Quote Originally Posted by Inevitability View Post
Arms and Equipment Guide has rules for dragon eggs, which seem like an alright starting point.



According to the Draconomicon, red dragon eggs have an incubation time of nearly two years and must be kept in swelteringly hot conditions, so I would assume the cost of a wyrmling to be significantly higher than this still, just so you don't have to go through the hassle of hatching.

I think upwards of 20000 GP for a wyrmling makes sense, given all this. Spellcasting services to get Darsson's Firey Furnace + 10th-level Permanency comes out to 5560 GP already, and seems like a good sort of benchmark for the cost to magically sustain the sort of environment for multiple years. Add some markup, the cost of shelter, the cost of guarding your egg throughout all that time, and I think that doubling the price just so you don't have to hatch the egg yourself is more than reasonable.
This is the most sensible option; though really, if the patrons are players, they should be the ones hunting down the dragon egg themselves. Hiring a team is just a recipe for A) huge life insurance costs and B) a pissed-off mama dragon, and see A).