World of Dragons

[Thrawn183]

So I was thinking about a campaign setting that has dragons in it. In particular, it has a significant number of each kind of dragon. You know, enough for a sustainable population (though that doesn't mean they need to survive to their oldest age category of course). I'm talking most kinds: metallics, chromatics, sand, fang, shadow, elemental drakes, landwyrms and even probably some planar dragons assuming enough "got together" while called by crazy mages or something.

Just what do you think such a campaign setting would actually look like?

[Diarmuid]

Dragonlance?

[Zaydos]

Well here was a thread about a world where dragons had banded together and ruled great cities, seems to have mostly died down now.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=167457

[Kyeudo]

This depends on many things: Size of world and landmasses on said world, arrangement of the cosmology, gods involved, whether dragons are locked to the their alignments or not, populations of other races, and the predisposition of dragons to meddle in the affairs of mortals. The only thing constant is that everyone knows what a dragon looks like on such a world.

[Crossblade]

How realistic do you want it to be? I ask in reference to food chain relation.
Dragons can get big. Big things need to eat a lot. This would lead *me* to believe a heavily dragon populated world would be very much like dinosaur times. Big pray, heavy trees/jungles. That doesn't mean the whole world would be primitive, magic can still get you to the standard fantasy stone age after all.

Also, how active are the dragons in shaping civilization? Are they going to be civilized and have their own towns? Will they live in the wild like they typically do, but there'll just be more of them? Will they attempt to curve the 'lesser' races populations down? Will they keep the population up to eat them like humans do with chickens, cows, etc?

And how populated is populated? Is there something that keeps the dragon population in check? Like the Froghemoth from Pathfinder? (Basically: it eats dragons) Or do they breed uncontrollably like humans nowadays, and population is only really governed by food sources? (ex/ most die before old age from starvation)

[Nerdanel]

IIRC, D&D dragons can eat anything to survive, even rock. Some things just taste better than other things. That would mean the food supply wouldn't be much of a problem as far as survival goes. It's hard to say what would come off from inter-dragon competition for tasty things (and treasure).

[AslanCross]

IIRC, D&D dragons can eat anything to survive, even rock. Some things just taste better than other things. That would mean the food supply wouldn't be much of a problem as far as survival goes. It's hard to say what would come off from inter-dragon competition for tasty things (and treasure).

They can eat anything AND their metabolisms are highly efficient. They can get nutrition from pretty much anything they eat.


Anyway, OP: Eberron has an entire continent that is pretty much ruled by a dragon civilization. It is ancient, has many epic-level dragons, and has a population of approximately 50,000 dragons of different age categories. They have several large cities.

They discovered magic and pretty much spend their time in study. The affairs of humanoids don't typically bother them. They occasionally send infiltrators into humanoid society. Sometimes, rogue dragons leave and live among humanoids.

[Siegel]

Isn't this what the "Dragon Magic" book is about ?

[Kaww]

I used Fearun 10/20k in the past. Since from what I heard/read it was a reptilian world back then (This is true, right?). And most dragons didn't make it to be wyrms...

[derfenrirwolv]

There's a few ways you could do this.

1) is an apocalypse how scenario where the dragons have taken over everything and mankind is kept on the fringes. Even a lawful good gold dragon might regulate bipeds to "no metal. We let you play with that in the past and all you did with it is kill each other". A chaotic evil red dragon might make no distinction between deer and humans except that the latter are slower, slightly less hairy, and tend to congregate in groups known as smorgasbords.


2) A more balanced approach where each dragon's territory would almost be like a small country (if the dragons weren't setting themselves up as the heads of actual countries). It takes a LOT of individuals to make societal advancements. While an individual dragon might live for millennia, there will never be that many of them. Society would probably change and leave them slightly behind. Good dragons would equal out population growth through selective breeding, Evil dragons through being careless with eggs/hatching and fighting each other for territory mates and loot.

Each dragon would have an enormous effect on the area. Even a young adult dragon is going to have a fair amount of influence on an area. Golds can become advisers to just and wise kings, Reds make their areas a kill zone, greens might ally with a local druid to keep out the encroachment of civilization, and a blue might start a budding empire.

[FelixG]

See:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0253556/

[DwarfFighter]

Just what do you think such a campaign setting would actually look like?

It sounds a bit like the campaign world I'm running right now. :)

Quick summary: A large island with diverse topography. Each major city is allied with a dragon or two: An evil kingdom allied with evil dragons on one side of the island, a good (or rather: lawful) kingdom allied with good dragons on the other and neutral city states between.

It's provided my group with plenty of opportunity to encounter dragons even at low levels.

On the other hand I've not gone completely over the top with these things. There are still other monsters around for the PCs to slay as well. :)

-DF

[Thrawn183]

How realistic do you want it to be? I ask in reference to food chain relation.
Dragons can get big. Big things need to eat a lot. This would lead *me* to believe a heavily dragon populated world would be very much like dinosaur times. Big pray, heavy trees/jungles. That doesn't mean the whole world would be primitive, magic can still get you to the standard fantasy stone age after all.

Also, how active are the dragons in shaping civilization? Are they going to be civilized and have their own towns? Will they live in the wild like they typically do, but there'll just be more of them? Will they attempt to curve the 'lesser' races populations down? Will they keep the population up to eat them like humans do with chickens, cows, etc?

And how populated is populated? Is there something that keeps the dragon population in check? Like the Froghemoth from Pathfinder? (Basically: it eats dragons) Or do they breed uncontrollably like humans nowadays, and population is only really governed by food sources? (ex/ most die before old age from starvation)

Well, I always make sure to include dinosaurs from the MM in my campaign worlds, so there is definitely prey around. Even whales would make good chow.

Really I'm more curious about what a world would look like where every mountain could have a CR 22 Mountain Landwyrm on it. The wilds in this sort of setting would be way more dangerous than most.