How to Introduce Dragons

Great post over at ChicagoWiz (here) on dragons, perhaps the most under-used monster in the game ostensibly named after it. As he puts it,

"I don't care who you are... but when a dragon gets thrown into the game, especially to 1st thru 3rd levellers... hearts get racing, dice and pencils get clutched and PCs go running for the hills. It's just the coolest. I love the build up too... nervous horses or dogs, sounds, strange smells... then WHAM, the thing goes gliding overhead. Sinister, nasty, hungry... and totally in control of its domain."

This really resonates to me, because the basic mileau of my Arizona Adventures campaign is dawn of civ, and is therefore, "dragon and giant" heavy. It is my basic premise that outside of the immediate protection of the armed forts, there are no "scaled down" areas which just happen to be perfectly suited for beginning low-level characters. In short, if you choose to go into the wilds of magic Arizona, you better be ready to bring it, cause all the bad ass shit is there waiting for you. (see the previous post on "keeping PCs alive" for the necessary attitutude of latitude that must accompany such a natural and dangerous campaign mileau.)

So, how to introduce dragons into play with some kind of panache? Here are some ideas (1d6 + 1d4):

2 - Flying far overhead, you see the small outline of a dragon. Appears to be flying over you and away, but wait.... was that its head twisting to look down in your direction?

3 - As you scramble over the hilltop's rocky edge, in the valley below you see scene of chaos and mad movement, as a herd of horses/goats/cows flees in all directions in panic, a dragon having alighted in their midsts, clawing and biting wildly to bring down a meal....

4 - Your horses are suddenly snorting and skitish, rising and ready to bolt. As you struggle to keep them down, a terrifying roar emanates from the thich grove of trees to your right. You turn to see two little dragon heads peer quizically out from the brush on the ground-level. Suddenly the loud roar again sounds out from back in the trees, but closer this time... Mommy is apparently looking for her wayward babes...

5 - You see smoke rising in two columns from a dark medium-sized cave opening in the hill in front of you, and the whooshing of air from what sounds like the breathing from some large sleeping beast. Suddenly the loud regular breathing stops, replaced a second later by the sound of shifting rocks.... You see glowing eyes peer out from the darkness, surveying you silently, and the dim outline of a dragon's snout barely visible in the cave's opening...

6 - As you scan around in the bright distance, two hilltops to your east, you see what appears to be a laying dragon, curled up upon the hot rocks, sunning itself in the heat...

7 - Off in the distance to your left, a movement catches your eye, what appears to be a dragon digging his claws and snout into the rocks and dirt, seeking some unknown object in the small hole before it....

8 - As you stumble through the rocky ground around a turn at the base of the cliff wall, your feet stop cold and your blood freezes at what lies no more than 50 feet in front of you: a dragon, clawing and tearing into the dry bones of some unfortunate creature lying on the ground in front of it... Your mouth turns to cotton as that idiot Fighter calls out loudly from behind you, "Hey, what the holdup?" The dragon snaps its head up from the bones and turns to look, settling its gaze right on you....

9 - Crashing and loud screaming break out in the trees ahead of you, followed by a loud roaring sound... Suddenly a dragon comes crashing through the trees towards you, twisting at a rope slung arounds its neck. As it stumbles forward, you see a mountain giant dragging behind it, desperately holding onto the rope, and another giant running behind, trying to catch up, calling out to his partner....

10 - The distant sound of two furious beasts in combat quickly gets much louder, rapidly approaching... Suddenly, over the treetops near the river, a flying horse hurtles forward and down, a roaring dragon right behind it. The singed and bleeding creature whinnies in pain as it hits the ground running. As it turns to look over its shoulder at the pursuing dragon, it sees you, and quickly changes course, running straight at you, whinny-ing for help...


A straight 1d8 roll for dragon size can be used for the truly random experience. Or, just roll a d4 for its age, to give a young party more of an incentive to man-up and fight.