So my party just defeated a band of lizardfolk who worshipped a black dragon...

So my party just defeated a band of lizardfolk who worshipped a black dragon. They found the dragons nest with 5 fresh hatchlings and have decided to bring them along after urging of the wizard, who believes that nurture can beat nature.
How would Veeky Forums make this into an interesting story? D&D 3.5, if it matters.

Why is it that a lot of people seem to think that the alignment system is a straight jacket that evil beings can not escape from?

Because a lot of people who play D&D 3.5 don't understand that RAW is a set of guidelines secondary to the players, GM and story.

Raising some hyper-intelligent magical deathlizards is a campaign in and of itself.

Going by what I remember from the draconomicon, nurture will NOT beat nature, and black dragons in particular won't abide being under another creatures thumb. They sooner choose death.

One might imagine that if they are under the wizards "care" there would be treatments and experimentation that would inevitably explode in his face.

And to be honest, if you want to play a setting where dragons can be unaligned to their inborn nature than dealing with any dragon at all should be a crapshoot.

Even if you leave out the 'always evil', which is actually a thing in classic 3.5, your players are still going to deal with the fact that dragons have extremely long lifespans. I don't know the exact numbers, but a dragon hatchling takes decades to grow in a full formed young individual. The best your players can hope for is a baby dragon pet, which isn't much more than a flying cat.

Only thing I can come up with is some magic mumbo-jumbo that accelerates the growing process at expense of loyalty, so that the wizard at some point needs to choose between a cute useless puppy and a young and potentially dangerous beast.

Alignment is not a straight jacket, there have been instances of good chromatic dragons and evil metallic dragons.

Even if alignment can vary, that isn't the same as changing their natures. Keeping hold of black dragons that don't want to be there to teach them values will either result in them escaping, murdering everyone, or clawing their own throats out.

if the Wizard isn't total shit at raising children, he should be able to raise the fresh hatchlings to at least be neutral and not evil.

Well, considering that they found and took 5 dragon hatchlings from a nest, did they remember to kill both parent dragons?

Eh...you won't have time to play house and keep adventuring. I'd say "retire" some PCs to take care of the dragons, and have those players make new ones, OR let a trusted NPC or NPCs take care of them for you.

Alignment = Nature
Or at least the two are very closely intertwined

So assuming that it is possible to raise a dragon against it's alignment, what would the major hurdles be to overcome? The greed? The arrogance? I have a hard time picturing how wyrmling dragons would act.

Well, the mother is certainly dead, but the father left after mating, (inb4 "oh I see, BLACK dragon!") since the mother didn't tolerate other dragons in her territory.

200 years later the dragon finally matures. He's still evil, naturally, but his time with humans made him associate them with home and warm fuzzy feelings. Now, instead of raiding human kingdoms, slaughtering their livestock and women and children and hoarding all the material wealth, it targets gnomes and orcs instead. Or whatever doesn't look like human enough.

Alignment follows nature. If the alignment is going to change it needs to reinterpret the nature that's already there. And even the most good dragon is very far from fascile and kind, so a black acting off alignment is still going to be an incredibly dangerous thing.

>if the Wizard isn't total shit at raising children

I'd suggest finding the draconomicon and giving it a read, you'll have lots of ideas.

You need to collect child support from the father if you're going to be raising dem kids.

Are any of them girls?

The spiteful destruction of his "people's" enemies would be endearing AND would create drama since he'd alienate rival kingdoms and enemy clans in a big way

Thanks, I'll give it a go.

3 males, 2 females

Good. With a proper upbringing and instruction, your dragon maidens will make fine (albeit a bit possessive) waifus.

I personally wouldn't attempt to wait any dragon that wasn't a silver or song dragon.

>wait
*waifu
Learn my weeaboo already you goddamn phone.

>How would Veeky Forums make this into an interesting story?

Unless your game takes place over the course of several years, or even decades, then it probably can't be made into one.

>nurture will NOT beat nature

Meepo would like a word with you. He's literally made it his job to raise chromatic hatchlings so that they don't grow up evil, and in DragonDown Grotto, he's succeeded with at least one young dragon. A black one, even.

Where is the party now?
And what about the party members themselves?

Then you're really going to miss out on all that the rest have to offer

>A black one, even.
Curious what the personality is like on that one.

Maybe, but I'll live to regret it.

Exactly. If you're going to use alignment anyways, be creative - it's not a straitjacket, and literally nothing about any alignment forces you to be completely at odds with civilization. Good people can be friendless hermits and Evil people can be the life of the party and have meaningful relationships.

You can have a Lawful Good hermit who hates people and lives an ascetic lifestyle in the desert. He hates the hubris of commoners, and aristocrats, and he's probably terse and not particularly well-spoken - but he'll give aid to anyone in need, and when it comes down to the last fight between forces of good and evil he's the best man to have at your back.

And you can have an evil aristocrat who is generous among his friends, passionately loves his wife, but absolutely ruthless to his enemies. He could be the type of a guy who would go to any length to free his friends from prison even if he knew 110% that they did exactly what they're being accused of. Sure, they burnt down an orphanage with all the kids inside, raped a nun, it's all good fun - but they're my friends and fuck everyone else.

I'd imagine an evil dragon who likes you would be a lot like that hypothetical aristocrat.

Dragons are born self-aware and aware of their place in the world. You might as well try to turn a gold wyrm into an antipaladin.

The party is still in the jungle lands where they fought the lizardfolk. Their next step will probably be to try and hunt down the Yuan-ti that were responsible for the whole mess in the first place.
I'm borrowing a lot from the Elder Evils splatbook in that the big bad will (likely) be Sertrous.
The party consists of a Wizard with a short temper and delusions of grandeur, an overly friendly goliath bear warrior who kicks all kinds of ass, a scythe-wielding fighter chick with attitude, a swordsage wisecracker and a cringeworthy bard. All of them have taken it upon themselves to play godfather to one of the wyrmlings.

I've always wanted to make one of these.

Have you really lived if you haven't even sodomized a cute black dragon girl?