Trolling NPCs with Sending

[malachi]

My current group is composed of 2 drow (one is my wizard), 2 dragonborn, and a tiefling.
2 sessions ago, we raided an adult dragon's lair and managed to drive it off (apparently, we were something like 12 damage short of killing it after using all of our resources on the fight), with enough time to gather up about half of it's stash and teleport out before it took a short rest to fully heal and came back.

This was an adult dragon, but it didn't use legendary actions until it was bloodied (probably from it feeling superior, or as one part of how the DM tuned it down for a party of 5 to fight).

We have a good idea that a dragon is going to try to seek us out and try to kill us. But it has no reason to suspect what part of the world we come from (yet).

As we just levelled up to lvl 6, I'm planning on my character learning Sending - mostly for in-character goals, but also to try to throw the dragon off of the correct track.
Our party also has an arbitrarily intense fear of Pelor (partly because stereotypical drow stuff, and partly because one of the dragonborn kind of sort of accidentally desecrated a Pelorian temple while uncovering a deadly cult).

Any ideas on ways to troll the dragon and convince it to go hunting in the entirely wrong part of the world by casting Sending with spare spell slots on slow days?

(Note that I'll likely have to make contested Deception vs Insight checks for this, and I only have a +4 vs whatever the dragon's bonus is)

[Magicspook]

I really like your thinking! Gave me a laugh.

What is your setting? Ordinary forgotten realms or....?

[MaxWilson]

Any ideas on ways to troll the dragon and convince it to go hunting in the entirely wrong part of the world by casting Sending with spare spell slots on slow days?

(Note that I'll likely have to make contested Deception vs Insight checks for this, and I only have a +4 vs whatever the dragon's bonus is)

For extra fun, have the party wizard cast Modify Memory on you before Sending, so that even if the dragon beats your Deception you're still feeding him wrong information.

[Nhorianscum]

"Do you like scary movies?"

[Segev]

Well, the question is: what are you trying to present to him?

Are you presenting yourself as the thief, and taunting him in ways designed to make him think he's picking up on where you're from?

Are you presenting yourself as the thief, and taunting him in ways designed to make him think you're tricking him about where you're from, so he looks literally anywhere else?

Are you presenting yourself as an interested third party, trying to help him track you down?

Are you presenting yourself as a voice in his head that is totally his own thoughts?

[malachi]

I really like your thinking! Gave me a laugh.

What is your setting? Ordinary forgotten realms or....?

DM's homebrew setting. Also, my character is from the Underdark, and has mostly second-hand knowledge of things on the surface (which is better than his brother, who has zero knowledge).


For extra fun, have the party wizard cast Modify Memory on you before Sending, so that even if the dragon beats your Deception you're still feeding him wrong information.

I am the party wizard, and we're only level 6. Additionally, the restrictions on Modify Memory are great enough that that's going to be somewhat difficult to work with. But I will keep that in mind, in case the dragon hasn't hunted us down and died / killed us by then.


Well, the question is: what are you trying to present to him?

(A) Are you presenting yourself as the thief, and taunting him in ways designed to make him think he's picking up on where you're from?

(B) Are you presenting yourself as the thief, and taunting him in ways designed to make him think you're tricking him about where you're from, so he looks literally anywhere else?

(C) Are you presenting yourself as an interested third party, trying to help him track you down?

(D) Are you presenting yourself as a voice in his head that is totally his own thoughts?

Given the description of Sending in 5e, the dragon will recognize me as the drow who shot a bajillion magic missiles at its face.
The
creature hears the message in its mind, recognizes
you as the sender if it knows you, and can answer in a
like manner immediately.

Given that, I'm going for either (A) or (B). I was originally just coming up with (A), but (B) is something my character would definitely have thought up on his own >.>

There are 3 groups I'd gladly have the dragon go after, ranked by order of importance, in pursing strategy (A) would be:
1) an organization that potentially killed several friends (currently know nothing about it, will potentially learn VERY minor information about it soon - if any of those friends are still alive)
2) parts of Underdark drow culture that want to kill my PC and his brother
3) random churches of Pelor (because of the previously-mentioned, entirely arbitrary fear)

[Segev]

Given that, I'm going for either (A) or (B). I was originally just coming up with (A), but (B) is something my character would definitely have thought up on his own >.>

There are 3 groups I'd gladly have the dragon go after, ranked by order of importance, in pursing strategy (A) would be:
1) an organization that potentially killed several friends (currently know nothing about it, will potentially learn VERY minor information about it soon - if any of those friends are still alive)
2) parts of Underdark drow culture that want to kill my PC and his brother
3) random churches of Pelor (because of the previously-mentioned, entirely arbitrary fear)

If you want to go with (B), I would set yourself up to be talking up how mighty your drow brethren are, and how there's no way the dragon can possibly penetrate those defenses. If the dragon buys this, they'll go after (2) if you did it right. But you're going to deliberately let just a few hints slip that you're not really with the drow, not the least being that you're, well, telling the dragon exactly where to find you if you are.

Then use whatever information you can scrounge on the group from (1) to lace tiny details in. You may only have scraps of info, but you're also only letting scraps of info through "on accident." Ideally, the dragon will either buy the intended-to-be-seen-through "I'm protected by the drow so you can't get me, neener neener" or will think the scraps of info you let slip are enough to let it know where you are (with the target group in (1).)

Now, the danger here is that the dragon may well have scrying or other magics of its own. You'll need to protect against these. Veils and seemings to disguise yourselves for scry attempts are good. Anything that keeps you an invalid target for direct magical divination is all but essential. You want to force the dragon to investigate where to find "you" by means other than directly saying, "Ah, there you are," and teleporting in. The first-choice ideal is that he finds out who the organization is better than you can, and goes and punishes them for you. But forcing him to do that research risks uncovering your real location if you're not very careful to protect yourself.