How would you make a dragon hunting expedition?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

In another thread people brought up the idea of a Dragon Hunting Campaign/Adventure/Adventure Path.

I have the impression that there aren't really any adventures that fit what I'd expect for this bill, and I wonder how others would make such an adventure (or did they already make one?)

For my personal preferences, this is what I would like to see:

• The heroes are hunting for a specific dragon
• If it's a campaign/adventure path, the number of dragons should be limited.
• The Dragon is not supposed to be some mastermind villain or member of some large dragon organization, and he isn't supposed to have tons of henchmen (Kobolds or anything) - it's really "just" a physically dangerous dragon that is difficult to find.
• In 4E terms, I'd expect it to be a Heroic Tier adventure or path (3E maybe Level 1-8)

What kind of story elements would you add to spice this up?
What obstacles stand in the way of the heroes?
What kind of motivations would you bring for hunting the dragon?
What kind of twists would you introduce? (If it's cool enough, the twist can "violate" one of the first 3 bullet points.)
How do you minimize the use of the Dragon itself and focus on non-Dragon related story elements, but keep the main goal always important to the players?

What else springs to your mind?

For example, in my Knights of the Silver Dawn campaign, a setting element is that there is a Dragon out there harassing a small kingdom. The kingdom is regularly sending out expeditions to killing the Dragon, but those expeditions are always lost or driven back. But there is a twist that would violate the 3rd bullet point. Maybe it's cool enough, maybe it's not.

 

[ComradeGnull]

* No one knows for sure where the dragon's lair is- the critter just appears in the sky, burninates whatever it wants, and then flies off 'to the east' or whatever. It might be in the mountains to the east, but there is nothing to say that it couldn't be quite a ways beyond it. Finding the lair and securing the path so that the heroes can get there, kill the thing, and get back could form the basis for a number of adventures.

* The dragon is attacking City A because City B hired a bunch of adventurers to drive it off from attacking them. They now have a vested interest in preventing the dragon from giving up on attacking City A- if agents of City B hear about a new expedition to fight/otherwise annoy the dragon, they will sabotage it rather than have the dragon go back to attacking their city.

* The dragon's horde contains something that would be disastrous to someone powerful- maybe a lich hid his phylactery among the horde, trusting the dragon to guard it, or maybe the dragon is occupying an ancient castle whose records prove that the current ruler of the local city is a usurper. Whoever is concerned will first appear to assist the PC's in tracking or killing the dragon, but will betray or capture them at a critical moment.

* The dragon has destroyed the food supply of another region in the area- burned crops and forests, destroyed granaries, diverted or dammed rivers in order to make itself a bath tub, etc. This was done not with the intent of annoying anyone, but just because the dragon was making itself more comfortable and at-home in its lair. The result is that ravening, half-starved orcs/hobgoblins/refugees are now desperately raiding the PC's home region. Fixing some of the damage that the dragon has wrought (undamming a river, finding a magical artifact that can restore the forest) would put an end to the raids and give the PC's a valuable ally, but would annoy the dragon to no end.

 

[amerigoV]

In
What kind of twists would you introduce? (If it's cool enough, the twist can "violate" one of the first 3 bullet points.)

A fun twist for you - while the dragon is a loner by nature, he is very intelligent and knows that eventually people will come after him. The reason he has collected treasure over the years is not because he is attracted to shiny bits like some idiot bird, but because he needs the money to counter the eventual threat of man.

So he puts his money to work. People in nearby towns are paid to inform if adventure types come into the area. He owns the shops you get adventuring gear and has come up with a line of dragon killing accessories (which, of course, do not work against him). He owns keep parcels of land to generate a sustainable source of income. He buys municiple bonds to put in an irrigation system so there are more crops and life stock (food), Etc.

In the end, if they kill the dragon they find little treasure other than some art and petty cash and have created a massive tangle of land/business ownership that has to be sorted out (which likely passes to a kin of the Dragon).

 

[Kaodi]

Just because the dragon does not have any henchmen does not mean that there is no one around who would not apply for the job if they were not going to be "burninated" first. Perhaps a cult that worships the dragon and its power lives in a nearby village, and when they get wind of the dragon hunters they resolve to stop them.

And if slaying a dragon is likely to net wealth and fame, there is always going to be competition. And for the sake of the game, unscrupulous competition.

 

[Dragonhelm]

I would say that any quest to vanquish a dragon must first have a quest to retrieve the dragon-slaying weapon of choice. I prefer a dragonlance, but one may also use a magical sword, such as Wyrmslayer or Wyrmsbane.

 

[aco175]

I think to have the levels be around the 1-8 or 1-10 range to work fine. I'm not sure if 5e has something like paragon paths where players may be disappointed if for the first 10 levels they are dragon slayers and at 11th level they find nothing but undead for the next 10 levels. This aside, I saw an intro in the other article about all the party being survivors of a village destroyed by the dragon. It works as a easy tie for the party, but negates new party members and loners, but that is easy enough to dismiss. I also like a summons to court of such by the local Duke. This may be better after a few levels of local adventuring. Seeds of possible locations can be planted in this time.

I like the idea of havine a few parties of adventurers looking for the dragon at the same time. An evil party seeks to foil the party either by just one-upping the party and makeing they look like fools, or actively seeking their death. This is from all out attacking them to cutting the ropes to the bridge they must cross. Another party out seeking the dragon could end up helping the party if needed or could provide new members if you use this other party as a warning by having they all slain, or mostly slain is some sort of foreshadow fight.

There should be some sort of encounters on the way to the lair, both natural and monsterous. I'm mostly thinking Tolkien here, with random troll encounters and underground mazes to get through that may also have monsters in them like undead or puzzle encounters like Gollum. These may tie with the main quest in some way or just be stand alone in this mountain regardless of when the party came though. If the party went obver the mountain then another encounter would have happened and they never would have found that invisibility ring. They may have ended up with something else just as usefull though.

There can and maybe should be agents working for the dragon. Weather there is some sort of direct working arrangement like orcs that guard the lair while the dragon sleeps, or the dragon tolerates the slime creature in the front of the cave sincee it happens to make a good guard there. There can also be a creature that could go either way in that the dragon has something over this creature so that it works for him, but if relieved of this blackmail item, he could help the party by reveiling the secret backdoor or such.

 

[jedavis]

Oh-ho! We finished a Trailblazer campaign like this not three months ago. Slew a total of eight dragons ranging from an adult green up to an old red. Character motivations ranged widely; we had a couple guys who were of the "save the humans" position, some who were after the treasure, and I had a genocidal "kill all dragons" dwarven ranger (they burned off my beard, and for that, they must all be put to the axe).

The first one was a mature adult black; we had to fight our way into its lair, which was guarded by half-dragons, their mother (a powerful evil cleric), her pet zombies, and her pet (rebellious and easily subverted vampires).

Second was the adult green, which had no minions. Locating his lair was a pain, and there was magical misdirection involved, but we were ultimately unsatisfied with the final fight. We went after this one because we had a couple new PCs and in-world wanted them blooded against something weaker before we went up against the next one...

Who was the adult red and her brood of four juveniles. We managed to trick her into attacking a city ruled by a powerful enchanter, and we set them against each other and managed to slay them both. For their part, the juveniles failed their saves against Mass Suggestion and were easily disposed of.

The final slaying occurred in the burning aftermath of the ruination of the city, when an old or mature adult blue appeared to try to kill us and complete a ritual to summon Tiamat using various draconic artifacts that we had gathered from the dragons we had slain (this was thoroughly foreshadowed, and we quite expected something of this sort, so it was fair). Despite being down two PCs from the fight against the red, we scraped a narrow victory and saved the world.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I have a one-shot I've run a couple of times in Savage Worlds, called Monster Safari, where a British aristocrat goes dragon-hunting in Africa after making a (brandy-inspired) wager at the Raleigh Club.

All the dragons in Europe were hunted to extinction centuries ago, y'see, so Africa is the only place you can still hope to find one in 1903...

-Hyp.

 

[howandwhy99]

I'm not sure if it could stand as a campaign, but it would make an awesome adventure.

In general, the more detail you can give to the dragon and the lands within which the hunt would go on, the more interesting the adventure will be.

First, the scope of the lands is pretty much set by the scope of the territory initially claimed by the dragon. These don't have to be uncivilized depending on the sleep cycle of the dragon (it could be 100 years between awakenings), but this territory is that which is known to the dragon (barring anything created or altered during its rest).

Second, if the dragon is driven out of its territory (not just its lair), then it will be at a disadvantage due to not knowing the area. These lands would also need to be detailed and could be unknown to the players too. Depending on the INT and background of the dragon it will likely go into the safest surrounding lands where it wasn't harassed by it expeditions exploring into it. This would probably be dangerous terrain (like mountain tops) that the dragon could handle and not highly populated areas where it could be further attacked. (It's not looking to displace everything, just get away)

Third, once it finds a new lair, it's likely to hide. Being pretty smart this means removing any tracks to this location and flying openly past it and backtracking later in the dark or under cover (from clouds, etc.)

Dragons can hide a long, long time unless they are low on resources like food or the need to mate, so their next move is in part relative to their needs. Whatever the case their strategies will be covert initially. The effect of being hunted can take awhile to go away. Perhaps treat it like a fear effect - save ends.

Lastly, repeat combats and evasions with the dragon "running away" (flying) as long as the PCs continue to pursue. A dragon hunt is a LONG pursuit and evasion game, so be ready to account for months to years passing by in the surrounding campaign world lands. Aging and advancement effects on the PCs are to their advantage too in comparison to dragons' slower aging-based advancement.

Like I said at first, the more details you have then the more you have to work with. If black dragons live in swamps, that's where your dragon will go. If they defile the countryside as they traverse it (dracoliches), then they should be relatively easy to track through terrains plentiful with life. Dragon Fear has a way of sticking with creatures when dragons move by, so anything the PCs can talk with may lead to rumor sources for tracking.

Dragons have a lot of advantages: magic, spells, speed and flight, a number of combat abilities, and a breath weapon / tool. They are very smart and can outlive many problems. They are very wealthy and can pay off problems, even the PCs themselves. Some are very well connected and have long term (from the human perspective) allies in very powerful positions (often due to allying with a dragon) that can act against the PCs on the dragon's behalf. Expect interference from unlikely sources, but still with the strings pulled by the dragon. Dragons are traditionally loners, but they do seek out mates and may work together. Joining up with another or more dragons could quickly escalate the challenge. PCs may need to increase their own abilities (levels), treasure, and connections to finally capture or defeat their initial foe.

All of this presumes they don't decide to stop pursuing the dragon hunt and do something else. A lot of P&E ends just that way.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

If a campaign, don't start with the dragon. Start with operations against the dragon's minions (yeah, I know, you don't want many henchmen -- hard to make it a campaign otherwise). Perhaps kobolds/goblins/whatever are raiding for some unknown reason. The dragon's behind it, be the PCs don't know that until after peeling back many layers of plots. Then they can begin their reconnaissance and search for the critical weapon or magic needed to slay the dragon.

A good example of a low-level slay-the-dragon adventure is 3E's Forge of Fury, though depending on how you choose to introduce it it may not start out that way. For 4E, my own Raiders of Oakhurst - Reloaded uses the henchmen-then-dragon approach.