragon Cornugon or Malebranche would be a horrific encounter.

Another idea is a Half-Dragon Narzugon (Fiendish Condex II) Warblade/Blackguard with a Draconic Cauchemar mount.

A Half-Black Dragon War Troll (MMIII) would be insane. The War Troll's regeneration is no longer stopped by fire (only acid), but if it's immune to acid, it's never going to die from damage.

And no, I don't think you're wasting your effort. I think creating cool minions is one of the best things about being a DM.

Randel
2010-03-12, 07:24 PM
Well, a while ago I looked at the spell Polymorph any Object and concluded that it would be possible to polymorph a Kobold into a dragon (either permanantly or at least for a decent amount of time).

Thus, there could be legends of worthy kobolds working for high level dragon spellcasters who then tranformed them into dragons. The rather weak kobolds would be quite willing to join up and serve under a dragon if they thought there was even a chance to receive such an honor.

And some dragons might get a kick out of it, a manipulative dragon is normally wary of other dragons on the fear that they will betray them. The transformed Kobolds however owe their new lives to their Master and would willingly obey their every command. So there could be one Master dragon who has a lot of Kobold minions working under him and if by chance that dragon is a spellcaster capable of casting PaO then he could have a bunch of smaller dragons who are only slightly less powerful than himself but are just as utterly devoted to him as the weaker kobolds.



Not sure beyond that, though.

Tahlathali
2010-03-13, 08:11 AM
these are awesome ideas guys, and it's likely I will use all of them. I was thinking that for the "setting" having the mountain range bordered on one side by swamp and the other by desert, thus making it easier for me to have great wyrms a tad closer to each other than clear on the other side of the continents. I've never used (or read) any of the dragonspawn entries but they sound good. I also really like the kobold idea. I was already trying to think of ways to use them and that's an awesome idea. Keep the ideas coming if you don't mind.

The Big Dice
2010-03-13, 09:11 AM
Mechanics aside, there's a great article here (http://web.archive.org/web/20061031065811/www.tasteslikephoenix.com/articles/dar&drag.html) on Dragons and why they might fight among themselves.

It's not D&D related, in fact it's not tied to any system at all and not everyone it going to like the ideas in it. But I thought there were some interesting takes on Dragon society, and the why of the things Dragons might get up to.