Dragons as leaders

[Stan]

It's often asked, if monsters are so tough, why aren't they in charge? For the southern continent of my homebrew world, I've decided that they are in charge. This gives things a different feel, but hopefully not too far out in Tekumel territory.

Imagine a continent with no native placental mammals, like Gondwana (of which Australia is the only part to not reconnect with a piece of northern land). Magic, convergent evolution, and game mechanics come together to have intelligent non-mammal humanoid life. But they're nothing in power compared to dragons. So what would dragons want from their underlings? I'm guessing treasure, making sure the food supply is steady, and adoration.

Here's various things I've semi-decided on so far.

1. The main PC races are
kobolds - most numerous
dragonborn - created ~1,000 years ago in war vs. New Gods
Lizardfolk - some civilized, some still simple swamp hunters
Kenku - I've started to like them despite some logical incoherencies, if lizards can be smart, so can birds.

Less common races
Song Elves, immigrated ~1,000 years ago, only a few thousand (95% similar to high elves, name difference mainly to distinguish from those who stayed north).
Halflings, trying to go unnoticed in the choke forest, unknown how they got there (don't exist up north so why not here).
Yuan-Ti have weaseled in a bit among some groups. The biggest trick of looking human useless if there are almost no humans around.

2. Dragons don't like competition from lesser races. It's bad enough having to fight for a spot in the hierarchies without upstarts mucking it up. Groups that get too big without dragons at the top get smacked - all groups of dragons agree to this. Also, most predators of size large or larger have been driven to extinction. Dragons aren't going to waster their time hunting rabbits; without large predators, that leaves more large prey for dragons. And no predators who are a threat to wyrmlings. Dragons can also fly and like to keep it a near monopoly. Most flying creatures of size medium or larger are hunted down (it's realatively easy to spot largish creatures in the air). Artificial flight is also forbidden without a rare note from a dragon leader. This annoys aspiring kenku but what are they going to do?

3. Law vs. Chaos is more important than good vs. evil. This is mostly just change up the flavor of things. Usually, PCs can be anything but evil, no how much potential conflict there is. Now, it's chaos (or law) that makes you the odd one out. This has caused a reordering of traditional dragon alliances and chromatic and metallic dragons are often allied.

4. Most of the races are carnivore to omnivore. I'm guessing that there won't be a ton of farming. So, I'm going to have some farming of fruits, vegetables, and fodder (hay and such) but little grain, which would make the country side look different. Much more grazing than farming. Some areas will be like King's forests, where only dragons can hunt. Or certain animals might be for dragons only. Dragonborn and kobolds might also be sheperds to keep dragons' livestock healthy.

5. Cities will be smaller and fewer as dragons have less use for them and would not want hordes of non-dragons teeming up. Towns have governments for tax collection and making sure lesser races don't kill each other to the level that servants are hard to find. Bazaars are also important, but mainly for knickknacks. If long lived dragons are not forced to hide in the wilds for fear of robbery by greedy humanoids, they would probably be into collecting. A few good trades could turn a mismatched horde into an enviable collection. One of the uses of underlings would be as agents searching bazaars for perfect additions, though dragons might show up themselves for important acquisitions.

(more later)

[Dusk Raven]

Throwing my interest in this, because I've actually posted on this very forum about what an entire setting would be like if ruled by dragons: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...agon-overlords!

I kept meaning to reboot the thread, but alas. While my own ideas, and those discussed, are a bit different from yours at times (one concept I had was that dragons, being solitary, have no real notion of racial unity, so their dynamics with other beings, dragon or otherwise, are based off their usefulness and not their relation), but perhaps it'll be useful? In any event, I'd like to give some more thought to the notion, so I'll see if I can post in here with a summary of my previous ideas...

[Stan]

6. Dinosaurs never entirely went extinct. Because. Most PCs like them and there's all those stat blocks ready to use. But no Tyrannosaurs, Allosaurs, or Quetzalcoatus because of #2 above. Herds of larger dinosaurs are huge amounts of meat but they can be annoying if they tromp through your area, especially if they're marked for dragons only. Some dinosaurs probably grew fast in their first few years so would be good livestock. A few are ok mounts.

7. I've decided that dragons have a middle path between high care for young and massive output with only a few making it to breeding age. They take care of their younglings, then toss them out to make their way in the world. Young dragons are relatively stupid, aggressive, and start with no territory. Most of them get killed, fall to disease or leave for other lands before getting to adulthood. It a long ways to ancient and very few make it. For a continent about the size of South America, there's roughly one dragon per 1,000 square miles. There's about 1,000 wyrmlings, 5,000 young, 1,500 adults, and 5-10 known ancients - taking into account the age range for adult is much larger than for young, so maybe 1/10 to 1/12 of young make it to adult. The few ancient dragons are essentially demigods, able to grant some spells to a limited number of high level followers. they're also unseen emperors of factions.


8. Rather than being organized by race, most sentients are allegiant to a a faction or Way. Each way has territory where it is dominant. But it's strength is in members, who may or may not live in a Way's territory (there are neutral or unclaimed areas). Most people wear a piece of jewelry openly declaring their allegiance. The main function of this is protection, declaring you to be more or less property of that Way, who could exact vengeance or a fine if you were killed. In exchange, you can ask for help from others of your Way and you owe taxes or services. Higher level (5+), hardcore people may opt for tattoos instead of jewelry, which gives a bonus on some saves vs other Ways but gives disadvantage on resisting orders for superiors. Most of the top positions are held by adult dragons but they have underlings to handle bureaucracy and policing. The Ways so far:

• Order - run by a silver ancient dragon and a blue ancient dragon. The most industrious and rule oriented. Expansive but held in check by a combo of other factions.
• Freedom, run by an ancient red dragon. Has recently allowed in a yuan-ti clan to help keep stuffy laws from encroaching.
• Peace - run by an ancient bronze dragon, who tries to keep fights between dragons to a minimum. Runs a port city and has the most outside contact.
• Wind - a magical, rapid communication network run by Kenku with an ancient brass dragon to give the group legitimacy in exchange to feeding her tons of info. Rapid communication has given rise to a simple banking network.
• Undergound - Some kobolds have grown tired of dealing with dragons and have started a new life underground, opting for exotic dangers instead.

9. There is some trade but it's restricted, along the lines of medieval Japan. Imports are mainly collectibles, such as books, maps, art, and magic items. Skilled artisan are also brought for specialized work, such as sculptors and musicians. Outsiders should be wary as, without allegiance to a Way, they have no rights - the slang for such people is meat.

[Stan]

Dusk Raven, more minds are always welcome. Just scanned the other thread, I'll read it in more detail tonight.

[sktarq]

Okay, a few things

What system are you playing with? By the metalic dragon descriptions I'm assuming a D&D of post 2e or a clone. I ask because that gives an easy list for premade races etc.

Look up the forgotten realms saurians races as a possibility, especially the larger plant eating races.

Also Lo5R/Oriental Adventures Naga races may also be worth a look.

Other things dragons want:

Biggest you didn't mention is control. The urge to dominate. This is a major reason to keep PC like races around. But they will also want power over each other.

Stimulation is another major thing dragons would need if they active enough to be dominant and not just absentee landlords. Dragons are at least once they get older smart as whips or beyond. Brain power needs stimulation in every animal we know of. So whatever they do to keep them up and interested. Do dragons politic and have deep social relations? Research magic? Have some racial focus like the Draconic Prophecy of Eberron?

On the lesser races:

Having a high preference for meat you may well have a strong push towards nomadic or semi nomadic herding societies. They would tithe the herd on a regular basis of course and the natural conflict with Draconic sit and build a cave fort instinct would help drive adventure opportunities.
This can create issues with certain types of craftwork (something like wine that needs to age is rare in a mobile society)

Also how do dragons get treasure here. Classically they get it by being agents of destruction or parasites on a humanoid society that created the gold/gems/art for their own use. Think how this would change for a society where the gold is not to be used by the lesser races necessarily. And your space is big enough to have several takes on the issue. Some societies tithe a percent. Others a fixed amount (and the yearly drive to get that causing desperation in the slums). Others say all precious metals are Draconic metals and belong to dragon no mater who possesses them and use steel and lead for money. But in each case the gold gems etc have to be mined because dragons are a gold sink-they constantly take money out of the local economy (cue horror by the local economists here) because dragon classically s save far more than they spend or invest. So you need a constant source of treasure or a system for the dragons to spend their gold.
This would be another reason for a dragon to have lesser races - a mine force plus the security and support services to feed the mine.
And yes stealing from each other would probably be a thing.

[sktarq]

Also the draconic meat preference could well drive them to want to eliminate lesser race competition for that resource and thus incentivize vegetarian diets. Iguana like lizard men?

Also half dragons are going to be a subject that you need to work on (exist? How do they fit into society?)

Draconic inheritance issues will need to be focus. They would drive huge amount of plot generation and adventure hooks no matter what you come up with.

Also try to remember that most dragons breed most often in the young adult to mature adult range so you need a decent sized breeding population of each of ten+ breeds.

Council of Wyrms is something to study
As is the 3.5E dracomicon book

Also what about draconic monsters (like dragon turtles, dragonnes, etc) and non-core dragon breeds (Shadow, Deep, Gem, Semi-Gem (2e)) because if they are here then where would they be?

[Stan]

The system is D&D 5e, though much of it would apply to earlier editions of D&D. The world also tops out at level 11, then becomes like E6 so ancient dragons are truly monstrous.

5e has 4 age levels: wyrmling, young, adult, ancient. I'm assuming adults are the main breeders.

(Obviously, everything I say is my initial opinion of how I'm going to do it in my game, not a correct answer in any way.)

One odd thing I've decided is that there is actually only one species of dragon, which reduces the minimum stable population by a factor of 10. Depending on their temperament and desire, dragons in their young stage move towards one of the 10 types. Usually, they go the same as their parents, but not always. Mixed breeding is possible.

Much of treasure will just be moved around, traded for other treasure. Depending on the region and family strength, inheritance could be anything from a long, airtight will to a free for all battle by neighboring dragons. One way young dragons try to establish themselves is raiding distant lands - most of them meet initial success and are then killed but some bring back treasure. Kobolds are also put to work mining. But the biggest source of wealth would be existing hordes, either theft, inheritance, or murder. A possible adventure would be respected non-dragons investigating a possible dragon murder.

Half dragons would exist but be rare as they're sterile. I think they're too tough to easily be PCs. I had thought of nagas and then forgotten Nagas, they'd be around and smart enough to do their thing without attracting unwanted dragon attention.

re: stimulation, that's why I think much of the long distance trade will be for books and curiosities.

re: the other thread, I think fiefdom is a good description of the default though it might look more like territories of large predators for chaotic evil dragons. Lawful dragons would be more likely to others organized into structures to accomplish goals. Chaotic dragons are more likely despots (possibly enlightened). I could see chaotic dragons making more use of ad hoc tools such as adventurers.

There would be some dragons not interested in politics, who just have a place big enough to feed them. Or maybe some of the young ones have resorted to having a job, using their muscle or breath weapon as a tool for food and money - if it takes a century to reach full adulthood, taking 10 years to hang out while doing an easy job doesn't seem that bad. Due to their low intelligence and antisocial nature, I'm thinking that white dragons would have left for the pole and don't want anything to do with politics.

re: individualism, one aspect of this is I suspect governments are far lighter than modern human governments,, probably managing some form of tithe/tax, banding together for large threats, and making sure lesser races are too much trouble. Within that, lesser races might have their own governments in wide variety, as long as they can work within the system. An example of this would be the early Roman empire. Some conquests/acquisitions were allowed to keep local laws and turned the local king into a governor. As long as they admitted Rome was the boss and paid taxes, the details were left to the locals. So, cities and provinces might vary a lot. There also might be feuds as long as there wasn't too much open war or wide destruction. Though, back to individualism, dragon overlords will vary. Some might treat their populations like a doll collection and dictate exactly what they wear, how to build things, etc. The thing with the Ways above allows people to move around and find a system to their suiting.

re: fear of death, despite their immense power, I think most ancient dragons are so paranoid as to never be seen directly, like a semi-divine emperor.

Also, like Eberron, alignment can vary a bit within a dragon type.

[Zorku]

Half dragons would exist but be rare as they're sterile. I think they're too tough to easily be PCs.

The MM template for a half dragon isn't that intense. It comes with 10ft blindsight and 60ft darkvision, and a damage type resistance based on color. That's it. Blindsight isn't usually the domain of PCs, but 10ft of it isn't going to upend encounter design or anything.

Did you have something else in mind when you were thinking of half dragons?

[Stan]

The MM template for a half dragon isn't that intense. It comes with 10ft blindsight and 60ft darkvision, and a damage type resistance based on color. That's it. Blindsight isn't usually the domain of PCs, but 10ft of it isn't going to upend encounter design or anything.

Did you have something else in mind when you were thinking of half dragons?

In 5e, they also have the breath weapon of a wyrmling - that's like a smallish fireball every few rounds. It's too much at first level, though I could delay it a bit to 5th or so; some inherent spell abilities are delayed for other races. But not every creature has to be playable. I think, that if half dragons could be PCs, no one would play a dragonborn, unless they really wanted the ability boost. They're similar enough that only one needs to be a PC race.

[Zorku]

In 5e, they also have the breath weapon of a wyrmling - that's like a smallish fireball every few rounds. It's too much at first level, though I could delay it a bit to 5th or so; some inherent spell abilities are delayed for other races. But not every creature has to be playable. I think, that if half dragons could be PCs, no one would play a dragonborn, unless they really wanted the ability boost. They're similar enough that only one needs to be a PC race.

Oh, if you keep treating them like monsters then you're totally right. I was assuming you'd short rest gate it like everything other racial combat ability on a PC.

[Bohandas]

The Dragons of Eberron sourcebook may be useful in building this sort of world. Also Council of Wyrms.