Dragons are smart, powerful and crave riches. Why not invest that money and power to make a kingdom/guild where the dragon rules and have more money and power ? (Dunkelzahn is the obvious example)
>>46970261
Because that means spending money.
and they're dragons. dragons gather money, don't spend it
>>46970289
How about spending money to gather more money?
>>46970289
Yet if it means spending it to gain more I think a dragon would like that. besides Dragons are ancient and have long lasting lifes, which means they are mostly patient and patience is the key for any good business man.
dragons don't care about how much they have in the bank, they care about how much they sit on, and they get more from pillaging then they would running a kingdom. Also that way they don't have to deal with humans in a non murdery sense.
>>46970430
I guess it depends on the dragon. But since they are smart (in most good settings) I think numbers do count for them.
Are there dragons who just hoard like...people's personal treasures? Things that didn't have worth but were valued by the people that were given to them?
Because I totally see a dragon taking like all these petty things over gold, silver and treasure because to him, its not the value of the object it what the object's value meant.
Then they totally burnt and pillaged whoever they took these nick-nacks from.
>Dragons are smart, powerful and crave riches.
Not particularly. Let's have a look at the CR 24 ancient red dragon in the 5e Monster Manual.
>Int 18 (+4), Wis 15 (+2), Cha 23 (+6)
>Skills: Perception +16, Stealth +7
A generic CR 1/8 petty human noble has:
>Int 12 (+1), Wis 14 (+2), Cha 16 (+3)
>Skills: Deception +5, Insight +4, Persuasion +5
This is already enough for the CR 1/8 noble to have a solid chance at overcoming the CR 24 dragon in a social confrontation. Against actual bards, the dragon stands an even greater chance of being tricked or persuaded.
>>46970477
Dragon Magazine and D&D did some things about various dragons and dragon syndromes.
some dragons started to hoard food and become obsessive eaters. Some riddles and jokes. but the most reasonable one is a story about a golden dragon that hoarded books and knowledge that was a bit grumpy that his children all didn't care about books and was afraid no one would inherit his library when he was gone.
>>46970477
you weren't here for those threads?
>>46970261
I once ran a game where one of the kingdoms had a dragon as the treasurer. Dragon checks the invoices of all the goods from villages, crunches the numbers and ensures everything lines up. If you aren't paying taxes you have a fucking dragon showing up to collect you debts.
If you're talking about D&D they often do. Golds, Greens, and Coppers off the top of my head come to mind.
>>46970583
How about an ancient gold
>>46970630
I can say I wasn't
What happened?
Did he find an inheritor?
>>46970409
That sounds stupid.
Also keep in mind that your average fantasy setting is much less stable (especially if its meant to provide fertile playground for adventurers) than modern world and therefore less conducive to investment practices.
>>46970261
It could be interesting for a setting to see a smart, yet only modestly strong dragon decide to engage in enlightened self-interest and provide the locals with security against invaders in exchange for treasure and/or food, in an almost feudal relationship.
It would also be interesting to see that relationship evolve over time. Here's the chain of events I'm envisioning: the dragon's security creates stability, which leads to economic growth, which makes the dragon richer via taxes, and then he starts doing investment banking or something to start actually making a profit, so he invests in the locals themselves, which makes them richer, which makes his tax revenue higher, and so on. Wealth starts flowing in, and the dragon eventually starts using lots of the money to invest in things that secure and increase his tax revenue, so stuff like roads, police, an army, education, new technologies/magics, healthcare, etc., all of which help enhance the money-making capacity of the people, which then translates into greater tax revenue and investment returns for the dragon.
It would be a subversion of the classic trope of the fearsome dragon terrorizing the area. Instead, the adventurers show up to find a wealthy, stable province with sophisticated commercial practices who have a very profitable arrangement with the local dragon, whose physical protection and financial investments helped guarantee much of this success. The quest might be something like stopping some overzealous would-be dragon slayers from mucking up the entire arrangement in their selfish pursuit of glory, or maybe investigating various white collar crimes like fraud and embezzlement, or something.
>>46970261
What makes you think they're not? Maybe there's a cave system beneath the castle, home to the dragon (or council of dragons) that's been ruling through puppet kings for centuries.
>>46971522
Wait a minute, what about dragons who are leading a movement to transition the area's currency to something that isn't gold; this way, the locals wouldn't have as much of a need for treasure, so the dragons could horde it without pissing off the local humans and attracting treasure hunters/dragon slayers like flies to shit.
>>46970477
>Are there dragons who just hoard like...people's personal treasures? Things that didn't have worth but were valued by the people that were given to them?
I think in d&d the different colours value different things.
Like the black dragons straight up wanted gold, but I think one of the metallic dragons, gold or silver wanted high value art like paintings and sculptures.
Another liked gems specifically.
>>46971591
And now you know why we use paper money. Fort Knox and its equivalents in other countries are all dragon lairs.
>>46971652
I KNEW IT!
WE'RE BREAKING THE CONDITIONING
Well I've already got this in my setting, they operate a Not!HRE where the voting power of a dragon is directly proportional to the number of humans in their duchy.
>>46971641
From what I remember:
Red: Traditional gold and jewel hoarding
White: Encases their hoard in ice. Also likes ice-sculptures with gooey adventurer fillings.
Green: Collects interesting people, holds them prisoner for entertainment or as servants.
Black: Likes treasure from fallen human/elf/dwarf/etc civilisations, supposedly because it reminds them how superior they are.
Blue: ?
Gold: ? Knowledge?
Bronze: War trophies, wil occasionally join wars to get them.
Copper: ? Jokes and stories I think?
Brass: ?
Silver: ?
They don't appear in the 5e monster manual, but I'm pretty sure Steel dragons liked to polymorph into humans and get rich through trade, etc, and make their manors/castles/etc their hoards.
>>46970409
That process involves mostly not having the treasure at hand, which is the whole point.
>Int 18
A generic specimen is a certified genius compared to human standards and you say they are not really that smart?
That 18, which translates to an IQ of 160 or so is their absolute baseline, not the pinnacle, and the social skills you cite here don´t factor in any disposition the dragon would have, which would certainly be to disregard any lower lifeforms on principle.
Tricking dragons is not the stuff of legends because bards are so very adept at it.
>>46971994
From Wiki
>>Preferred Treasure
>Chromatic
Black: Gold Coins
Blue: Sapphires
Green: Emeralds
Red: Anything with monetary value
White, Brown, Orange, Purple, Yellow, Grey not shown with a preferred treasure.
>Metallic
Brass: Handcrafted work in materials such as bone, wood, stone, or fabric (particularly weaving).
Bronze: Ceramics, statuary and gemstones
Copper: Valuables from the earth: metals, precious stones, finely crafted sculptures, well-made ceramics, et cetera
Gold: Art, especially paintings and sculptures
Silver: Beautifully crafted jewelry or finely woven fabrics
Steel: Steel dragons prefer treasure that they can carry in their human forms, such as jewelry, valuable coins, and magic items usable by Medium-size creatures.
Adamantine, Cobalt, Mercury, Mithral and Orium dragons preferred treasure not shown.
Sources: Monster Manual v3.5, Draconomicon, Monster Manual 2 v4.0
As for gem dragons only only crystal dragons were shown to have a preferred treasure as far as I could see.
"They value friendship over all else and the treasures tend to be sentimental rather than valuable"
>>46970261
Most depictions of dragons I've seen in D&D is that dragons are greedy and distrustful of others handling their gold. Even good-aligned dragons won't work with investments.A plot point in my campaign is that with the invention of the printing press, humanoid kingdoms are beginning to issue fiat currency, and dragons are getting nervous
>>46974005
Wouldn't dragons find it easier to get gold when others are fine with fiat?
>>46974005
>Most depictions of dragons I've seen in D&D is that dragons are greedy and distrustful of others handling their gold. Even good-aligned dragons won't work with investments.
Yeah. Dragons are more likely to "invest" by way of convincing everyone else to pay them regular tribute.
It's pretty much the same thing in the long run, right? It's just collecting the interest from someone else's capital investments without ever having to risk any of its own horde.
If you go deeper with this, this is actually the demihuman nations trapping the dragon in a Skinner Box of its own making, turning the whole dragon threat thing into just a few lines in the accounting. And in a longer view, they're just using the dragon to guard their periodic savings deposits; they'll only break the piggy bank (send some poor fools to slay the dragon) when they really really need to.
If you go *even deeper*, the people ruling things from the shadows already understand how bad the post-dragonslaying inflationary spike is on the economy, and are actually secretly hindering adventurers that want to go loot that horde.
The next layer would be that the dragon, of course, already planned it that way.
We think we eventually killed off the dragons, or that they never existed, but that's wrong. They're just sprawled out on their piles of gold, eating junk food and playing video games. Don't ask me who won.
>>46970477
>>46974388
>We think we eventually killed off the dragons, or that they never existed, but that's wrong. They're just sprawled out on their piles of gold, eating junk food and shitposting on /tg/ spreading lies and misinformation about dragons
FTFY
>>46970409
what does a dragon need to spend money on?
banking?
he can just fucking take the bank and the castle treasury in one day!
>>46970261
Because dragons are also incredibly powerful and if he wants gold there's nothing stopping him from simply taking it instead of playing nice with a bunch of insects.
>>46975163
>yfw no qt blue and white dragon griffon gf
why live
>>46973072
I read that as White liking Brown, Orange, Purple, Yellow, and Grey, and it seemed almost cute that they just liked pretty colors.
I didn't realize how badly I wanted a Dragon-King that rules over a kingdom because he's a pretty fair ruler that implements a solid tax plan and let's you do your own thing as long as you pay your taxes
Like a Ayn Rand Smaug
>Implying they don't
Either secretly or nay, dragons totally should rule over most civilizations in fantasy worlds. However with the fact that there are so many humans out there, an army could destroy a dragon, so most humans will still be in charge of their own empires with their own petty wars and successions.
>>46970261
> imblying I don't already do that
> this the Year of Tiamat, Cycle of the Blue, 9,828
> mammals
>>46970477
What about a dragon who hoards uncomfortable situations
>>46971591
> dragons don't covet things BECAUSE they are valuable to others
MissingThePoint.png
>>46970261
Humans are annoying as fuck
Why deal with all that shit when you can just spend a couple centuries raiding and then sleep on your hoard
>>46970261
>(Dunkelzahn is the obvious example)
We all know how that turned out...
>>46970583
If that's true, that's more a case of 5th edition being retarded.
>>46970261
Because the dragon symbolizes the cardinal sin of Greed, that's why. It sits atop a pile of riches that it cannot use, yet it still yearns for more.
All i know is if i was a dragon i'd hoard repeating digits.
>>46979999
Nice quads.
>>46979999
>dragon symbolizes the
depends on the setting. You can make dragons symbolize charity if you fucking like to.
I'm not saying that they didn't originally, in Western fantasy, symbolize the cardinal sin of Greed, though.
>>46980156
>Not hoarding harems
Not very creative :^
>>46970261
Guilds aren't what you think they are. They were more like worker unions combined with regulatory agencies.
I need that pic of that investment banker convincing a dragon to invest in the local economy
>>46980270
What if the dragon hoards guild members?
>>46970760
Was just thinking something like this, like dragon ruler, protects those who live in or around his lair. But you have to pay taxes, his hoard is purely tax money
I'm actally running a campaign in a setting where a dragon got a bit fucked in the head and decided that from this day forward he's going to start hoarding territory. The result is a ruthless, ever expansionist empire that basically takes up like 3/4 of the continent and forced all the peoples that once occupied these places to travel east into barbarian lands and unforgiving climes.
>>46980253
What would a setting with dragons representing charity be like?
>>46979903
I mean, he did succeed.
>>46980345
It would be a setting where dragons do their best to acquire wealth in legit means and then give their wealth to those in need.
Would you rather have a job that pays you a lot of money for doing what you love, or even more money for burying your head in shit and just squishing it around for sixteen hours per day?
Even if you'd pick the latter, do you understand why most people would go for the former?
>>46970261
>Why not invest that money and power to make a kingdom/guild where the dragon rules and have more money and power ?
My setting has Dragonpope.
Your turn.
>>46970583
I RECOGNIZE THAT DRAGON! THAT'S MIDGARDSORMR!I walked around with that fucker on my shoulder for the better part of my last 10 levels of Warrior and all my 30 levels of Dark Knight.
>>46981817
Fucking japanese shitting all over nordic mythology
>>46981892
Could not agree more
They're way too greedy and arrogant to realize that would be a better idea. They don't horde wealth, really—wealth is just a way to remind them of all the delicious misery they caused, all the lesser creatures they triumphed over.
That's how it used to work in one of my settings, anyway. Then one of them tried to fuck with Merlin so he cursed their whole race to become equal in power to the other races. Now they're pretty normal, but they have a higher proportion of bankers/finance workers than other races, mostly just to get in touch with their heritage. Most of the evil is gone, and they now like gold for different reasons.
Of course, a lot of dragons are very conflicted about the whole thing. One of the main characters is a dragon and she hates a lot of things about dragon culture—especially since she's a northern/southern dragon hybrid, which a lot of dragons think is weird. That's one of the reasons she works in an office full of non-dragons.
...okay that was a tangent. Whatever.
>>46970583
>>46983175
Kraken are intelligent in pathfinder m8
>>46986333
They're also charismatic?
>>46979936
given how often dragons are tricked in mythology, that 15 wis is a bit on the high side
>>46975418
It kind of makes a touch of sense if you think about it. White dragons prefer to live in snowy-ass places like mountains and arctic tundras and the such, so unless they go far out their way they're going to see a fuckton of nothing but whites and greys, maybe some subdued greens if a sturdy plant hasn't been entirely covered by snow. So naturally, they'd probably find anything vibrantly coloured to be very exotic and worth holding onto above most other things.
Hell, a sufficiently affluent white dragon would probably have kobolds decorate its scaley hide with rubies and clothes coloured with rare dyes as a sort of 'fuck y'all other dragons look at how rich I am' deal.
>>46988333
I'm it could keep someone entertained for hours if it wanted.
>>46970261
Investments weren't really a thing in medieval society. There was no "return on investment" or guarantee that spending money would generate money in return. Most of the time, spending money was done for maintenance reasons or to gain power over something.
Dragons already have power, and so don't need to spend money to gain power.
Dragon hoards do not need to be maintained. They pick their treasures specifically because they don't need to spend anything to preserve them.
Spending money is a complete waste to a dragon.
It's called Xorvintaal, OP. They do it all the time.
Ursury is a sin under Christianity and so draconic banking makes perfect sense.
>>46980345
>>46993379
>Investment weren't really a thing in medieval society
Let's remember that that trade and banking was even then a thing. Venice, Florence, the Hanseatic League, Milan. there are many examples
