Dragon Mafia

[zephyrkinetic]

Ok, so I'm really just hoping that none of my players are nerdy enough to seek out forums like this one. If you are, go away.

Super-long, moderately tangential version:

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Alright, so I'm running a campaign that is chock full of variant rules, (low magic, action points, defense bonuses, luck rolls, reputation points, etc). I'm barely even playing D&D at this point. But for lack of anything else, lets call it 3.5.

I'm running with five players, and they're each getting some kind of special booster/side-story at some point throughout the campaign. In deciding what I'm building up towards, I'm considering a dragon mafia, of sorts. Herein I find a couple of problems. It's important to note, also, that I'm willing to throw a lot of mechanics away if it makes for good roleplay. But based on that, I try to keep my fluff consistent with what the books dictate.

So, chromatic dragons: if I'm remembering correctly, they're more dumb and bestial than scheming, subtle types. I could see, maybe, a bunch of reds forming a "Family," but not blacks or greens, or even whites really. And that's not even counting the brown, and purple, and grey stuff that I'm likely to reference from 4e.

So, if such an organization existed, what would it be likely to want to accomplish? I know there's an explicit warning in the DMG against plots involving evil working together, but that's just what I'm looking for, really: some overarching theme that would make such a group feasible.

For what it's worth, by the time they get to the point that they're worrying about these guys, they're going to be epic, or darn close, and there will be all kinds of super-fun templates and equipment spread around everywhere. Magic gets restored, too, but in overabundance. So wild magic. Complicated campaign, I guess.

tl;dr version: What would a "mafia-like" group of chromatic dragons likely consist of, and work towards? Why do they refrain from massive inkilling? Or do they? Help, please.

[Tharck]

Whites would be enforcers.
Greens would make good spys or assassins.
Reds as the "made men" so to speak.
Blues and Blacks as a mix of enforcer and spy.

They may be working together as a "family" because their kind is on the brink of extinction and thus they have to work in concert and secrecy. There may be a vast sum of wealth stolen by the "Good" king from all the slain dragons - thus a vast horde of treasure - that they instead to steal while killing the king and eating up the human cities and settlements. Also they may hire though secrecy intelligent humanoids to gain information, steal magical items they'll need for their caper, and some of the older dragons can pose as humanoids themselves. Perhaps inside of the city itself, or perhaps they need to steal an Artifact that obscures Truesight from working - it's the first thing the PCs have to investigate being stolen so that later when its revealed keeps the verisimilitude.

[hamishspence]

Draconomicon has a sample black dragon who runs a small mafia of non-dragon beings.

But the idea of a whole bunch of chromatic dragons working together as one organization is a bit large-scale.

Dragons of Eberron does have some big organizations of dragons- but generally they aren't crime organizations.

That said, it's not completely implausible- a sufficiently powerful dragon might found a family specifically with the intention of the younger members holding posts in the boss's organization- and using intimidation to keep the youngsters in line.

It also has a feat that dragons of any kind can take- that grants them ability to alter form in a similar fashion to metallic dragons.

So if all dragons old enough take the feat, they can move freely in humanoid societies.

[halfdragon62]

As for the "family's" overarching goal:
Perhaps something has forced these evil creatures to band together, a greater threat or enemy perhaps? Or on that note, perhaps one dragon runs the gamut: the others follow and work with him/her out of fear, and thus follow the head dragon's whims and goals. Perhaps the dragons have been brought together by a religious pact to Taimat, who commands them to band together to achieve a goal set by the goddess.

[McClintock]

You could have a Helm of opposite aligned ANCIENT Gold dragon as the "dragon-father", who has decided that he needs the hoards of all other good dragons to ascend into a deity. (Doesn't need to be true, just that he believes it.)

He wrested power a millenia ago and has been scheming since. knowing that his children would be half-golds, he has brought blues (LE) and greens (LE) into the fold as lieutenants. using them to make 1/2-beasties of all types. The reds and black serve as assassins and scouts and keep each other in check. As long as the dragon-father keeps them rich they stay out of his lair.

After thousands of years of scheming the gold has found an obscure passage that will allow him to transcend, but he needs 5 non-dragon, "willing" sacrifices to make it work.

SO he hires himself a group of adventures to stop an "ultimate evil" (he is a gold after all) and begins guiding them toward their eventual doom.


Fill in with adventures and information to lead the PCs to the truth and you have an epic adventure.

[BRC]

I had somthing like this once. Dragons took human form and served as Bosses and Leaders. The majority of the Family were non-dragons, but the Dragons were in charge.

[Codenpeg]

I would suggest a divine reason for the dragons to work together, Tiamat sent an avatar with a message to the Chromatics, work together to get stronger or one day the forces of good will align and kill you all one by one.

A prophecy could be a good motivation (See Eberron) to get dragons to work together. Because really, the only thing that a dragon would respect is their own goddess.

As for what they're working for? Expanding their domain, building wealth and power. Don't forget kobolds or part dragon races that some of the dragons are rising to do the fighting for them.

[Telonius]

Could just be literal family ties. One thing that Dragons tend to be very concerned about is the bloodline. And when you live for practically forever (absent troublesome adventurers), you're going to end up with quite a lot of descendants.

As it is, evil dragons make excellent archetypal mobsters. "Nice kingdom ya got there. Horrible if something were to ... happen to it. One virgin a month, and we'll make sure it's safe."

[zephyrkinetic]

You could have a Helm of opposite aligned ANCIENT Gold dragon as the "dragon-father", who has decided that he needs the hoards of all other good dragons to ascend into a deity. (Doesn't need to be true, just that he believes it.)

He wrested power a millenia ago and has been scheming since. knowing that his children would be half-golds, he has brought blues (LE) and greens (LE) into the fold as lieutenants. using them to make 1/2-beasties of all types. The reds and black serve as assassins and scouts and keep each other in check. As long as the dragon-father keeps them rich they stay out of his lair.

After thousands of years of scheming the gold has found an obscure passage that will allow him to transcend, but he needs 5 non-dragon, "willing" sacrifices to make it work.

SO he hires himself a group of adventures to stop an "ultimate evil" (he is a gold after all) and begins guiding them toward their eventual doom.


Fill in with adventures and information to lead the PCs to the truth and you have an epic adventure.

That is pure brilliance, right there. I may not use those last few lines (they've been adventuring for a bit already, and haven't had any grand themes so far) but I like the Helm of Opposite Alignment. I've stuck it in other campaigns I've run, to my own great amusement.

I was toying with the idea of a "summer home"/"bastion of awesome" mountaintop city where a bunch of good dragons live. I say "toying," of course, but what I mean is "fully developing, down to population diversity statistics and tavern-naming." Anyway, said Old Gold could be some great-grand-pappy of that town's mayor or what-have-you.
Dragon mayor. Heh.
The players could be contracted to give him the full Skywalker treatment, though. Bring him back to the Light Side right before he gets blown up on a planetary scale. Could be a good ending.

Right, longwinded again. Thanks!

[zephyrkinetic]

Could just be literal family ties. One thing that Dragons tend to be very concerned about is the bloodline. And when you live for practically forever (absent troublesome adventurers), you're going to end up with quite a lot of descendants.

As it is, evil dragons make excellent archetypal mobsters. "Nice kingdom ya got there. Horrible if something were to ... happen to it. One virgin a month, and we'll make sure it's safe."

I did have them stomp out an evil Baron (aren't they all) with some blue-dragon blood somewhere in his way-on-back generations. I was planning for one of his "cousins" to hear about his death and come demanding the remainder of his hoard. Which the adventurers spent post-haste, naturally. So I'm sort of bringing the actual family bit into it.

You're dead on with the archetypal thing, though. I can see Klauth rubbing his claws together now.

[Mando Knight]

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So, chromatic dragons: if I'm remembering correctly, they're more dumb and bestial than scheming, subtle types. I could see, maybe, a bunch of reds forming a "Family," but not blacks or greens, or even whites really. And that's not even counting the brown, and purple, and grey stuff that I'm likely to reference from 4e.

Unless they've been houseruled otherwise, scheming and subtlety are practically the pastimes for many of them. Except for Whites (who are both stupid and weak compared to other dragons), they all have at least 12 in each of their mental scores by the time they're Young Adults, with Blues and Greens reaching 12/13/12 by Young and Reds reaching the same at Very Young. Given their relatively massive mental scores late in life, scheming and planning to increase their wealth is as much their nature as carving swaths of destruction and eating herds of cattle for lunch. Greens are more sociable creatures than most other chromatics (studying humanoid society is one of their RAW hobbies), though Blues, Greens, and Reds all have Bluff as class skills.