Running Storm King's Thunder and important to understanding my question are the following bits of context:
The party has been spending a lot of time in Gauntlgrym (it was my hook to connect LMoP to SKT: Nezznar was the nephew of Draac Xorlarrin; and it fit one of the PC's backstory for side adventures).
It just worked out that Draac ended up successfully stealing Maegera the Dawn Titan and escaped with it to Ironslag.
Now, they've hatched a plan, in conjunction with King Bruenor: a heist! They intend to try and steal back Maegera (I made it so there happened to be one of the few remaining Iron Flasks in Gauntlgrym that they can use) AND get Duke Zalto's conch. While the PCs are inside, the Dwarves of Gauntlgrym will feign a frontal assault on Ironslag to act as a diversion.
One of my PCs comes up with a lot of good (but crazy) ideas.....when they learned the directions to Ironslag from the Oracle...he immediately sketched maps showing the location that he sent to the powers that be in Neverwinter, and Waterdeep, etc. (hoping to get an even larger force at the front gates of Ironslag). His hook to them is that they shouldn't want the Vonindod, controlled by Zalto, running around on the landscape.
Now here's where it gets tricky: the party met Claugiyliamatar a while ago. They learned about her obsession with scrying...and she indicated that she was watching them closely bc they made good entertainment (Claugi was also enamored with the female druid PC). So, they are currently preparing this heist/diversion at Ironslag and the creative PC I mentioned texted me today and said his character wanted to take the time to speak out loud....under the assumption that Claugi might be watching....shower her with praise and indicate that perhaps she would like the opportunity to crush fire giants? Explaining that without her assistance, the fire giants could succeed in re-building this massive dragon killing construct.
I'm a bit stumped about how to handle this. It seems against Claugi's nature to leave her sanctuary for much (she's kind of a manipulate from afar type). BUT this is also a pretty big deal for dragons....AND....I don't want to discourage him (I feel like I'm constantly having to say "well...that's a good idea, but I'm not sure if that would work...." to him).
Anyways, I've gotten good advice from the very generous folks on this forum in the past. As such, I thought I'd stop here and see if folks have any ideas.
as a divination type wouldn't Claugi have some insight as to whether the future really holds threat of fire giant victory? i haven't read SKT but you're assuming scrying or clairvoyance here. so if she agrees then the party would either have to worry that things are worse than they seem or else she's accepting for some other reason like redirecting the army for her own immediate purposes. again, i don't know the politics. alternatively, is there some son/daughter or guard she can send with them? maybe that someone has a scroll or magic item that would be clutch for the fight?
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There are a couple of problems I see with the request.
1) There are dwarves from Gauntlegrym and possibly soldiers from Neverwinter in the attack. They are unlikely to accept the presence of an ancient green dragon. Ancient greens are lawful evil and are the most cunning and treacherous of true dragons. If the dragon shows up, I would think they might be as likely to flee or attack it than continue with an attack on Ironslag.
2) The dragon sounds much more like a creature that prefers to pull strings from the background than be directly involved. Dragons in general would not want to see a resurgence of the giants or re-establishment of their empire of Ostoria so there is some motivation to assist the small folk to prevent the rebuilding of an ancient machine that kills dragons. Given that, it seems more likely that the dragon might send an agent with their own agenda to keep an eye on the situation and look out for Claugiyliamatar's interests. An alternative, is that the green dragon might decide to assume a different form and go themselves with the goal of making sure that the fire giants do not succeed in their task without revealing their presence.
3) I'm not sure what sort of link you have in mind for an ancient green dragon that is thousands of years old and a very short lived small folk. You mention "Claugi was also enamored with the female druid PC" but it isn't clear to me what that would really mean for an ancient dragon who could literally have had thousands (or more) of "dalliances" over the millenia of their existence. It sounds at the least that the lawful evil dragon might be somewhat positively disposed towards the PC but the dragon is still Lawful Evil and likely looks out for themself and their interests before anyone else.
4) Unless the character making the appeal to Claugi is the female druid that Claugi seems to be interested in, I'm not sure that there is much chance of the request succeeding. Claugi might decide to respond to comments from the person they are likely watching most closely but it seems unlikely that Claugi would pay that much attention to the rest of the party especially when it only involves relatively boring discussions/negotiations/planning. If the character making the appeal is not the female druid, I'm not sure that Claugi would watch them at all during boring moments when they are alone. Claugi likely has many other tasks/agents/creatures to manage and control that she might only rarely check in on the party.
----
So, I think it unlikely that the dragon would choose to be noticeably involved. It might give the giants the idea that they are on the right track and that dragons are actually concerned about the plan of the fire giant. The giants don't need any further encouragement. That leaves three courses of action you could choose ...
A) Watch from afar - essentially do nothing - she may not even have noticed the comments from that particular character unless they happened to be watching at that moment and the dragon likely has a lot of other activities to take up their time.
B) Send an agent in her stead that will look out for her interests and help make sure the fire giant plan is foiled while grabbing some magical treasure for the dragon's hoard. The agent might also be tasked with trying to make sure the druid survives. They won't care about the rest of the party though.
C) The dragon goes themself but assumes a different form or identity. If Imryth can change into a Storm giant then there is no issue giving Claugi a couple of different forms they might assume when wanting to travel incognito within different areas.
These comments helped clear my head on this a bit (I was getting a bit clouded by not wanting to discourage the player... I was losing my ability to make logical decisions).
David42: sorry ....."enamored" probably wasn't the best word choice for Claugi's thoughts on the female druid character. I had used some information on the Forgotten Realms Wiki about how Claugi is particularly interested in strong females....so I ran with that a bit during their encounter (the female druid PC is new to playing TTRPGs so I was trying to use it as a hook to get them more engaged in what was going on). But didn't mean to imply that Claugi would operate against her own self interests (or whims) for the female druid.
Anyways, again, I greatly appreciate the input!
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Hi All,
So...this is a bit convoluted (apologies).....
Running Storm King's Thunder and important to understanding my question are the following bits of context:
Now here's where it gets tricky: the party met Claugiyliamatar a while ago. They learned about her obsession with scrying...and she indicated that she was watching them closely bc they made good entertainment (Claugi was also enamored with the female druid PC). So, they are currently preparing this heist/diversion at Ironslag and the creative PC I mentioned texted me today and said his character wanted to take the time to speak out loud....under the assumption that Claugi might be watching....shower her with praise and indicate that perhaps she would like the opportunity to crush fire giants? Explaining that without her assistance, the fire giants could succeed in re-building this massive dragon killing construct.
I'm a bit stumped about how to handle this. It seems against Claugi's nature to leave her sanctuary for much (she's kind of a manipulate from afar type). BUT this is also a pretty big deal for dragons....AND....I don't want to discourage him (I feel like I'm constantly having to say "well...that's a good idea, but I'm not sure if that would work...." to him).
Anyways, I've gotten good advice from the very generous folks on this forum in the past. As such, I thought I'd stop here and see if folks have any ideas.
I greatly appreciate your time.
Thanks again.
as a divination type wouldn't Claugi have some insight as to whether the future really holds threat of fire giant victory? i haven't read SKT but you're assuming scrying or clairvoyance here. so if she agrees then the party would either have to worry that things are worse than they seem or else she's accepting for some other reason like redirecting the army for her own immediate purposes. again, i don't know the politics. alternatively, is there some son/daughter or guard she can send with them? maybe that someone has a scroll or magic item that would be clutch for the fight?
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
There are a couple of problems I see with the request.
1) There are dwarves from Gauntlegrym and possibly soldiers from Neverwinter in the attack. They are unlikely to accept the presence of an ancient green dragon. Ancient greens are lawful evil and are the most cunning and treacherous of true dragons. If the dragon shows up, I would think they might be as likely to flee or attack it than continue with an attack on Ironslag.
2) The dragon sounds much more like a creature that prefers to pull strings from the background than be directly involved. Dragons in general would not want to see a resurgence of the giants or re-establishment of their empire of Ostoria so there is some motivation to assist the small folk to prevent the rebuilding of an ancient machine that kills dragons. Given that, it seems more likely that the dragon might send an agent with their own agenda to keep an eye on the situation and look out for Claugiyliamatar's interests. An alternative, is that the green dragon might decide to assume a different form and go themselves with the goal of making sure that the fire giants do not succeed in their task without revealing their presence.
3) I'm not sure what sort of link you have in mind for an ancient green dragon that is thousands of years old and a very short lived small folk. You mention "Claugi was also enamored with the female druid PC" but it isn't clear to me what that would really mean for an ancient dragon who could literally have had thousands (or more) of "dalliances" over the millenia of their existence. It sounds at the least that the lawful evil dragon might be somewhat positively disposed towards the PC but the dragon is still Lawful Evil and likely looks out for themself and their interests before anyone else.
4) Unless the character making the appeal to Claugi is the female druid that Claugi seems to be interested in, I'm not sure that there is much chance of the request succeeding. Claugi might decide to respond to comments from the person they are likely watching most closely but it seems unlikely that Claugi would pay that much attention to the rest of the party especially when it only involves relatively boring discussions/negotiations/planning. If the character making the appeal is not the female druid, I'm not sure that Claugi would watch them at all during boring moments when they are alone. Claugi likely has many other tasks/agents/creatures to manage and control that she might only rarely check in on the party.
----
So, I think it unlikely that the dragon would choose to be noticeably involved. It might give the giants the idea that they are on the right track and that dragons are actually concerned about the plan of the fire giant. The giants don't need any further encouragement. That leaves three courses of action you could choose ...
A) Watch from afar - essentially do nothing - she may not even have noticed the comments from that particular character unless they happened to be watching at that moment and the dragon likely has a lot of other activities to take up their time.
B) Send an agent in her stead that will look out for her interests and help make sure the fire giant plan is foiled while grabbing some magical treasure for the dragon's hoard. The agent might also be tasked with trying to make sure the druid survives. They won't care about the rest of the party though.
C) The dragon goes themself but assumes a different form or identity. If Imryth can change into a Storm giant then there is no issue giving Claugi a couple of different forms they might assume when wanting to travel incognito within different areas.
Thank you very, very much!
These comments helped clear my head on this a bit (I was getting a bit clouded by not wanting to discourage the player... I was losing my ability to make logical decisions).
David42: sorry ....."enamored" probably wasn't the best word choice for Claugi's thoughts on the female druid character. I had used some information on the Forgotten Realms Wiki about how Claugi is particularly interested in strong females....so I ran with that a bit during their encounter (the female druid PC is new to playing TTRPGs so I was trying to use it as a hook to get them more engaged in what was going on). But didn't mean to imply that Claugi would operate against her own self interests (or whims) for the female druid.
Anyways, again, I greatly appreciate the input!