Killing the Dragon First

[assault]

This is partly a "here's my cool idea I might never get to use" post, but I think there is a more general point.

So... the situation is:

For centuries, the Dragon-King has ruled the Kingdom. By ruling, of course, I mean appointing human puppet rulers, sitting on ever increasing piles of treasure, and eating regular sacrifices, including the obligatory virgins. You know, politics.

What happens when some idiots (guess who!) kill the Dragon?

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So far, so good. I'd read the book/watch the movie. Why not?

From a game perspective, there's a bit of a problem though. Dragons are Big Nasty Monsters. They don't generally get killed off early in a campaign. This is more obvious in zero-to-hero games (like D&D), but even in Hero, killing off the biggest, most powerful monster near the start seems a bit off. If nothing else, it means that the PCs can do this, even if they need help, and that suggests they can handle nearly all subsequent threats too.
 

In combat, anyway - and that reservation makes all the difference.

(I kind of want to run it in D&D though, to melt the faces of the "Lawful Good is Lawful Stupid" crowd.)

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For what it's worth, I'd see the Dragon monarchy being replaced by an oligarchic republic, headed by some of the Dragon's former proxies. (It's been centuries since there was last a human king - nobody cares about the old dynasty, except for those who do.)

 This might not go down well with some of the PCs, unless they just want to ride off into the sunset. I'd probably build in some hooks to encourage them to stick around.

Any thoughts? Feedback?

[Doc Democracy]

I think there would be chaos.  All of the various groups that existed under the surface would have the chance to express themselves.  I think there would be all kinds of different things, like after the English Civil War, the field was open to radical hippies, democrats, republicans (in the broad rather than US sesnses), monarchies, those who want the church to take control, those who don't believe the dragon is really dead, or will return to life.

 

I think the door is open for the PCs to experience radically different set-ups, possibly for a faction looking to unify the kingdom and take control...

[assault]

Exactly.

I could labour the metaphor even more by including wererats and werepigs among the potential oligarchs.

Edited May 27, 2023 by assault

[GDShore]

Quote

For what it's worth, I'd see the Dragon monarchy being replaced by an oligarchic republic, headed by some of the Dragon's former proxies. (It's been centuries since there was last a human king - nobody cares about the old dynasty, except for those who do.)
 

The only way that this happens, is if the "Dragon" had for seen his/her own death and prepared for same. Setting up a replacement government to handle things until they should return. As Doc and Assault suggest, anarchy will reign and fracturing will occur. The bigger the kingdom/empire is the more fractures as every two-bit bureaucrat makes a grab for power. You would likely see decades of anarchy as one after another warlord made a power grab only to be replaced by some one even more ruthless than they were. Maybe a hundred years or more.

[Scott Ruggels]

It's basically a situation where a long term occupier is "gone", taking the lid off of things.  Anyone that workd in Counter Insurgency with the Dragon, is going to know a lot about what will happen when the lid comes off, and where to stand and NOT be hit by debris.

[Lord Liaden]

In Hero's Turakian Age game world, the city-state of Tatha Gorel has been ruled for centuries by a dragon, Scauromdrax the Magnificent. However, Scauromdrax has proven to be such a wise and just king, rulers from other lands have been known to seek him out for advice on matters of statecraft. This presents the opposite problem for PCs if they're misled into treating the king as just another "Big Nasty Monster." Slaying, or trying to slay, a realm's lawful ruler, respected both domestically and internationally, is likely to cause a stigma that will follow them a long way for a long time.

[Old Man]

4 hours ago, assault said:

Exactly.

I could labour the metaphor even more by including wererats and werepigs among the potential oligarchs.

 

Sheep, hens, cows, a handful of horses (including one stubborn and gullible cart horse), a goat, and a raven, and a donkey.

[assault]

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

 

Sheep, hens, cows, a handful of horses (including one stubborn and gullible cart horse), a goat, and a raven, and a donkey.

 

And dogs?

 

Could go full Animal Farm, I suppose.

 

Ooh. And a Lion with religious pretensions. "Hi Aslan..."

 

Of course he is still a predator.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I started out a campaign by someone letting slip that a dragon had died in its lair from unknown causes, leaving all its vast treasures in place.  The PCs think they are the only ones who know, but others have learned as well.  And the lair its self is far from safe even without a dragon in it...

 

...and what killed the dragon?

[assault]

3 hours ago, GDShore said:

The only way that this happens, is if the "Dragon" had for seen his/her own death and prepared for same. Setting up a replacement government to handle things until they should return. As Doc and Assault suggest, anarchy will reign and fracturing will occur. The bigger the kingdom/empire is the more fractures as every two-bit bureaucrat makes a grab for power. You would likely see decades of anarchy as one after another warlord made a power grab only to be replaced by some one even more ruthless than they were. Maybe a hundred years or more.

 

I was thinking that the Establishment would retain power through new forms. In fact that was kind of the joke.

 

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

In Hero's Turakian Age game world, the city-state of Tatha Gorel has been ruled for centuries by a dragon, Scauromdrax the Magnificent. However, Scauromdrax has proven to be such a wise and just king, rulers from other lands have been known to seek him out for advice on matters of statecraft. This presents the opposite problem for PCs if they're misled into treating the king as just another "Big Nasty Monster." Slaying, or trying to slay, a realm's lawful ruler, respected both domestically and internationally, is likely to cause a stigma that will follow them a long way for a long time.

 

My idea was that the Dragon Monarchy, having existed for centuries, would be seen as the traditional way of doing things, complete with a conservative elite that was doing very well out of it. It wasn't their children who were being eaten, after all.

Edited May 27, 2023 by assault

[Christopher R Taylor]

The fun part of that campaign is that most of the dragon's treasure was impractical to even carry away: carriages, thrones, statues, stained glass windows, etc.  All terribly valuable but not something you can pack out on a horse.  They had to leave most of the value of the treasure behind, especially since they only got one shot at carrying it off.

[Ockham's Spoon]

The dragon could have died from any number of things, not the PC's necessarily, as Christopher suggested, so you can avoid having the PCs be uber-powerful at the start.  Alternatively, maybe they had to sacrifice some of their power to be able to defeat the dragon in the first place (like Ged closing the magic rift in Ursula LeGuin's book The Farthest Shore).  That could lead to an interesting situation where everyone expects great things of the PCs but they really aren't that powerful anymore.  That said, you would really have to explain things to your players ahead of time, because most player hate it when their character becomes weaker.

[Duke Bushido]

I am going to to differ from the popular opinion. I think, as a campaign opener, it would be absolutely _awesome_ and for all the exact same reasons evweyine else dislikes it.

 

PCs are adventurers; they need chaos and uncertainty to have adventure,

 

I _love_ the idea, and have every single intention of stealing it.

 

Thank you,

 

 

Edited May 29, 2023 by Duke Bushido

[LoneWolf]

This sounds similar to what happened in the Harry Dresden series when Harry killed the red court vampires.  Something similar could have happened with the Dragon.  If the PC’s managed to use some of the Dragon’s power against him that would allow them to have killed him, but they without making them so powerful that they can defeat anything throw at them.  The aftermath of killing the Dragon could also be similar with lots of powers struggling to claw out what they can from the vacuum left behind by his death.  

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah it depends on what you consider dragons to be in your world, how powerful, influential, or active they are.  If your dragons are dumb brutes that destroy, they're going to be a terrifying apex predator that makes the world a better place when they are gone.  Commerce, agriculture, etc can go back to normal when there's not a 50 foot long firebreathing monster charring and slaughtering everything for dozens of leagues in every direction.

 

But if your dragons are kings, if they are smart and active in the world around them, influencing politics, culture, and trade through money, shapeshifted into a human, or through proxies, then the entire region might be destabilized and chaotic until something new comes along to be the big man behind the scenes, or culture adapts to lacking that.

[Doc Democracy]

13 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I am going to to differ from the popular opinion. I think, as a campaign opener, it would be absolutely _awesome_ and for all the exact same reasons evweyine else dislikes it.

 

PCs are adventurers; they need chaos and uncertainty to have adventure,

 

I _love_ the idea, and have every single intention of stealing it.

 

You reading the same responses as me Duke? 🤔

 

Far as I can see, most folk seem to see it as an ideal opportunity for the mischief players love to participate in....

 

Doc

[Duke Bushido]

Nah; I only had the first few up-  it was an in-refreshed window from Friday, I think.  I didnt notice that.  The first few responses were concerned about over-powered characters who could take,on anything, and one or two worried about upsetting a static social structure.

 

Even a first level party can build a ballista or a swinging log trap, after all.  In short:  we killed the Dragon by pure luck and a series of bad luck events on the dragon's part, but we're still low- powered characters, we are just now stuck with the "seven with one blow" reputation.....

 

 

Edited May 30, 2023 by Duke Bushido

[Cloppy Clip]

This is an interesting scenario with a lot of different ways to play out at the table. I'd be interested in hearing about how it goes for anybody who gets a chance to run this.

 

If I wanted to guess how things will turn out then I suppose it would depend a great deal on what the dragon's government was like before it was deposed. If the dragon was mostly hands-off and left the day-to-day running of the country to mortal servants then that infrastructure could quite easily survive the transition. People probably won't approve of the dragon's servants, but political inertia and the fact that they're the ones paying the wages for the armies and mercenaries will go a long way to keeping them in power. There would be a number of better options for government, no doubt, and many will spring up in the wake of the dragon's death, but I can easily see these reformist factions fighting each other over the best way to fix everything unless you give them something to rally around. Of course, I'm sure the heroes who slew the dragon could serve as this focus for a new society, if they were so inclined.

 

On the other hand, if the dragon was a micro-manager who had to oversee every stage of the government machine no matter how inefficient it was (in the way that a lot of dictators tend to do in real life) then there's the possibility that whatever political apparatus is in place isn't robust enough to handle its overlord disappearing. If the country is wholly focused around the dragon as the supreme ruler then it might not have enough redundancy in place to cope, which would create an opening for a more radical faction to take over.

 

So a lot of this scenario would depend on what kind of ruler you see the Dragon King as having been, to my mind. While I can see the appeal of a truly intelligent dragon who defies convention by setting up an efficient society, I do think it's not unlikely that the sort of personality given to this kind of dictatorship be the sort to run it haphazardly. Horses for courses and all that.