im not sure much about the behavior of dragons aside from "Moar loots plz".
planning on having a city where theres a grey dragon prowling the area and the players (who are too low level to fight it one on one) have to navigate and find an artifact that was held there before the attack.
Planning on them using some siege weapons to weaken it and take it out.
But what i need help with is, why the hell would a dragon stay in a city it destroyed that has no remaining food in it.
- does a dragon need to eat daily? i know they sit in mountains for years waiting to eat adventurers.
- are they only territorial over gold?
can ya help me out?
>>46302916
Hidden treasure.
It sends its kobold and human slaves down into the sewers/mines/dungeons to search for this long forgotten civilizations many treasures and it guards this with much jealousy.
Thing is, there is really no treasure, the dragon kinda knows but is to fueled up on his dragon pride to ever give up.
BAM, 10 seconds.
>>46302955
gotta admit, fastest fucking reply I've ever seen
>>46302916
How about: The city is destroyed, but the farmlands around it have grown wild and are full of feral livestock and creatures moved in from the wilderness. So there's actually plenty of food for a dragon to be had just a short flight from the city. Plus the city's got some nice architecture for the dragon to live in, and while there's not too much gold outside the treasury building there are lots of fine works of art to be extracted from the ruins, so it's pretty happy there. Maybe the city even has a library that it enjoys, and it's a more erudite sort of dragon.
>>46302916
>why the hell would a dragon stay in a city it destroyed that has no remaining food in it.
It uses the city as it's lair. The still intact city walls and castle afford it significant protection over a cave while the sprawling nature of the city ensures that people are constantly entering the city in attempts to loot it since they perceive it as being less dangerous than a traditional dragon's lair.
>>46302962
Many days of shitposting on int and v have honed my replying skills.
But for the food question, dragons usually have servants and slaves, obviously an ENTIRE city would still have enough food to feed one dragon for some time, and even then the servants would probably still be able to procure food the normal way.
>>46303022
OP mentioned a grey dragon, which in D&D prefer to hunt.
>>46303072
oh, well then I guess it flies out of the city.
Most likely did the city have it's own hunting grounds and if its not to picky, the various animals and wild dogs would make for a decent hunt.
The whole hidden treasure thing still stands.
>>46303100
Size is also something to consider. A younger, smaller dragon would be more likely to remain in the city to hunt, as it can more easily move through the streets and enter buildings, while an older dragon would be more inclined to come and go.
>>46302955
This guy >>46302955 has the best answer I can think of so far.
As for your questions:
>does a dragon need to eat daily? i know they sit in mountains for years waiting to eat adventurers.
Let's assume for a moment that the dragon does need to eat regularly. I envision them being somewhat like an alligator. They can go years without eating, but afterwards they'll be starving.
So, we don't really have a good analogy for giant reptiles of the size we're talking. Otherwise, we might not be at the top of the food chain. But if we look at crocodiles and alligators, they mostly need to eat maybe a raccoon a week? (PLEASE check my sources, I only go off the top of my head)
Size that up, and having maybe one or two cows a week, or maybe a small family would be enough to sustain them. If they have minions and times are desperate, I could see them eating them as well if they get hungry enough. This is only theory, but that's the closest I can think of off the top of my head.
>are they only territorial over gold?
I think Gold would only be used as a form of courtship amongst dragons. Kinda like bragging rights between guys and the size of their truck. Not to mention the bells and whistles it has on it.
But I could see it as being used as a way to attract mates. The bigger the hoard, the bigger the chances of mating with other dragons. It doesn't have anything really going for it. You can't eat it, use it as armour (it's a soft metal as I recall) or buy anything with it because you're a big motherfucking dragon and scary as hell! It could be used as a magical reagent, but there's some really cool picture of a guy explaining how magic and gold are related, I'd kill to find it.
>>46303423
Its funny, a dragons food comes to it, no work. pretty cozy life right there.
right, OP here. for starters, i like the idea of it being a small dragon and probably having some kind of followers. but what wouldn't he eat that is sentient enough to serve him? kobolds you say.
then the issue becomes how to feed the followers, so might have there be surrounding woods/farms filled with food they go out and hunt.
were on a roll here guys, thanks!
>The dragon was pushed out of its territory by it's stronger brother as they grew.
>Now the abandoned city is the only nearby territory unclaimed.
>The dragon has begun to admire the old cities culture and is in the process of carving one of their old tribal designs into it's scales, as a form of tattoo.
>>46303524
I would imagine this. If it's smart enough to realize the smooth skins want their "City" back but can't fight it off they will send people in to try an do it and you'll always have someone who's brave or stupid enough (both in most cases) to try and steal stuff.
You'd never have to leave and you have all the fun of stalking around the alleyways and buildings to hunt for your meal so you don't get bored.
>>46303423It took 2 minutes.
>I'd kill to find it.
How do I tell you who to kill?
>>46303704
Kobolds are usually not picky and any more organized and smarter followers would probably hunt on the outskirts regularily.
A town is made for much more people than the followers of a dragon, the town is probably outfitted well enough for a small band of people.
What's probably gonna happen is that in time the town will be rebuilt around the dragon with it as a leader and so the town of "[insertdragonname]isthebestdragon" will rise from the ashes.
>>46303000
Maybe the dragon came to the city because nobody else was tending to the library and it didn't want to see those books lost.
>>46303021
You might think that a city offers lots of ways for adventurers to sneak up on a dragon. But this city has so much rubble from collapsed buildings that there are only a few routes to the dragon. All of which are clearly watched by its minions.
It seems a bit too convenient to the dragon to think that all those buildings fell down on their own.
>>46302916
Well if the party is looking for an artifact, make the Dragon be guarding that artifact.
>food
>does a dragon need to eat daily? i know they sit in mountains for years waiting to eat adventurers.
>are they only territorial over gold?
Dragons vary so much from setting to setting that it's entirely up to you. Dragons could survive solely on magical energy, they could only need to eat a couple of livestock a month, or they could be voracious eaters as one would expect a carnivore of that size to be in the real world.
If it needs to eat a lot, make it do routine, quick flights out of the city to eat. This could give players a tactical opportunity to scout the city or possibly make a rush for the treasure, but if you really want them using seige weaponry to fight the dragon you can always prevent this with some subtle DM railroading with a timely return of the dragon, or guarding it sufficiently with the dragon's servants.
I like the idea of a magic-wielding, hyper-intelligent dragon that's holed up in an abandoned city's library, searching for hidden or lost knowledge in an attempt to become a dracolich. could make for an interesting bbeg
>>46303881
Not even that, with a normal dragon lair there is usually only one or two ways in and out, with a city full of tall buildings and winding streets you won't see the dragon until he's landing on top of you.
>>46303937
A normal dragon lair is a cave. Which doesn't give the dragon much opportunity to see anyone approaching it.
A lair up a tower in a city with straight streets means that anyone approaching is quite visible. Plus adventurers might think that this hidden path they discovered that winds back and forth across the city is something the dragon overlooked. Instead of being a route the dragon left open for the clever adventurers so that they are tired when they get to the end of it.
A city, even a ruined one, leaves a lot more room for construction that doesn't cause adventurers to wonder why its there. Because they already have an obvious answer.
>>46304064
Man, a city for a lair makes for a great setting and encounters.
>>46303907
>At last, I have discovered the lost scrolls of Tak'esh and with them the Elvish secrets of life and death. Soon my apotheosis will be at hand!
>...What the fuck is baelnorn?
>>46303704
Well, if it's an evil dragon, then there's a range of options to choose from.
My first thought would be to use undead as followers, as they don't need to eat, sleep, or even rest. They're the perfect cannon fodder. However, then you run into the problem of them probably being rather easily breakable and simple-minded. So then we move onto bigger, badder, and evil-er undead such as vampires, ghouls, and maybe liches. Vampires wouldn't stoop to doing the work and would probably stab us in the back, so that's out of the question. Ghouls are jackals. They'd only work on something if they figured that they'd get fed on the deal. Liches are way too powerful and would eventually turn on us in some way, so no go there.
Then we move onto slaves. While good for grunt, brute labour, they'd also be prone to turn on you soon as you show any weakness. The same reason that slave galleys during wartime were rare and are mostly a hollywood invention. A dragon might think that they're perfect, but a smart dragon would realize that using anything like that would be dangerous if at any point of weakness. Not to mention that you wouldn't be able to use them to guard anything.
The next option would be mind control, but then we run into the same problem with the slaves again. If your concentration slips or something stops the whole mind-control, then you have a small army in your lair. On the plus side however, you would be able to use them to guard and protect things.
its perfect having the city be a giant hunting grounds that the dragon has shaped.
but right now I'm trying to decide, do i
A. have a giant dragon hunting the players and they have to hide from it every time it comes by resulting in a sense of powerlessness and humbling them a little bit. then giving them an immense sense of achievement when they overcome it though skill (illusion of choice) and determination and defeat the dragon.
or option B. have a slightly more logical and dynamic area that the players may enjoy more because the world feels more developed by having a society that has developed and evolved around this dragon, and fill the city with these fierce savage hunters that all worship their grand hunter.
but having the nooks that are killable give less of a sense of fear and more of a leading up to the final boss sort of deal.
Decisions decisions
maybe the dragon that lives in the abandoned city is actually a smaller, weaker dragon that merely adopted the city as its lair after a bigger, more powerful/aggressive dragon caused it to be abandoned in the first place but then left
rumors of an immensely powerful dragon living in the abandoned city have circulated throughout the nearby humanoid civilizations and now none dare go near
maybe that city had a vast archive or library which the dragon spends its time in
>>46302916
A dragon that hoards destroyed cities.
>>46302916
The dragon has an apartment there. It's not big, but it's cheap. Especially with all the dragon paranoia going around, rent has dropped sharply.
The dragon doesn't want to give that up.
>>46304289
Now we move onto sentient beings with free will. Mercenaries are my first thought, but they need payment of some sort. We could go with letting them have the entire castle or town to themselves, giving them a nice base of operations from which to attack and raid from. However, there's a two-fold problem with this. The first is that we're dipping into our hoard to pay them. No self-respecting dragon would ever do that. The second however is that mercenaries are only as good as whoever has the best offer. If someone offers them a better deal, then we're screwed and will eventually backstab us.
Then we have critters that would ally themselves with us. Goblins, ogres, orcs, and other critters. A kind of "scratch my back, i'll scratch yours" kind of deal. They do the work, get a bit of loot from the city, and they don't get eaten. Not to mention that they have the "protection" of a dragon at their back, so they'd feel encouraged to work. Especially if they know what's good for them. However, most of them are cowardly, oppourtunistic killers. More bandits than army regulars. So if we have adventurers coming after us, then we'll need something with a bit more punch.
Which leads me to be thinking of cult followers. People who worship us as gods, or demi-gods. The kind of people who would go on a suicide mission for us if needed. Worse comes to worse, they could always prove their faith by letting us eat them and take them to "paradise." They'd be well-trained, have use of magic, and be loyal unto death for us. There'd even be mutli-culturalism in it, so we could have all kinds of critters and varmints as our cult-followers. Perfect!... almost. The only drawback is that we'd have to invest considerable time and energy into cultivating this. Years, decades, possibly even centuries would be needed to pull this off. But once it's done, we'd have something we could use very well indeed.
>>46302916
Perhaps it grew attached to the people who once lived in the city, but, in its long age, was forced to suffer and watch them slowly die out, and now lingers in the ruins of where they once lived, living a sad, lonely existence.
>>46304704
An ancient dragon who hoards archaeological artifacts, specifically ones older than itself.
>>46302916
Because then he can have his own fucking city, what other reasons does it need?
>>46302916
It's nesting.
It likes the ambiance, the ennui of the abandoned and broken city. It like the profound silence broken on occasion by the movement of small lives in the rubble, the first sign of life returning in the form of grass and weeds escaping from the cracks in the stones to reach for sunlight. It haunts this place because it reminds the dragon of another city, in it's ancient past, where it razed the entire place to make a nest for itself and raise a clutch of hatchlings.
It stalks the place in silence, feeling the crunch of stone agaisnt stone as it clambers through the deserted streets, felling a wall here and leaving this one intact becuse the way the breeze moves through the ruins creates a soothing melody.
The dragon is a poet at heart, something the players will never discover.
>>46303072
It brings victims back into the city where it has fun chasing them around in the maze-like complex
>>46305046
The city itself is the the dragon's horde. It's value is mostly abstract and represented by lost opportunity due to losing a city to a dragon.
>>46302916
>But what i need help with is, why the hell would a dragon stay in a city it destroyed that has no remaining food in it.
The dragon is a necromancer and is raising an army from the city's dead.
or
The dragon was the city's protector, but after watching it fall ever further into decadence over the centuries was overcome with rage and destroyed it. Maybe the dragon is bound to the city, or maybe it's remorseful and stays to remind itself of its failure.
>>46303773
I agree, if I was a dragon i'd totally do this. Murderhobo's don't have bank accounts, so you also gain whatever coin and jewelry they have in addition to their fancy +1 swords and whatnot for your hoard.
>>46305036
Dawwwwwwww, poor dragon!
>>46302916
>>46302955
>Hidden treasure.
>>46302916
The dragon is protecting her egg. It's cracked and can't be transported.
The dragon is actually a ghost that haunts the site of its death after it was bested in combat by an ancient hero and it's dragon companion (the dragon's freakish, good natured sibling) and came crashing down on the city in ages long past.
>>46305467
Guilt trip!
>>46305583
I don't understand this meme/reference.
