Would Making Them Unimpressive Be A Bad Thing?

[BrokenChord]

I just recently was inspired to make a setting by another poster's utilization of some fluff, namely that dragons can get by on eating rocks and gems and the like as well as actual organic food, and their reparation that such a thing is ridiculous and if a method existed for breaking those things down that released more energy than it used up it would be revolutionary. Naturally, then, my setting is post-revolution.

I haven't ironed out the details yet, but my thought process is mainly built around the idea that wizards harvest dragon stomachs and use them to transfer rocks and gems and ores into fully separated metals and excess energy that could be used for, I dunno, maybe a substitute for crafting/casting XP.

Thing is, in order to make this a real business, the wizards will need many, many dragon stomachs. And it's really impractical to go around searching for another dragon when you want another stomach, for many reasons. So the solution? Breeding.

Feeblemind them at birth, raise them like cattle, breed them a few dozen times, slaughter them at the appropriate age. Maybe find ways to accelerate their aging for bigger profits, though I'd prefer to avoid time accelerating planar trait abuse so that I can keep the world's primary NPCs at lower levels, as well as, well, I don't like abusing other planes in my settings.

My issue is with player perception, though. Do you think that people playing in this setting would grow disillusioned with it due to the casual abuse of dragon breeding? Will I be rained upon with cries of "Tippyverse!"? And does this seem like a good starting point for a setting in general? I feel like this point opens up so many possibilities for types of campaigns. Mining quests and seeking out the last free dragons are the easy ones, but there's also a lot of political intrigue to be had, seeing how a government might evolve around this, and for the more heroic players there's even the possibility of wanting to break this system and free the dragons. It just seems like something interesting to toy with.

What do you guys think?

[Coventry]

You can always re-write to avoid the problem.

Take the base concept (limited-resource-thing that converts materials in a magical way) and eliminate the dragon from the equation. Make it a plant, that dragons learned how to harvest eons ago, but wizards just recently figured out.

You get all sorts of quest options:

Technological Espionage - steal the other guy's tech
Technological Espionage - defend your own tech
Find a new source of the plants (do they grow wild? Only when tended by dragons?)
Cure the blight striking your plants
Cause the blight for you enemies
Work with the pro-cultivation druids against the anti-cultivation druids
Get the special plant food that they all need


... and maybe dragons eat those plants at a young age, which is how their stomachs gain that ability. How would an alchemist replicate that process in non-draconian biology?

Edit/Add: Oh, and don't forget the epic disaster of, "oops, the plants escaped captivity, and now the wizard's hall is being devoured. The arcane energy released will destroy the city/county/world unless stopped!"

[Vrock_Summoner]

That system seems ridiculously abusable in the hands of classes that don't need the help.

Otherwise, though... Well, it's about as much of a campaign setting basis as Teleportation Circles and automatic self-resetting traps are to Points of Light, so I think you can make it work.

[awa]

well its basically a vile spell combo so in theory unless its a bad guy game that would limit the pcs ability to use it. So its basically evil overlord only.

In order to not make it not seem unimpressive you could differentiate domestic dragons and wild dragons to preserve the majesty of the ones pcs would be fighting.
even with low int dragon are devastating apex predators so you could have these harvested dragons kill hundred or even thousands of the slave assigned to care for them every year. You cold only have the most powerful and evil of wizards capable of maintaining such an operation and then it says more about dark emperor or lich king then it does about the dragons.

actual with a lich that gives me an idea you could use it to fuel his zombie dragon army

[Urpriest]

It is a Tippyverse of a sort, no way around that...any setting that makes regular casting of a 5th level spell part of its industry is going to feel that way. The question is, is it the sort of Tippyverse you want to play in?

[BrokenChord]

It is a Tippyverse of a sort, no way around that...any setting that makes regular casting of a 5th level spell part of its industry is going to feel that way. The question is, is it the sort of Tippyverse you want to play in?

You have a point. I can't really think of a way to do it without lower level spells, though... Either the stomachs would have to be harvested quite young, in which case breeding doesn't work out, or the dragons get old enough to mate and every dragon color except white doesn't have too much trouble getting away from its captors who are presumably below level 8-9.

Hmm. Guess I'll just have to deal with the people who don't like the Tippyverse also expressing negativity at my setting. Unfortunate, but can't win 'em all.



Using dragon stomachs to power undead dragons? Maybe even using their own stomachs? Wha... I feel I just got mindscrewed by the presence of too much awesome.

[LogosDragon]

Just like everything else, dragons are a setting tool. If you wanted to set an Evil Power-Industry theme for the game, taking the biggest, noblest, and most iconic creatures in the game and having them literally driven like cattle and exploited for profit is one of the best ways to do it. D&D has plenty of powerful creatures with a large presence minus the dragons AND minus the dungeons; you can make this work. Just be careful not to give your players too many ideas if you intend to run an Evil sandbox in that setting later.