My players just finished their first campaign - Dragon of Icespire Peak, killing Cryovain (young white dragon). All of my players, save one, had never played dnd prior to this campaign but all of them have played RPGs before. Immediately after killing the dragon two of them (war-wizard and hex-lock) wanted to harvest what they could from the dragon corpse. On the spot I gave them the head for a trophy and a number of scales and claws.
My players want to continue with their current PCs into another campaign, and I want to reward them for killing their first dragon, their creativity, etc... So I'm thinking a gnome NPC they like (an Artificer) could assist them in making some magic items from the harvest dragon parts. I'm looking for some inspiration on what they could make that thematically makes sense with a white dragon, so something that grants cold resistance, deals cold damage, maybe gives a swim speed? My other thought is if they start trying to butcher all monster corpses, how am I going to handle this?
For context, current party is 4 level 5 PCs - War Wizard, Hexblade Warlock, Battlemaster Fighter, and Lore Bard.
Maybe they can use the scales to make [magitem]Dragon Scale Mail[/magitem]? The claws could be integrated into a [magitem]Dragon Slayer[/magitem] sword. And the head could shoot the dragon's breath weapon once per short rest.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
In the campaign I'm currently in we're doing Tomb of Annihilation and I wound up with the hide of some animal we killed, can't remember what specifically. Off the cuff I asked the DM if anyone could fashion the hide into a cloak. Since Chult, where ToA takes place, is full of dinosaurs my DM had an NPC craft a cloak with the hide and adorn it with dinosaur feathers and claws for the clasp and essentially gave me Dr. Strange's cloak. I got a +1 to AC and Charisma ability checks, advantage on Charisma checks with the people of Chult and as an action I could use the cloak to grapple an enemy. It used the same stats as a Rug of Smothering.
You can do something similar with the dragon scales. I'd turn them into boots which give the player the Ice Walk ability a young white dragon has, a swim speed, and resistance to cold damage.
Those are all off the standard list and work well thematically. Depending on how generous you want to be can decide how many the gnome can make. And if you didn’t think of it, there should be some sleight of hand here. Any items you let them craft, you should deduct from the dragon’s treasure hoard, so they don’t end up with more gear than they should for their level.
As far as butchering in the future, you can say it’s very rare for a creature to be magical enough to be used for creating items. Or when they give the dragon parts to the gnome, have him say something like “you got the body here in the nick of time, usually you have to use it within a day or the pieces decompose to the point of being unusable. Luckily these held up, but I wouldn’t count on that in the future.”
In several books related to fantasy settings, this is a common theme. It also helps the DM dial back the intensity of various magical potions and scrolls. I read in Matt Colville's book, Strongholds and Followers, that the heart, eyes, blood and brain could be harvested from a monster to help create various potions, such as invisibility to a Red Dragon by using the eyes of a red dragon. I think the monsters blood had to be used to write scrolls, so that was an ingredient in the ink. I think this sounds like a great way for a party to quest for Orcs or something to get enough blood to prepare scrolls for the final showdown. The party would need fine bottles to collect the blood and stuff like that too.
But imagine the horror of a party standing by while one member performs the extraction process, going after organs, and bones and the blood. Ewww. And then you have to transport that stuff back to the NPC that is going to use it. That would be a downer on your campaign to stop the little progress you made while you run back to town to drop off a cart load of goo.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
My players just finished their first campaign - Dragon of Icespire Peak, killing Cryovain (young white dragon). All of my players, save one, had never played dnd prior to this campaign but all of them have played RPGs before. Immediately after killing the dragon two of them (war-wizard and hex-lock) wanted to harvest what they could from the dragon corpse. On the spot I gave them the head for a trophy and a number of scales and claws.
My players want to continue with their current PCs into another campaign, and I want to reward them for killing their first dragon, their creativity, etc... So I'm thinking a gnome NPC they like (an Artificer) could assist them in making some magic items from the harvest dragon parts. I'm looking for some inspiration on what they could make that thematically makes sense with a white dragon, so something that grants cold resistance, deals cold damage, maybe gives a swim speed? My other thought is if they start trying to butcher all monster corpses, how am I going to handle this?
For context, current party is 4 level 5 PCs - War Wizard, Hexblade Warlock, Battlemaster Fighter, and Lore Bard.
Maybe they can use the scales to make [magitem]Dragon Scale Mail[/magitem]? The claws could be integrated into a [magitem]Dragon Slayer[/magitem] sword. And the head could shoot the dragon's breath weapon once per short rest.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
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Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
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If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
You might find this interesting.
https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?keywords=hamunds&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=
...cryptographic randomness!
In the campaign I'm currently in we're doing Tomb of Annihilation and I wound up with the hide of some animal we killed, can't remember what specifically. Off the cuff I asked the DM if anyone could fashion the hide into a cloak. Since Chult, where ToA takes place, is full of dinosaurs my DM had an NPC craft a cloak with the hide and adorn it with dinosaur feathers and claws for the clasp and essentially gave me Dr. Strange's cloak. I got a +1 to AC and Charisma ability checks, advantage on Charisma checks with the people of Chult and as an action I could use the cloak to grapple an enemy. It used the same stats as a Rug of Smothering.
You can do something similar with the dragon scales. I'd turn them into boots which give the player the Ice Walk ability a young white dragon has, a swim speed, and resistance to cold damage.
I really like the "Monster Loot" series: https://www.dmsguild.com/product/285864/Monster-Loot-Collection--BUNDLE
A wand of winter
Boots of the winter lands
Dragon scale mail
Ring of warmth or of swimming
Those are all off the standard list and work well thematically. Depending on how generous you want to be can decide how many the gnome can make. And if you didn’t think of it, there should be some sleight of hand here. Any items you let them craft, you should deduct from the dragon’s treasure hoard, so they don’t end up with more gear than they should for their level.
As far as butchering in the future, you can say it’s very rare for a creature to be magical enough to be used for creating items. Or when they give the dragon parts to the gnome, have him say something like “you got the body here in the nick of time, usually you have to use it within a day or the pieces decompose to the point of being unusable. Luckily these held up, but I wouldn’t count on that in the future.”
In several books related to fantasy settings, this is a common theme. It also helps the DM dial back the intensity of various magical potions and scrolls. I read in Matt Colville's book, Strongholds and Followers, that the heart, eyes, blood and brain could be harvested from a monster to help create various potions, such as invisibility to a Red Dragon by using the eyes of a red dragon. I think the monsters blood had to be used to write scrolls, so that was an ingredient in the ink. I think this sounds like a great way for a party to quest for Orcs or something to get enough blood to prepare scrolls for the final showdown. The party would need fine bottles to collect the blood and stuff like that too.
But imagine the horror of a party standing by while one member performs the extraction process, going after organs, and bones and the blood. Ewww. And then you have to transport that stuff back to the NPC that is going to use it. That would be a downer on your campaign to stop the little progress you made while you run back to town to drop off a cart load of goo.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
And that's when they get a bag of holding or two.