Brainstorming: Why Would a Dragon Go Into Debt?

[Amphetryon]

This topic came up at our gaming table last night, and I thought it was interesting enough to ask the forum's hive mind about. Assuming one isn't using Dominate or Mindrape cheese or similar tactics on a dragon to force it into debt, what circumstances (if any) would you consider plausible for a dragon having a negative cash flow situation? In order to keep the discussion from getting too theoretical and tangential, assume a Juvenile (Imperial) Sovereign Dragon without Templates or Class levels. Note that I'm talking about actual monetary debt here, not, for example, the Dragon owing a favor or life-debt to someone.

[Finkmilkana]

Paying someone/something (maybe another, older dragon, mercenaries etc) to safe him from someone/something or as ransom.

[Red Fel]

Well, consider two things.

First, Dragons aren't born with wealth. It has to be earned. (Read: Stolen, generally.) So a juvenile Dragon, still younger and weaker than other Dragons, might not have a hoard yet, and in bargaining for its safety, might wager future wealth. That is, suppose your Dragon has built its lair someplace where there are beings that might pose it a threat, but might also serve as a defense until the Dragon grows into its own - it might agree to owe them from its future wealth once it's large enough to handle its own affairs.

Second, Dragons are covetous. All you need to do is have something the Dragon wants enough. Think about when you were a child, and you wanted X more than anything in the world. It could have been a toy, or ice cream, or a shirt. Now imagine a being that, even at its wisest, noblest, and most ancient, is almost a living embodiment of greed and vanity. I guarantee you that, for every dragon, there is one thing - it could be an object, or knowledge, or a person - that they would readily give their own organs to possess. Going into debt is easy when you're willing to give up everything to get what you want.

But yeah. The first scenario - leveraging future wealth against present security - is probably the easiest scenario I can see. Enforcing the debt, now, that's a different issue.

[Nifft]

This topic came up at our gaming table last night, and I thought it was interesting enough to ask the forum's hive mind about. Assuming one isn't using Dominate or Mindrape cheese or similar tactics on a dragon to force it into debt, what circumstances (if any) would you consider plausible for a dragon having a negative cash flow situation? In order to keep the discussion from getting too theoretical and tangential, assume a Juvenile (Imperial) Sovereign Dragon without Templates or Class levels. Note that I'm talking about actual monetary debt here, not, for example, the Dragon owing a favor or life-debt to someone.

In one of my previous campaign settings, dragons were the bankers.

What people did is, they gave their local dragon their gold (which the dragon sat on), and the dragon gave the people slips of paper with some numbers and the dragon's arcane mark. The dragon would fly around and enforce acceptance of the slips of paper, which people liked because paper is lighter than gold.

This meant several things:
- Each local currency was valid within the range of a dragon's flight, at least.
- Dragons would fund adventurers based on the value of expected returns (they used math to work out the Wealth by Level guidelines).
- Dragon-Bankers were no less risk-averse than other kinds of bankers, and they could easily go bust by making a series of bad investment decisions, especially since their investments tended to include adventurers.

[JoshuaZ]

Depending on how involved dragons are with other beings in setting, and depending how much of an economy there is, dragons may have investments. And some investments may not always go well. A dragon could have invested in a merchant company that then goes under or the like. The dragon may take its wrath out on the incompetents who were running the business badly, but it might still lose money overall.

If the setting has a sufficiently sophisticated economy, dragons might get involved in the stock market, or loans, or derivatives. Why not a draconic hedge fund or two? Some economic events might be due to dragons secretly competing or at war with each other. The 2008 mortgage crisis was really a plot by one ancient dragon to impoverish another one.

[PersonMan]

Depending on your dragons' social qualities, they may be expected to keep up a 'proper lifestyle', which could mean both spending tons of money and sitting on tons at the same time. What, can't afford to hire that clan of kobold mercenaries to protect your lair this summer? Guess you'll miss out on the social event of the decade, then, and won't be able to flaunt your wealth and power (and talk to other dragons). So one might take loans, one to pay for their lair protection, another to pay for their seat pile of gold in the event itself...

[Mechalich]

Standard dragon+hoard+wealth accumulation fluff suggest that a dragon going into debt would be bad news. Dragons losing their hoards is how ghost dragons happen after all.

Traditionally most dragons would rather die than go into debt, and in a situation where they found themselves in debt, would probably pillage continuously until they'd managed to regain a positive cash balance.

Given that, it probably requires something pretty powerful to push a dragon into debt. The best candidate is probably...other dragons. Assuming some sort of draconic community, perhaps the older dragons soak the younger dragons for periodic contributions in a sort of extortionist pyramid scheme. So if a young dragon has had a few bad years plundering (perhaps the local economy tanked and there are not more caravans to attack), it might end up seriously in debt to its elders.

[P.F.]

Just like people can be "house-poor," a dragon can become "horde-poor." Basically, the dragon wants ... whatever it is that he wants, magic items, scale-washing spa services, a very particular cask of sherry, whatever ... but he refuses to part with his gold, so he takes out a loan instead.

Initially, this is simple enough, as no one wants to say "no" to the dragon, and everyone assumes he has the collateral to cover his debts. Only problem is, he never pays up. Ever. So this goes on for a few weeks/months/years, as the dragon has to go farther and farther afield to get ahead of his reputation, and deeper and deeper into the criminal underworld to find usurers and brokers unscrupulous enough to arrange his purchases on the "bill me later" plan.

Now, he's massively in debt. This scenario could be applied to gambling debts as well.

[Aldrakan]

\Assuming one isn't using Dominate or Mindrape cheese or similar tactics on a dragon to force it into debt, what circumstances (if any) would you consider plausible for a dragon having a negative cash flow situation?

The most obvious situation seems to be that someone stole its hoard. Some D&D source, not sure which, says that dragons are fond of a complex game using mortal pawns where they try to steal each others hoards - though usually played by older dragons I think. It could easily have some expenses (hiring adventurers to get its hoard back, for example) which it has to take on debt to pay.
If there are bankers in the area willing to lend to dragons, perhaps it's a powerful regional government and it can't just go around pillaging; otherwise I'd think most people would be reluctant to give money to a famously greedy and incredibly powerful species.

[Hrugner]

They could have to pay rent to a larger dragon for letting them have a den in part of their domain. They could be buying spells to excavate, reinforce and conceal their home. I don't know, all the reasons people go into debt but for dragons.

[Gabrosin]

As Red Fel alluded to, the enforcement is really the issue. A dragon has no reason to borrow anything he could get away with just taking. So ordinary possessions aren't something they would go into debt for. And dragons with wealth could give fair payment for most things rather than take on a debt to something more powerful than a dragon (an epic level character, a demon, an older dragon, and so on).

The most likely scenario is that the dragon agreed to exchange some sort of favor for something he couldn't obtain otherwise... perhaps high-level divine magic, or vengeance on a distant enemy. If you want a dragon who would be financially in debt, you could take this setup, but when the favor comes due it's not something the dragon can accomplish, and he has to forfeit increasingly larger portions of his wealth (as per the original agreement) until he's all the way broke.

The key to being logically consistent is to introduce a higher power that the dragon couldn't intimidate or overpower into forgiving the debt.

[noob]

Guilds of epic level 11 magicians or priests can explain a lot of things.

[mostholycerebus]

Lots of reasons really. Dragons have a great many strengths, one of which is their incredible lifespan. Its more than reasonable for one to leverage that into massive profit. Perhaps making loans to be repaid from the loanees estate when they pass. Just dont loan to elves, and in 30-60 years they have a nice fat income.

Another is, as mentioned maybe they are working as a banking service, loaning and holding savings. If a Dragon worked like a modern bank, they would be holding many peoples savings on paper but in reality be loaning that money out to profitable ventures. During a general run on the 'bank', especially with no FDIC-equivalent requiring minimum deposits on hand, a dragon could easily owe more than his horde contains.

Tieing into the above, maybe the govt is the problem. Maybe the local king, knowing how unpopular Dragons are, created a law forcing Dragons to loan huge amounts of money to Orcs with no capability or intent of paying off those loans. That would create a huge problem for the dragon, as those loans would almost always default, and he couldnt stop giving the loans lest the King send the IRS, er, I mean Adventurers after the dragon.

[Princess]

If the dragon became addicted to something rare and expensive, it could ruin its fortunes in pursuit of it. Perhaps exotic beverages or humanoids, or whatever the latest magical designer drug might be?

[Tvtyrant]

Evil dragons are heavily aligned with demons, so I imagine that would be a large part of their banking. In fact they get access to the best banking, because their souls are already going to be traded to demons on dying by Tiamat to fight in the Blood War. I can just imagine an adult red dragon not being able to afford the beholder work gang to renovate a volcano for them and going to their local hell bank.

A Harvestor Devil appears at their call, sees the level of the client, and puts them on hold. They pop back to hell and their supervisor (a horned devil) appears, then jets back to hell for their supervisor. A Pit Fiend appears, sees the dragon, decides that this should really be done through their affiliate company, jets back. A Abiashai appears, sees that it is an adult dragon, jets back, and finally an aspect of Tiamat appears. It hears out the dragons request for 100,000 GP to be paid back by eternal servitude after death, goes back to hell to talk to the Pit Fiend. They then have an Arcanaloth pull up the paper work, the Aspect of Tiamat then has the dragon sign it in blood on 666 pages. Then it goes back to hell, has copies made in metal, goes back and gives one of them to the dragon along with its 100,000 GP, and then goes back to hell to store the other.

[Mehangel]

In one of my previous campaign settings, dragons were the bankers.

What people did is, they gave their local dragon their gold (which the dragon sat on), and the dragon gave the people slips of paper with some numbers and the dragon's arcane mark. The dragon would fly around and enforce acceptance of the slips of paper, which people liked because paper is lighter than gold.

This meant several things:
- Each local currency was valid within the range of a dragon's flight, at least.
- Dragons would fund adventurers based on the value of expected returns (they used math to work out the Wealth by Level guidelines).
- Dragon-Bankers were no less risk-averse than other kinds of bankers, and they could easily go bust by making a series of bad investment decisions, especially since their investments tended to include adventurers.

Is it alright if I steal this idea for campaign of mine? Seriously, I love it...

[Amphetryon]

Evil dragons are heavily aligned with demons, so I imagine that would be a large part of their banking. In fact they get access to the best banking, because their souls are already going to be traded to demons on dying by Tiamat to fight in the Blood War. I can just imagine an adult red dragon not being able to afford the beholder work gang to renovate a volcano for them and going to their local hell bank.

A Harvestor Devil appears at their call, sees the level of the client, and puts them on hold. They pop back to hell and their supervisor (a horned devil) appears, then jets back to hell for their supervisor. A Pit Fiend appears, sees the dragon, decides that this should really be done through their affiliate company, jets back. A Abiashai appears, sees that it is an adult dragon, jets back, and finally an aspect of Tiamat appears. It hears out the dragons request for 100,000 GP to be paid back by eternal servitude after death, goes back to hell to talk to the Pit Fiend. They then have an Arcanaloth pull up the paper work, the Aspect of Tiamat then has the dragon sign it in blood on 666 pages. Then it goes back to hell, has copies made in metal, goes back and gives one of them to the dragon along with its 100,000 GP, and then goes back to hell to store the other.

Cute, but the bold portion fairly explicitly contradicts the initial premise of type of Dragon and the fact that I'm asking about actual monetary debt, not debt to be paid by services/slavery/the Dragon's eternal soul.

[BWR]

Stuff to do with dragon politics, img. Think of it as insurance - dragons know they can be killed by pests adventurers and not all of them have access to Clone or other magics to bring you back. So you get an older, more powerful dragon to cast a Raise/Resurrection/TR if you die. However, it costs a lot, even more than PHB prices because of other factors (effort to find the deceased and general greed, mostly). Also, sometimes dragons need help. Being proud, vain and greedy, they aren't stupid. Sometimes it's better to just pay dearly for help from suicidal morons adventurers than risk certain death.

[NomGarret]

Ponzi scheme.

[Renen]

Adventurers stole their gold. They took out a loan from some OTHER dragon to put a bounty on pesky Adventurers.

[Nifft]

Is it alright if I steal this idea for campaign of mine? Seriously, I love it...

Ideas can't be stolen, of course -- only copied.

You're very welcome to copy the idea.

Hope your game is fun! :)

[Amphetryon]

Speaking of ideas that can't be stolen, I'm likely to borrow at least one of these in future.

[Telonius]

Any Evil dragon would probably be willing to go into as much debt as it can get away with. Intending to pay it back is another story.

For a Good dragon (or even some Evil dragons) ... going after someone who has an Orb of Dragonkind, would be the scenario that comes to my mind.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Greedy dragon doesn't want to spend any of his wealth, convinces someone he's broke and borrows money for something he needs, never intending to pay it back. There you go.

[Squirrel_Dude]

This topic came up at our gaming table last night, and I thought it was interesting enough to ask the forum's hive mind about. Assuming one isn't using Dominate or Mindrape cheese or similar tactics on a dragon to force it into debt, what circumstances (if any) would you consider plausible for a dragon having a negative cash flow situation? In order to keep the discussion from getting too theoretical and tangential, assume a Juvenile (Imperial) Sovereign Dragon without Templates or Class levels. Note that I'm talking about actual monetary debt here, not, for example, the Dragon owing a favor or life-debt to someone.He might take a loan from someone that he'll know he's going to outlive. Take a loan from one banker to finance a project that would bring him greater wealth at some point down the lines. Way down the line, even.

Dragons have far more time for their schemes to play out than we do. There's no reason for them to rush things.


For example: Take money from the Medici family and then invest it into their rivals who would, over time (decades, centuries), take control of the city, expel the Medicis and take over their debts, forgiving the dragon of them in return for his support.

[Nibbens]

Just like people can be "house-poor," a dragon can become "horde-poor." Basically, the dragon wants ... whatever it is that he wants, magic items, scale-washing spa services, a very particular cask of sherry, whatever ... but he refuses to part with his gold, so he takes out a loan instead.

Initially, this is simple enough, as no one wants to say "no" to the dragon, and everyone assumes he has the collateral to cover his debts. Only problem is, he never pays up. Ever. So this goes on for a few weeks/months/years, as the dragon has to go farther and farther afield to get ahead of his reputation, and deeper and deeper into the criminal underworld to find usurers and brokers unscrupulous enough to arrange his purchases on the "bill me later" plan.

Now, he's massively in debt. This scenario could be applied to gambling debts as well.

For some reason, this sounds incredibly likely from where I'm sitting. Dragons want, but don't want to have to spend to get more. LOL.


A Harvestor Devil appears at their call, sees the level of the client, and puts them on hold. They pop back to hell and their supervisor (a horned devil) appears, then jets back to hell for their supervisor. A Pit Fiend appears, sees the dragon, decides that this should really be done through their affiliate company, jets back. A Abiashai appears, sees that it is an adult dragon, jets back, and finally an aspect of Tiamat appears. It hears out the dragons request for 100,000 GP

This made me chuckle.

[marphod]

The dragon had a lot of money invested in the Shadowrun Material Plane, and the stock market there went belly-up.

*waka waka waka*


Are we talking debt of the more-than-the-dragon-possesses or debt of the bill-currently-unpaid-but-I've-got-the-money?

The latter seems perfectly reasonable. Someone could get a marker off a dragon, payable on completion of a quest, completed the quest, and not redeemed the marker. The marker itself could be a treasure, if the PCs can figure out what it means.

The former is possible with a combination of Markers, including some the Dragon assumed were lost or would be impossible to fulfill.

Or maybe every dragon is born with a debt owed to their parents/Bahamut/Tiamat, which is why they need to gather hoards, and the interest rate is horrific.

Or the dragon made a deal when on walkabout, and unbeknownst to them, some Adventurers broke in and stole their hoard while they were out.

Or the dragon has shapechanged/polymorhed into a humanoid for the past few decades and has amnesia/bad investments/no where to store a hoard safely.