One of my PC's wants to give a young female black dragon a dress as a gift to make it feel pretty. That's it, they want to do the meme and is actually putting in the work to find something that would work. Party dynamics aside, how would a black dragon react to receiving a gift for no other reason than kindness? Like if it was to try and curry favor or to bribe, I could work with it, but kindness I am struggling with figuring out how she would react and need some help.
Suspicion could work. "You say you'll give me this fine piece for no exchange? A likely story. What, have you poisoned the interior? Cursed the fabric to bind me? Thanks. I'll pass."
What is the personality of the black dragon? Just because it is a black dragon doesn't mean it has to react in a specific way. Dragons should each have their own personalities, desires, goals etc... Similarly, how old / powerful is the black dragon?
Do you want to give the player what they want? Or do you want to show the player that your world is realistic and to be taken seriously not somewhere full of memes?
Here's a few options:
1) Lean in: Create a black dragon that is obsessed with appearances and believes they are ugly, so that buying a dress for them would please them. Ok, now that dragon has to get integrated into the world and have "stuff" they are "doing" rather than just existing for the sole purpose of this player giving them a dress. Maybe this dragon is hunting unicorns because their horns are rumoured to be the most beautiful thing on this plane, or maybe they have cave filled with giant spiders that the dragon is harvesting silk from in order to make clothes to make themselves feel beautiful. Maybe the dress pleases them temporarily but isn't enough, so the black dragon keeps sending demands to the PC for more and more beautiful things - first clothes that can be purchased at expensive stores, but then more unique and lavish things like the family heirloom of a noble family, or the crown of a princess. If the party refuses the dragon gets angry and starts hunting them down.
2) Get it Over with : Create a town that is guarded by a black dragon, the town sends the black dragon gifts in exchange for protection. The PC can join this gift-giving and offer up their dress, the dragon deems it acceptable tribute maybe thanks them for it and keeps just protecting that town, and you go back to your regularly planned campaign narrative.
3) Punish them : Create a wild and dangerous black dragon, who is paranoid of strangers, and terrorizes the country side. It views the dress as a ploy/trick and the party as trespassers and attacks them.
That is really helpful, thank you. If it helps further, a dwarven village accidentally mined into her lair, and she young, only about 50 ish, and has lived in the caves and cave rivers in a small area. She took the dwarves who mined into her territory hostage and was forcing all of them to mine gold out for her hoard. To enforce it she eats anyone who tries to escape. She has never been to the surface because of the location her egg was laid in, underground below an ancient white dragon’s territory. The rest of the party wants to hire drow to free the hostages.
Based on that description I can think of a few possible reactions/ plots
Confusion : being from the mines underground they have never seen such finery before and it is not made of the typical things of value found in the underground like precious metals and gem stones. Perhaps they can convince the dragon of it's value and intrigue them enough about the surface to leave an explore but only if they can fine a safe passage large enough for the dragon to leave. However, the gift alone may confuse the dragon enough simply for it to talk rather than dissolve them on sight.
Cunning: The dragon doesn't think much of the gift but may have plans for the party. The dragon is young and knows they aren't invincible. They feign deference and offer the party a gift, something that will hurt them and possibly a rival. Maybe the black dragon knows of treasure seemingly discarded by the drow that is actually an offering to Lolth. Lolth is spiteful god so the drow losing it may earn her ire as will any one who has it. Maybe the dragon has a cursed item they'd rather be rid of, something haunted or may even belonging to the white dragon above that may draw their anger. Maybe the Drow and black dragon are already working together to sabotage the white dragon above and have some poisoned bait they've prepared for them that they wish to send with the party.
Thank you to everyone for your help! For those that are curious, when the party found the black dragon, I had it so she was chained to a wall, with chains she could not break. She had been left there to rot by the drow that had been hired to kill her. I let the player do what she had wanted, but had the dragon meet it with skepticism due to her current state. It was mostly a role play encounter with a lot of back and forth banter between the party, who wanted to kill her, the player who wanted to do the meme, and the dragon. In the end, after the player (a yuan-ti artificer) gave her the dress, and the party was getting ready to head out, the wizard, who had voiced more strongly about killing her, stayed back. He polymorphed her into a small creature to free her from the chains as her own magics had been suppressed. Before he left to catch up to the party, she gave him a potion of luck (the drinker may reroll 1 failed roll) and gave the party a chance to claim a favor from her, should they meet again. It weirdly fit in with what was going on, our warlock had wanted her patron to take over and cause chaos for the party, the artificer wanted to give the dragon a dress, the barbarian was just confused by everything going on and just wanted to return to town, and the wizard was the murder hobo that didn't kill anything.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
One of my PC's wants to give a young female black dragon a dress as a gift to make it feel pretty. That's it, they want to do the meme and is actually putting in the work to find something that would work. Party dynamics aside, how would a black dragon react to receiving a gift for no other reason than kindness? Like if it was to try and curry favor or to bribe, I could work with it, but kindness I am struggling with figuring out how she would react and need some help.
Suspicion could work. "You say you'll give me this fine piece for no exchange? A likely story. What, have you poisoned the interior? Cursed the fabric to bind me? Thanks. I'll pass."
What is the personality of the black dragon? Just because it is a black dragon doesn't mean it has to react in a specific way. Dragons should each have their own personalities, desires, goals etc... Similarly, how old / powerful is the black dragon?
Do you want to give the player what they want? Or do you want to show the player that your world is realistic and to be taken seriously not somewhere full of memes?
Here's a few options:
1) Lean in: Create a black dragon that is obsessed with appearances and believes they are ugly, so that buying a dress for them would please them. Ok, now that dragon has to get integrated into the world and have "stuff" they are "doing" rather than just existing for the sole purpose of this player giving them a dress. Maybe this dragon is hunting unicorns because their horns are rumoured to be the most beautiful thing on this plane, or maybe they have cave filled with giant spiders that the dragon is harvesting silk from in order to make clothes to make themselves feel beautiful. Maybe the dress pleases them temporarily but isn't enough, so the black dragon keeps sending demands to the PC for more and more beautiful things - first clothes that can be purchased at expensive stores, but then more unique and lavish things like the family heirloom of a noble family, or the crown of a princess. If the party refuses the dragon gets angry and starts hunting them down.
2) Get it Over with : Create a town that is guarded by a black dragon, the town sends the black dragon gifts in exchange for protection. The PC can join this gift-giving and offer up their dress, the dragon deems it acceptable tribute maybe thanks them for it and keeps just protecting that town, and you go back to your regularly planned campaign narrative.
3) Punish them : Create a wild and dangerous black dragon, who is paranoid of strangers, and terrorizes the country side. It views the dress as a ploy/trick and the party as trespassers and attacks them.
That is really helpful, thank you. If it helps further, a dwarven village accidentally mined into her lair, and she young, only about 50 ish, and has lived in the caves and cave rivers in a small area. She took the dwarves who mined into her territory hostage and was forcing all of them to mine gold out for her hoard. To enforce it she eats anyone who tries to escape. She has never been to the surface because of the location her egg was laid in, underground below an ancient white dragon’s territory. The rest of the party wants to hire drow to free the hostages.
Based on that description I can think of a few possible reactions/ plots
Thank you to everyone for your help! For those that are curious, when the party found the black dragon, I had it so she was chained to a wall, with chains she could not break. She had been left there to rot by the drow that had been hired to kill her. I let the player do what she had wanted, but had the dragon meet it with skepticism due to her current state. It was mostly a role play encounter with a lot of back and forth banter between the party, who wanted to kill her, the player who wanted to do the meme, and the dragon. In the end, after the player (a yuan-ti artificer) gave her the dress, and the party was getting ready to head out, the wizard, who had voiced more strongly about killing her, stayed back. He polymorphed her into a small creature to free her from the chains as her own magics had been suppressed. Before he left to catch up to the party, she gave him a potion of luck (the drinker may reroll 1 failed roll) and gave the party a chance to claim a favor from her, should they meet again. It weirdly fit in with what was going on, our warlock had wanted her patron to take over and cause chaos for the party, the artificer wanted to give the dragon a dress, the barbarian was just confused by everything going on and just wanted to return to town, and the wizard was the murder hobo that didn't kill anything.