Dragon kingdoms (3.5)

[Balor01]

I have a situation in my D&D world where a large number of dragons and other scaled creatures swarmed to a certain area, because it is specially shaped by their god, so that it gives the scaly creatures some nice bonuses.
But while I can see kobolds and lizardfolk forming their own empires, I wonder how would metallic and chromatic dragons coexist? In their descriptions, chromatic dragons are described as very prone to conflict - among them and versus others. Do you think this would end in a stalemate, an attack on metallic dragons, long "civil war" ...?
Let's say that there is one adult dragon of each dragon specie, along with three young dragons of its kind.
Each leader also has 500 kobolds and 100 lizardfolk as followers as they enter the mentioned area.

[JaronK]

I'd imagine they'd avoid open attacks (too much danger of reprisals) and instead focus on scheming and treachery to get the job done. And perhaps the metallics would do the same...

JaronK

[DragonOfUndeath]

100 Lizardfolk and 500 Kobolds aren't much. If they care for their followers (selfishly or selflessly) they won't want to start a fight with beings who could wipe the followers out. It would cold-war for the first few years then when populations build up a bit you would get Evil (and some Neutral) Dragons trying to chase off or kill other Dragons. They might even start allying to prevent the attack of Good and Neutral Dragons.
Basically: Cold War except everyone lives in the same place.

[Chilingsworth]

Are metallic and chromatic dragons the only ones represented? Or are there gem dragons and/or the varrious other kinds of dragon described in the Draconomicon also?

In any case, one thing that might make the dragons band together would be a sufficently formidable external threat. Something like the Undying Court (Deathless Elves) vs Agronessen (dragon-land) in Eberon. Although, in Eberon alignments are even wonkier than usual... Still might work though, I suppose.

[Eldan]

Dragons have a few advantages that would most likely make their wars very different from human wars. Namely:

They live a lot longer if not killed, some of them are a lot smarter, and they have tremendous arcane power.

I think that dragons would indeed not engage in open conflict unless they are very, very sure to win, and even then, they would most likely be very careful.

Second, while dragons are prone to conflict amongst each other, they would also realize a simple fact: two are stronger than one. This would of course be a very shaky alliance, but the dragon who tries to fight alone is the first to lose.

[Calmar]

Unless your world worls highly different from other settings, there are relatively few dragons, compared to the other peoples. I could imagine dragon societies to function like family clans, maybe even like your stereotypical mafia clan.

[DragonOfUndeath]

I just remembered Xorvinthal (spell check?)
Due to fighting or fraying alliances the Dragons start a game of Xorvinthal. The winner becomes top dragon. You now have several quest hooks, a reason why they aren't directly warring and an opportunity to make several different kinds of games (political, dungeon crawl etc.)

[Chilingsworth]

I just remembered Xorvinthal (spell check?)
Due to fighting or fraying alliances the Dragons start a game of Xorvinthal. The winner becomes top dragon. You now have several quest hooks, a reason why they aren't directly warring and an opportunity to make several different kinds of games (political, dungeon crawl etc.)

Is this game (and related templates) mentioned in MM IV or MM V?

[Serpentine]

I just remembered Xorvinthal (spell check?)
Due to fighting or fraying alliances the Dragons start a game of Xorvinthal. The winner becomes top dragon. You now have several quest hooks, a reason why they aren't directly warring and an opportunity to make several different kinds of games (political, dungeon crawl etc.)

That's exactly what I was thinking.
A massive war threatened to send several - perhaps all - species extinct, so they instigated a less bloody, more arms-length method of contest.

[Runestar]

Is this game (and related templates) mentioned in MM IV or MM V?

MM5. The game is not really elaborated on though, the idea is simply to have the dragon swap out its spellcasting for special abilities, to make it more of a melee brute and less of a polymorphed spellcaster.