Dragon Game...? Help me find XD

[jamesb]

I vaguely remember an ancient dragon game, but I can't find the source. Time for some crowd sourcing...anyone know what I'm talking about? I believe this was in a 3.5 book.

It was similar to capture the flag or a type of living chess played by dragons with people/monsters used as pawns. Dragons would position minions and their hoard to defend or find another dragon's hoard. Points would be scored by things similar to having opponent attack decoy, capturing hoard, or moving hoard near front line.

Thanks in advance.

[Blackhawk748]

I vaguely remember an ancient dragon game, but I can't find the source. Time for some crowd sourcing...anyone know what I'm talking about? I believe this was in a 3.5 book.

It was similar to capture the flag or a type of living chess played by dragons with people/monsters used as pawns. Dragons would position minions and their hoard to defend or find another dragon's hoard. Points would be scored by things similar to having opponent attack decoy, capturing hoard, or moving hoard near front line.

Thanks in advance.

Its called Xorvintaal and its called the Great Game, i think its in the Draconomicon. Its basically a bunch of dragons playing DnD with actual people (i wish i was joking) except that they can "win" and they each put up their horde as a bet. Hey gotta do something when your that old.

[OldTrees1]

It was in Monster Manuel IV or Monster Manual V (my bet is V since IV had Tiamat's spawn)

[WhamBamSam]

It's in MMV.

[Calimehter]

Anyone actually used the Xorvintaal variant dragons in one of their games?

I imagine that the various (Su) abilities and Exarch bits pale in comparison to access to high level magic in high level games, but I'm thinking that the loss of the high level spells (and the fluff from Xorvintaal about dragons acting in the background) would work pretty well for an E6 game concept I'm thinking of.

[WhamBamSam]

Anyone actually used the Xorvintaal variant dragons in one of their games?

I imagine that the various (Su) abilities and Exarch bits pale in comparison to access to high level magic in high level games, but I'm thinking that the loss of the high level spells (and the fluff from Xorvintaal about dragons acting in the background) would work pretty well for an E6 game concept I'm thinking of.I've been kicking around the idea for a Xorvintaal game for a while. I probably will run it eventually. It's a fun template, though you're correct that spellcasting outshines it a bit at higher ages for most dragons.

Also note that non-casting True Dragons (like many Planar Dragons) and Psionic True Dragons without the Magic Mantle can also take the template, and lose nothing from it. The standard transparency rules are not sufficient to cause manifesting to be lost by RAW.