RotFM - My Players *really* want to fight Arveiaturace

[Cheesegear]

...After a couple of cameos, my players are pretty excited to fight the Ancient White Dragon. Because of course, if you throw in a Gargantuan Dragon into the adventure, your players are going to think it's one of the bosses of the adventure - if not the final boss.

Spoiler alert; She's not!

In fact, she doesn't even show up anymore in any sort of fixed location after Chapter 2.

But, as I said, you dangle a Dragon, and the players are going to want to fight it. That's fine. However, going by maths in the DMG, the players wont be ready to fight an Ancient White Dragon until sometime after Level 10, if not 13. By which point the adventure is almost over and, well...I just don't know where to put her.

Anyone who's read - and/or preferably played through - Rime of the Frostmaiden have any ideas where a suitable location to fight her might be?

[Imbalance]

You showed them the miniature, didn't you.

Make a point of expressing how shiny a particular coin is the next time they score some loot. Doesn't matter what denomination, just that there is something special about this one coin. I haven't read through to know how Rime concludes, but I would imagine it like a post-credits scene where she just plops out of the sky as they stroll into the hero's sunset because she knows they have her coin, and she wants it back, having tracked it from whoever originally stole it and through a number of other sets of hands over 600 years like an encrypted blockchain to end up right here, right now.

Oh, and this isn't just a named ancient white, this is mother-f'ing former Marine Bea Arthur as the biggest baddest dragon in the north who once ripped a dozen black dragons to shreds by herself. She opened a roof in Candlekeep after a sage there printed mean things about her boney buddy. This golden girl spits sass in a 90' cone, and that's before you think about the ring Thone gave her to control all the cool magic toys he left behind. She gonna eat your party.

[Kurt Kurageous]

If your party of Ahabs wants this particular white whale, er, dragon, they have to find her first. If they find her, she'd assume the PCs came looking for a fight that they expect to win. She would flee. If she sees them first, they never will.

A archetype hunter like the white will choose the place and time. She could know and convince/intimidate almost any of the beasts in the adventure to aid her, given warning.

When she strikes, it will be from ambush. The white is not arrogant like the other chromatics. She knows white dragons have the low hand in dragon poker, so she is not likely to underestimate the PCs.

Where will she strike? A narrow valley, PCs at the bottom. Arveiaturace drives a herd of reindeer in front of her towards the PCs. The PCs must kill their way through or flee, potentially splitting up. While the are doing so, she dives on isolated members of the party for a quick breath. Yes, the PCs get a chance to recreate the death of Mufasa.

Or maybe she stalks the party, waiting to catch the PCs on the side of a mountain during a difficult part of the climb. At a crucial moment, she swoops in and uses her claws to slash the safety rope and pop out a pinion. anyone who is separated from the main party becomes the primary target.

Don't forget, the nearly optimal plan of a big dragon should be grapple and drop, using the 1d6 per 10' to tenderize her meat.

She's an ancient. She is a survivor. She has nothing to gain and everything to lose by battling powerful PCs. Imbalance has it right, this isn't just any dragon, nor any ancient dragon. She has a name and a place in Sword Coast history. See https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Arveiaturace for more details.

[Unoriginal]

...After a couple of cameos, my players are pretty excited to fight the Ancient White Dragon. Because of course, if you throw in a Gargantuan Dragon into the adventure, your players are going to think it's one of the bosses of the adventure - if not the final boss.

Spoiler alert; She's not!

In fact, she doesn't even show up anymore in any sort of fixed location after Chapter 2.

But, as I said, you dangle a Dragon, and the players are going to want to fight it. That's fine. However, going by maths in the DMG, the players wont be ready to fight an Ancient White Dragon until sometime after Level 10, if not 13. By which point the adventure is almost over and, well...I just don't know where to put her.

Anyone who's read - and/or preferably played through - Rime of the Frostmaiden have any ideas where a suitable location to fight her might be?

Her pirate ship-hoard is the best place for a fight.

I would suggest to have the battle be the PCs + a whole bunch of NPCs who want to kill a legendary dragon for the glory. Goliaths, Regheds, some Ten-Towners, fellow adventurers, even Giants, all would like to participate in such a fight.

[StoneSeraph]

If your party of Ahabs wants this particular white whale, er, dragon, they have to find her first. If they find her, she'd assume the PCs came looking for a fight that they expect to win. She would flee. If she sees them first, they never will.

A archetype hunter like the white will choose the place and time. She could know and convince/intimidate almost any of the beasts in the adventure to aid her, given warning.

When she strikes, it will be from ambush. The white is not arrogant like the other chromatics. She knows white dragons have the low hand in dragon poker, so she is not likely to underestimate the PCs.

{snipped for brevity; great ideas all the same}

She's an ancient. She is a survivor. She has nothing to gain and everything to lose by battling powerful PCs. Imbalance has it right, this isn't just any dragon, nor any ancient dragon. She has a name and a place in Sword Coast history. See https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Arveiaturace for more details.

Largely agreed. The "low hand in dragon poker" is still a full house, as far as any other creature ought to be concerned. Low-end of intelligence compared to other dragons is still razor-sharp compared to other predators.

If the party really wants to hunt this legend down, they need to be prepared for the whole trek to drag out. Think Jigsaw meets Predator meets AM (I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream) levels of sadistic, psychotic, "What did we just get ourselves into?" scenarios.

Let the party believe that they are the hunters, seeking gold and glory, until they realize that they are the ones being hunted for fun.

Her pirate ship-hoard is the best place for a fight.

I would suggest to have the battle be the PCs + a whole bunch of NPCs who want to kill a legendary dragon for the glory. Goliaths, Regheds, some Ten-Towners, fellow adventurers, even Giants, all would like to participate in such a fight.

Respectfully, I disagree, to an extent. The parties can have their NPCs, sure, but those NPCs ought to get picked off by the dragon over time, more so as the party gets closer to a false cache where they find the frozen and dismembered remains of those who originally set out with them, only to be set upon by remorhazes or some other arctic monsters shortly afterwards. Sure, the party would find a new lead from this place, but it may lead to another false cache, with something more ominous and gruesome to be found there, an ever-present reminder that what the party is going after may have something far worse in mind for the strongest among them.

If and when the party does make it to the final hoard, it should be just the party at that point, nearing the end of their rope, desperate to end their quest in a knock-out drag-out brawl if nothing else. Build it up to where the party's mindset and opinion of this dragon is too obscene for seasoned Marines. Reach that point, and I suspect y'all are gonna have yourselves one awesome battle.

[Unoriginal]

Largely agreed. The "low hand in dragon poker" is still a full house, as far as any other creature ought to be concerned. Low-end of intelligence compared to other dragons is still razor-sharp compared to other predators.

If the party really wants to hunt this legend down, they need to be prepared for the whole trek to drag out. Think Jigsaw meets Predator meets AM (I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream) levels of sadistic, psychotic, "What did we just get ourselves into?" scenarios.

Let the party believe that they are the hunters, seeking gold and glory, until they realize that they are the ones being hunted for fun.



Respectfully, I disagree, to an extent. The parties can have their NPCs, sure, but those NPCs ought to get picked off by the dragon over time, more so as the party gets closer to a false cache where they find the frozen and dismembered remains of those who originally set out with them, only to be set upon by remorhazes or some other arctic monsters shortly afterwards. Sure, the party would find a new lead from this place, but it may lead to another false cache, with something more ominous and gruesome to be found there, an ever-present reminder that what the party is going after may have something far worse in mind for the strongest among them.

If and when the party does make it to the final hoard, it should be just the party at that point, nearing the end of their rope, desperate to end their quest in a knock-out drag-out brawl if nothing else. Build it up to where the party's mindset and opinion of this dragon is too obscene for seasoned Marines. Reach that point, and I suspect y'all are gonna have yourselves one awesome battle.

The dragon in question is not a cunning mastermind, nor an horror monster.

She's a seasoned veteran of the adventuring game, and an expert hunter, to be sure, but she's also so ancient age has made her blind and has affected her mind.

Arveiaturace is still a legend and a powerhouse, but the times she could go both JAWS and Predator at once are long gone.

On top of that, I think her draconic pride and her White Dragon temperament would make her prefer one last, epic danse against hunters to slowly fading away. If she wins, great, if she loses, that'll end her legend on a high note and surrounded by the corpses of many enemies.

[StoneSeraph]

The dragon in question is not a cunning mastermind, nor an horror monster.

She's a seasoned veteran of the adventuring game, and an expert hunter, to be sure, but she's also so ancient age has made her blind and has affected her mind.

Arveiaturace is still a legend and a powerhouse, but the times she could go both JAWS and Predator at once are long gone.

On top of that, I think her draconic pride and her White Dragon temperament would make her prefer one last, epic danse against hunters to slowly fading away. If she wins, great, if she loses, that'll end her legend on a high note and surrounded by the corpses of many enemies.

I'm content agreeing to disagree here; I'm not a huge fan of the "go out on a high note" vibe. There's something perversely cheery about a creature committing suicide by army and having the survivors revel in the fact that the legend is concluded. Plus, with enough of an army, the fight becomes less of an "epic dance" and more of a cakewalk for the army once the party does the heavy lifting; so much for the legend.

I forgot about the senility, though - that could certainly add to the danger factor. Best case scenario would be to do away with it altogether and keep Arveiaturace at the top of her game, but that would just be my table (gotta get through TOA first...).

[Wraith]

A famous (notorious?) piece of advice in writing goes as follows: "If the scene ever starts to drag, have a man burst in waving around a gun."

That's how you introduce a dragon. You get to the end of the game, the players standing over the still-smoking corpse of the BBEG and discussing how to divvy up the loot and then BAM! Everyone roll Constitution and then initiative, because a White Dragon just plunged out of the clouds breathing liquid nitrogen at you and is intent on taking your newly gained treasure for itself. Your players have 'won' the campaign, why not go out on a glorious TPK?

Dragons only answer to one thing: Whatever the hell they want to do. They turn up exactly when they choose, and then eat the proverbial wizard.

[GorogIrongut]

I'm unfamiliar with the adventure, but one thing caught my attention. Senility.

Play the senility card for all of the fun and mayhem that you can. People who are senile can be very erratic. One moment they don't know you but they're your best friend. The next, they turn on a dime and are vicious, showing no remorse.

If you're going to include a named ancient dragon who is senile, make her stand out. Make her have conversations with the coins from her hoard. Make her go on a quest to find each of her lost 'children'. Have her tell the party's Goliath that he reminds her of a long lost kobold friend. Have her continually slip and call the goliath by the non-existent kobold's name. Have her reward the party with things that only a kobold would like and then berate them for thinking themselves above their station when they're not suitably grateful.

There are so many delicious possibilities that it's only bounded by your imagination. Go crazy with it. Literally.

Will the PC's decide to help her in her quest once they realize how outmatched they are? Will they think up a dastardly plan to use her senility against her? What fleeting moments does she become lucid, and have the party accounted for those brief windows?

Use her fickle mental state so that your players think and more specifically feel like they're standing on incredibly thin ice at all times. Think Denethor from LotR but much worse. Don't forget to include 'Back in my day' stories.

[Cheesegear]

You showed them the miniature, didn't you.

As a veteran buyer-of-Games Workshop-models. I was surprised at how cheap a miniature of that size was.
I bought it on Day 1.
So to answer your question...Yes. Yes I did.

If your party of Ahabs wants this particular white whale, er, dragon, they have to find her first. If they find her, she'd assume the PCs came looking for a fight that they expect to win. She would flee. If she sees them first, they never will.

She wont. She's blind.

Her pirate ship-hoard is the best place for a fight.

Indeed. The hoard is dangled in front of the party during Chapter 2 and takes hours to get through. The old girl can come at any time, and during my (first) playthrough she's dropped down during the second layer, where they proceeded to [poop] themselves.

On top of that, I think her draconic pride and her White Dragon temperament would make her prefer one last, epic danse against hunters to slowly fading away. If she wins, great, if she loses, that'll end her legend on a high note and surrounded by the corpses of many enemies.

This was my reading as well. That time she killed 12 Black Dragons...She can't do that again. The Wizard she fought alongside for decades? He's dead, Jim. She's either demented, or in denial. Her best days are behind her. The Regheds and Goliaths make a ritual and sport out of killing her offspring - small Dragons don't grow into big Dragons - but no-one can take her out, because, well, have you seen her? Did you know that she once killed 12 Black Dragons...Maybe we'll just leave her alone.

Which is a plot thread I've got going. Everyone wants to kill White Dragons...Just not her. Not because they don't want to. But because they can't, and they know it.

There's even a random encounter where the party encounters a Frost Giant...At level 4. On a Mammoth. (Once again, ignoring that Frost Giants are Huge, and Mammoths are Huge, and ignoring that the writers of modules always seem to forget how mounting a creature works*). The Frost Giant leaves the party alone if they say that they want to hunt The Old Lady of Icewind Dale.
"Good luck with that. I don't need to fight you. You already have a death wish."

*While I'm on this. There's an Awakened Sperm Whale. Sperm Whales are Gargantuan. Awaken only works on Huge or smaller.
I said that the whale was Awakened when she was a calf, and grew to be Gargantuan. The Whale and the Druid were actually Friends-4-Lyf.

A famous (notorious?) piece of advice in writing goes as follows: "If the scene ever starts to drag, have a man burst in waving around a gun."

My players, sadly, were unable to destroy the Chardalyn Dragon (I don't have the miniature for that one...Sad...). As it flew off, I could tell my players were sad.

Suddenly, The Old Lady comes out of the sky like a thunderbolt. Grapples.
Speed drops to 0.
Creatures flying, when their Move is 0, if they can't Hover, they fall.

The Old Lady crash-tackles the Chardalyn Dragon out of the sky. The Old Lady is blind. She thinks Chardy is 'just another Dragon' encroaching on her territory, and destroying 'her towns' - something the module explicitly points out that she doesn't do, ever. There can only be one. Both of them tumble. The collateral damage between The Old Lady of Icewind Dale, and the Chardalyn Dragon, destroys most of Bryn Shander anyway...And the party had the latter on the run... Like, the day was saved, right? Yeah. That can't happen again. The Old Lady has to go.

My party started making Man of Steel references. Okay. I'll take it. I'm onto something and my players have latched onto it. Now I have to do it.

Will the PC's decide to help her in her quest once they realize how outmatched they are? Will they think up a dastardly plan to use her senility against her? What fleeting moments does she become lucid, and have the party accounted for those brief windows?

Well, of the group, one of my players - a Druid - wants to get to a point where he can cast Greater Restoration and/or Regeneration on her eyes, and supplant the Wizard on her back. He likes the idea of the Frost Druids, and he actually likes that most of the Ten-Towns aren't willing to go hunt The Old Lady, because, pun unintended, she's a white blood cell. The Chardalyn Dragon is evidence of that. But her senility and blindness means she's more like a autoimmunity, untargeted and insane.

Yeah. The collateral damage was bad. The Druid gets that.
But what if she wasn't blind? What if the Wizard on her back actually helped her, instead of being dead?
Is it possible to point her in the right direction?

Don't forget to include 'Back in my day' stories.

Way ahead of you. The book tells the DM to have one-sided conversations with Meltharond.

[Unoriginal]

[Big spoilers for the module ahead]

Well, since the Duergars and their Chardalyn Dragon was ultimately a plan by Asmodeus to take over the region, you could have Arveiaturace be contacted by Tiamat in her dreams.

And Tiamat could tell the White Dragon about how there is a group of adventurers who want to beat up Auril and her Roc, and how if she helps take down the goddess's avatar and get the region to shift its allegiance to Tiamat she will be awesomely rewarded.

PCs may want to fight her, but fighting a god alongside the Old Lady should be awesome on its own, especially if Auril's mounting her Roc at the time.

[Cheesegear]

how if she helps take down the goddess's avatar and get the region to shift its allegiance to Tiamat she will be awesomely rewarded.

Sounds like Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

...Dragon Tribe?

PCs may want to fight her, but fighting a god alongside the Old Lady should be awesome on its own, especially if Auril's mounting her Roc at the time.

"Remember the Wizard Wars, Meltharond? Hah! Her rider even uses Cold magic! Leave this one to me Meltharond...You can sit this one out..."
The Old Lady then goes to fight the 'dragon' and its rider. Conveniently finding an excuse not to have Meltharond do anything.

I like it.

Spoiler: Proper spoiler

Show

...There's also potentially a Tarrasque at some point.

EDIT: I also took to calling her The Old Lady, since I refuse to say Arveiaturace every time, and I think 'Iceclaws' is too on the nose and lame.

[Sigreid]

Sounds like you need to figure out where the dragon is for a side quest!

[Imbalance]

As a veteran buyer-of-Games Workshop-models. I was surprised at how cheap a miniature of that size was.
I bought it on Day 1.
So to answer your question...Yes. Yes I did.

If you are at all bothered by the fact that she is gray and not painted, Wizkids has acknowledged the error and intend to offer replacements here: https://win.wizkids.com/replacements/

But yeah, that sculpt. Arvy is one sexy ol' gal.

[Cheesegear]

If you are at all bothered by the fact that she is gray and not painted...

I actually noticed that immediately after taking her out of the box.
I am not bothered at all, and that benefits me. Since I was going to strip her anyway and repaint her, at least this way, I didn't have to have a literal bucket of solvent.

[Unoriginal]

"Remember the Wizard Wars, Meltharond? Hah! Her rider even uses Cold magic! Leave this one to me Meltharond...You can sit this one out..."
The Old Lady then goes to fight the 'dragon' and its rider. Conveniently finding an excuse not to have Meltharond do anything.

I like it.

I like the idea of Arveiaturace allowing the PCs to bum a ride with Meltharond so that the god-on-PC-battle happens on the back of giant flyers.


Especially if it happens while Auril is doing her aurora-boeralis-creating tour to maintain eternal night.