Building a Faerie Dragon encounter

[Rogozhin]

I'm creating my first home brew campaign for 1st level characters and while they're tracking some baddies into the woods I want them to have a non-combat encounter with some faerie dragons who aren't particularly hapoy about our heroes being in those woods. I figure there will be some illusory puzzles for them to solve to appease the FDs. If they fail they won't be able to take the long rest they will badly want before pushing through to their next battles. Looking for some thoughts on what i should throw at them.

As a reminder the Faerie dragons can cast
1/day each: color spray, dancing lights, hallucinatory terrain, mage hand, major image, minor illusion, mirror image, polymorph, suggestion

They also have Euphoria Breath (Recharge 5-6). The dragon exhales a puff of euphoria gas at one creature within 5 feet of it. The target must succeed on a DC 11 Wisdom saving throw, or for 1 minute, the target can't take reactions and must roll a d6 at the start of each of its turns to determine its behavior during the turn:
1-4. The target takes no action or bonus action and uses all of its movement to move in a random direction.
5-6. The target doesn't move, and the only thing it can do on its turn is make a DC 11 Wisdom saving throw, ending the effect on itself on a success.

[MrStabby]

First of all let me congratulate you on your first homebrew campaign. You seem to grasp that rewards are hugely diverse and go beyond "loot". Being able to take a long rest as a reward is a nice touch and makes me think you have some scope to be a fantastic DM.

Not an answer, but some questions that might clarify things:

1) What role do the dragons play in the world - are they passive or actively trying to achieve things as a group? Are they victims or powerful.

2) Same as 1, but asking what role they play in the plot/subset of events that the PCs are involved with (but the whole arc, not just the encounter).

3) What role could they fill in future in the campaign? And scope for them to be recurring NPCs? If so, what types are you missing?

4) What plot/world exposition have you missed? Could their non combat quest involve an investigation that would tell them more about the world? Could their quest be to persuade someone of something (thereby acting as a way to introduce a particular NPC they could have a future relationship with).

5) What are the characters/differences between the dragons in the group? How does this impact the relationship between them?

6) Is there a risk your PCs will not recognise it can be solved without swords - i.e. the solution to the dragons not letting them rest may be something other than just killing the faerie dragons.

[TundraBuccaneer]

As a DM you don't need to follow the rules of the mm so I say give the fearie dragons fearie fire. They players walk in on the fearie dragons just when the finish their ritual to transport that part of the forest to the fey wilds so the pc's are now stuck in the fey wild.

The dragons laugh and say make a game out of it.
Every pc gets a different colour at shortly after turning a colour they will hear giggling and might see 1 or 2 fearie dragons one for each player with the same colour as them. (they'll most likely think they need to catch the one of the same colour as them)

They have to catch the dragon with the opposite colour as them so red character needs to catch the blue dragon.
The dragons will use their stealth and spells(illusionary terrain to let pc walk into trees) to distract the players, maybe some will start asking riddles before they can be caught.

When they get caught they need to figure out a other puzzle like maybe bring the dragon and your self to a spot, tree, statue, etc with the mixed colour of you two, so purple for the red character with blue dragon.(let the pc's walk by some of these things when they try to catch the dragons)
When you bring them to that spot they have to be convinced to use colour spray at that spot or against the object that will activate a ritual in which they can open a portal home

I hope you can do something with this success :smallsmile:

[JellyPooga]

They have to catch the dragon with the opposite colour as them so red character needs to catch the blue dragon.

Not to nitpick, but more accurately, colour "opposites" (or the complementary colour pairs) on a basic colour wheel are;

Red - Green
Blue - Orange*
Yellow - Purple

I like your idea, though; playing "tag" is just the sort of thing I'd expect from Faerie Dragons.

Dancing Lights also has some potential for something akin to Dodgeball if you want to make the challenge a little more physical.

I think having each of the Faerie Dragons come up with a game to play would be a good standard, but be lenient if a Player suggests a game; having a bunch of Faerie Dragons dancing around shouting "New Game! New Game!" excitedly is an entertaining image! If the game is good or the Player lets the Dragons win, consider giving that Player something extra; a trinket, minor magic item or blessing, perhaps.

*Interesting trivia: this is why lifeboats/lifejackets are usually orange.

[Rogozhin]

First of all let me congratulate you on your first homebrew campaign. You seem to grasp that rewards are hugely diverse and go beyond "loot". Being able to take a long rest as a reward is a nice touch and makes me think you have some scope to be a fantastic DM.


Woah! Thank you so much for the encouraging words. And thank you for those questions... they are helping me think about this encounter, as well as others in the game in a way that makes the whole campaign all the richer. Fantastic advice!

TundraBuccaneer>> These are some super cool suggestions. I love the idea of them taking the adventurers to a different plane, and using the faerie lights... feels like a fantasy version of something Tron-like. I'm not sure it's quite right for the flavour I'm going for, but I may steal some elements of this.

JellyPooga>> Now I'm worried that my campaign could devolve into a debate on colour theory!! ;p

I think what I'm going to end up doing is simply have the faerie dragon's keep messing with the party and the main task will be to realize they are being messed with and to try and communicate with the invisible tricksters to find out what they wany. If they can convince the faerie dragons that they are on the same side, or bribe them with treasure, they can get their long rest and continue on their journey (with potential help from the the FDs and other forest creatures along the way). So, things like minor illusion to present false tracks of the lizard folk they will be tracking, hallucinatory terrain to make the proper path seem impassable, suggestion to force characters into making bad decisions, Mage Hand to steal their stuff, etc... there will likely be multiple warnings from NPCs in town that the woods are haunted.