I have learned so much on dragons and was excited to run Hoard of the dragon queen, except now I feel like the game doesn't really treat dragons how they should be. I watched all of Mr.Rexx videos on them, and read the books about them. I see dragons as almost humanoids, where not all of them are the same, but a lot of them are similar. I plan on the party running into dragons but I want them to have differing opinions. I have read a lot on dragons to see they can be good. Blues will pay humanoids for skilled work, greens love their children, reds are prideful and care only for reputation. Would it be wrong to have some chromatic dragons be good and how can I work it into the Tyranny of Dragon story line?
Chromatic dragons are generally evil but there's nothing stopping you from finding special circumstances that made one become good. Perhaps it was raised by humans who found its egg in the wake of a group of murderhobos. Perhaps the dragon is still a bit of a buttface but not outright murderous and egotistical. Perhaps it still fondly remembers its human parents and the lessons they tried to teach it about being nice to people and not eating them on the spot.
Think about what motivates this dragon. How do the others see it? Perhaps they shun it because it's a weird wimp in their eyes? What does it want? Why would it help the party, what does it get out of it?
you're running an adventure, where the mother and queen of ALL chromatic dragons is lawful evil. currently residing in the first layer of hell called Avernus. where she is working towards a goal to return to the material world and destroy it with her chromatic dragons. where all chromatic dragons and tiamat cults are working together on the material plan in terrorist cells to assist Tiamat's goals. and you want to have nice chromatic dragons? if you want nice dragons there are already the metallic ones. and even they are fairly distant to get involved with the lesser humanoid races. the reason this divide between chromatic and metallic dragons exist is because their gods are Tiamat and Bahamut. Direct offspring of AO the creator dragon of all things that exist. Tiamat and Bahamut are at war since forever...including their offspring that gotten their major traits.
only reason a chromatic dragon would be "nice" and "helpfull" is because it will most likely be liking a long term con scheme. meaning it might look like its helping the party, but in fact the party is helping it. and when the party has outlived its usefulness they will die without mercy.
In general, chromatic dragons are evil, but that doesn't mean that their goals can't overlap with the party's goals for periods of time.
IE hill giants are trying to steal green dragon eggs.
Over the longer term, yes, they would be evil and probably betray/double cross the party. It's your world though so you can create them however you want.
If you do change a trope like that you'll need to give the players some notice or hints about it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Here's the problem I could see happening in HoDQ: if you have the potential for good chromatics, it could possibly throw off the dragon battles in that adventure, as well as if you continued into RoT. I say that because if a party is going to succeed against a grown dragon in it's lair, they need to go in with combat planning, not a "let's talk to it first" mentality. How that plays out is entirely up to you, but a lot of the adventure is written as them being evil.
However, I do like the idea of one or maybe two semi-good chromatics. And it could fit pretty well. They run into one, build a relationship, and it tells them it is worried of the upcoming events. It doesn't want Tiamat back to the material plane because it knows the evil it will have to do under her reign. It is worried that the Cult will use an ancient device (draakhorn) to force all chromatics to assemble and do their will. (Beginning of RoT) In order to keep this from happening it helps the adventurers. Could even be a situation where towards the end of RoT the players are in a bad spot when all of the sudden their chromatic friend changes sides and helps them.
The Monster Manual is like 10% taken up with the Dragons category. You'll definitely want to read through that to get a sense for how dragons are "supposed" to be played. The DM gets final say, but any dragon being any alignment is an Eberron thing so for HotDQ it probably fits better to come up with a motivation within the dragon type's wheelhouse:
- Black dragons are the "vilest" of the chromatics, but they also "hate and fear" other dragons, so they might parley with humanoids if it gives them a leg up on their cousins.
- Blue dragons are extraordinarily vain, so a particularly friendly one might put up with anyone who affords them with overflowing compliments - maybe befriending them as pets.
- Green dragons are the most intelligent of their kind, and are the most likely to play a "long con" for their own ends. Storm King's Thunder includes a green dragon that is largely friendly for this reason.
- Red dragons are probably too protective and quick to anger to deal with, but they will happily play with 'prey' too beneath them to bother slaughtering (as long as their hoard is safe).
- White dragons are bestial but easily manipulated by smart parties.
A creature doesn't have to be Good to be helpful, and they might be a more memorable NPC/encounter for being menacing but not necessarily aggressive. It's probably better in the normal D&D framework to play them as Evil-to-their-own-ends if you don't want them to be consistently hostile, just as good dragons won't necessarily go out of their way to befriend an adventuring party just because they're Good.
I looked ahead in Rise of Tiamat, in the opening pages it said evil dragons may answer the all of the horn but they also noted aromatics are reluctant to answer until Tiamat is crawling out. That tells me two things, the dragons may not be so excited to be taking orders from another, and they may want to be left to their own deceives. Moondath, a infamous red dragon finds humanoids far more interesting then dragon culture. That tells me in my home brew world it is possible for a choromatic dragon to think "Hm, I kinda don't like this whole rise of Timat stick, I'ma sit this one out." Also thank you for the advice @ratwhowouldbeking love the list.
I have learned so much on dragons and was excited to run Hoard of the dragon queen, except now I feel like the game doesn't really treat dragons how they should be. I watched all of Mr.Rexx videos on them, and read the books about them. I see dragons as almost humanoids, where not all of them are the same, but a lot of them are similar. I plan on the party running into dragons but I want them to have differing opinions. I have read a lot on dragons to see they can be good. Blues will pay humanoids for skilled work, greens love their children, reds are prideful and care only for reputation. Would it be wrong to have some chromatic dragons be good and how can I work it into the Tyranny of Dragon story line?
Chromatic dragons are generally evil but there's nothing stopping you from finding special circumstances that made one become good. Perhaps it was raised by humans who found its egg in the wake of a group of murderhobos. Perhaps the dragon is still a bit of a buttface but not outright murderous and egotistical. Perhaps it still fondly remembers its human parents and the lessons they tried to teach it about being nice to people and not eating them on the spot.
Think about what motivates this dragon. How do the others see it? Perhaps they shun it because it's a weird wimp in their eyes? What does it want? Why would it help the party, what does it get out of it?
Let chaos rain... uh, reign!
you're running an adventure, where the mother and queen of ALL chromatic dragons is lawful evil. currently residing in the first layer of hell called Avernus. where she is working towards a goal to return to the material world and destroy it with her chromatic dragons. where all chromatic dragons and tiamat cults are working together on the material plan in terrorist cells to assist Tiamat's goals. and you want to have nice chromatic dragons? if you want nice dragons there are already the metallic ones. and even they are fairly distant to get involved with the lesser humanoid races. the reason this divide between chromatic and metallic dragons exist is because their gods are Tiamat and Bahamut. Direct offspring of AO the creator dragon of all things that exist. Tiamat and Bahamut are at war since forever...including their offspring that gotten their major traits.
only reason a chromatic dragon would be "nice" and "helpfull" is because it will most likely be liking a long term con scheme. meaning it might look like its helping the party, but in fact the party is helping it. and when the party has outlived its usefulness they will die without mercy.
If you want to learn more about D&D monsters/realms and such as per official lore since the very first edition. check out https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU9b1SnCqIuofN5IoNeYW6g
now if you run a homebrew. then do whatever and ignore what i posted. in homebrew you can do whatever you want.
In general, chromatic dragons are evil, but that doesn't mean that their goals can't overlap with the party's goals for periods of time.
IE hill giants are trying to steal green dragon eggs.
Over the longer term, yes, they would be evil and probably betray/double cross the party. It's your world though so you can create them however you want.
If you do change a trope like that you'll need to give the players some notice or hints about it.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Here's the problem I could see happening in HoDQ: if you have the potential for good chromatics, it could possibly throw off the dragon battles in that adventure, as well as if you continued into RoT. I say that because if a party is going to succeed against a grown dragon in it's lair, they need to go in with combat planning, not a "let's talk to it first" mentality. How that plays out is entirely up to you, but a lot of the adventure is written as them being evil.
However, I do like the idea of one or maybe two semi-good chromatics. And it could fit pretty well. They run into one, build a relationship, and it tells them it is worried of the upcoming events. It doesn't want Tiamat back to the material plane because it knows the evil it will have to do under her reign. It is worried that the Cult will use an ancient device (draakhorn) to force all chromatics to assemble and do their will. (Beginning of RoT) In order to keep this from happening it helps the adventurers. Could even be a situation where towards the end of RoT the players are in a bad spot when all of the sudden their chromatic friend changes sides and helps them.
The Monster Manual is like 10% taken up with the Dragons category. You'll definitely want to read through that to get a sense for how dragons are "supposed" to be played. The DM gets final say, but any dragon being any alignment is an Eberron thing so for HotDQ it probably fits better to come up with a motivation within the dragon type's wheelhouse:
- Black dragons are the "vilest" of the chromatics, but they also "hate and fear" other dragons, so they might parley with humanoids if it gives them a leg up on their cousins.
- Blue dragons are extraordinarily vain, so a particularly friendly one might put up with anyone who affords them with overflowing compliments - maybe befriending them as pets.
- Green dragons are the most intelligent of their kind, and are the most likely to play a "long con" for their own ends. Storm King's Thunder includes a green dragon that is largely friendly for this reason.
- Red dragons are probably too protective and quick to anger to deal with, but they will happily play with 'prey' too beneath them to bother slaughtering (as long as their hoard is safe).
- White dragons are bestial but easily manipulated by smart parties.
A creature doesn't have to be Good to be helpful, and they might be a more memorable NPC/encounter for being menacing but not necessarily aggressive. It's probably better in the normal D&D framework to play them as Evil-to-their-own-ends if you don't want them to be consistently hostile, just as good dragons won't necessarily go out of their way to befriend an adventuring party just because they're Good.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
I looked ahead in Rise of Tiamat, in the opening pages it said evil dragons may answer the all of the horn but they also noted aromatics are reluctant to answer until Tiamat is crawling out. That tells me two things, the dragons may not be so excited to be taking orders from another, and they may want to be left to their own deceives. Moondath, a infamous red dragon finds humanoids far more interesting then dragon culture. That tells me in my home brew world it is possible for a choromatic dragon to think "Hm, I kinda don't like this whole rise of Timat stick, I'ma sit this one out." Also thank you for the advice @ratwhowouldbeking love the list.
As free-willed entities, any dragon can choose its own path in life. As such, any dragon can be any alignment (as goes with any sentient being).
Or, y'know, just ignore alignment completely and give them actual personalities.
I read a bunch of lore on famous dragons, and yeah it seems any sentient being chooses their path.