How do I describe an angry dragon? (The players killed his wife and children.)

How do I describe an angry dragon? (The players killed his wife and children.)

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Are they directly in front of him or is he some indeterminate distance away? Where are they? When does he learn about this? Time, location, and distance from target are all important in choosing what's impactful for your players.

In addition to , what sort of abilities does the Dragon have and are they more the "Feral-cunning beast" sort or the "Intelligent creature" kind?

Also, I mean, if AD&D 2E I could see them just Polymorph, Other-ing the party members one by one until they've replaced their lost family.

You can't just have the dragon announce how he feels all the time, that makes me angry!

>The dragon approaches you, quietly.
>His eyes gaze upon the ground before him, they look almost glossy and lifeless
>He stops a few feet from you, his hands claspsed together in front of him
>He doesn't look at you, but he asks you if you enjoyed killing his wife and her son
>As you go to answer, his arm quickly shoots up
>The last thing you see is the barrel of a gun and a flash of light

Not in front of him. A day trip away in a village. About a day after the player who killed the dragon. The dragons are more like (very) intelligent animals.

Literally throw a handful of d6 at the players, they'll get the point.

You know what? I think it's better if he doesn't look or behave angry. Would you be actively angry at a rabid dog who killed your child? No, because you realise that it's just a stupid animal and it didn't know any better. You might still want to put it down to prevent this from happening in the future, but you'd rather be angry at yourself for not paying more attention to the kid.

>AD&D 2E I could see them just Polymorph, Other-ing the party members one by one until they've replaced their lost family.
I doubt he's going to polymorph them to get his lost family back. I would more likely see him polymorphing/self change into a person, find the parties family, and then burn/freeze/melt/electrify/etc the whole area. Killing not only the family, but friends, and everyone living in the area.

If he's not right in view at the moment but could show up in the next few moments, or e en a much later time, just intro him with "And then the sky burned." From there you run him as raw, bestial, elemental rage roaring down from clouds of blistering smoke, a meteor of hellish radiance hammering the earth amid the party, an epicenter of pyroclastic wrath. There is no "dragon" nor beast, nor creature, there is only hate.

Well, his family was wiped out for puny humans. Seeing how even a dragon whelp is a threat for entire villages he should be ashamed.

Anyway make him go like 'you bastards' before your party slew him too.

Do reptiles care about their children?

>DrAgg0n72: DUDE WTF
>DrAgg0n72: THAT WAS MY FAMILY
>Pr4seTehSON: lol oops
>r0gueb0i1963: dam dood u got fukt lal
>DrAgg0n72: U FUCKIN PEACE OF SHIT
>xXxFiGhTeRxXx: u mad
>DrAgg0n72: U R DAM RIGHT IM MAD
>DrAgg0n72: IM GOING TO FIND YOUR FAMILYS AND BURN THEM TO THE GROUND
>r0gueb0i1963: lol ok my bro is a cheap pece of shit ud b dewin me a favor senpaitachi xD
>*DrAgg0n72 has left the channel
>WizardChanOP: and I thought I was the biggest faggot here.

This desu.

In dragons cucking for example is common.

Top kek.

>dragon, you dare show us your back?
>who are you? Face us!
>*slowly turns around*
>my name is maximus draconius meridius
>scourge of the northern wastes, and servant to the true master Alduin
>father to a murdered son
>husband to a murdered wife
>and I will have my vengeance, in this campaign or the next

mfw i just cast disintegrate and 1 shot the piece of shit anyway

>in this campaign or the next
Holy shit, a dragon that can break the 4th wall. What kind of abomination is this!?!

Describe him hurtling towards the player, not looking or acting like a dragon but instead resembling a massive, breathing ball of flame and justified rage, so hot it scorches anything within a mile of it.

That should convey to your players how fucked they are.

I'd be pretty fucking pissed at the dog, can't speak for anyone else though.

>mfw the disintegrate does nothing because the spell didn't get through the magical resistance.
>mfw I burn the whole party into ashes
Git gud.

Best new one.

some do, but reptiles don't stay children for long

>Gladiator reference

Later that evening...
>DrAgg0n72: hey shebold, hey wizchan
>DrAgg0n72: hey u there shebold?
>DrAgg0n72: *nuzzles*
>DrAgg0n72: Shebold? u afk?
>DrAgg0n72: bae i can see u on steam cmon man
>Shebold: Hon Im Sorry I Just Need Some Space Ok?
>*Shebold has disconnected.
>DrAgg0n72: thats ok *winks* let me kn
>DrAgg0n72: *sighs*
>*DrAgg0n72 has disconnected.
>WizardChanOP: im a faggot and i am disgusted by this

>yfw you failed to realize that it wasnt just a single ray but a dualcasted ocular multistrike splitting ray maximized and second swift casted followed by a greater celerity second clone of the same thing
Enjoy your 4d6 you turbofag.

What? Flying fucksticks, this is why I stayed with 1e. Fucking 3e crazy bullshit.
Also
>4d6 damage
>on dragon older then sub adult
Have my kekkles and shekkles user, because that ain't going to do shit.

Alrighty there Ahab.

how do dragons behave in your setting?
are they wild beasts or intelligent creatures?
in what way do they interact with the other races and do they care about the point of view of said races?

depending on the answer you'll simply have him act differently:
an usually efficient predator may turn into a hurricane of unnecessary violence towards everything that sorrounds it; on the other hand an often interactive thinking being may decide to go for the most direct and metaphorically silent way for vengeance

>It's near midnight
>party is in the tavern, drinking, relaxing, living it up, congratulating themselves on a quest well-completed
>tableware rattles lightly
>plates, cups, other small objects around the room continue clattering
>vibration builds, something rolls and tips off a shelf
>the whole building is shaking now
>there's a noise in the air, almost too low to hear
>noise builds on itself
>over thirty seconds it grows into a full fledged roar
>grows and grows until the party can't even hear themselves think
>windows shatter, people are screaming, animals are freaking out
>earth is beginning to undulate underneath the party
>party rushes outside to avoid the building collapse
>the church's bell is ringing like a lunatic is at the cord even though the church is dark and empty
>there's a black shadow devouring the stars over the west horizon
>it settles on the peak of the tallest mountain in the western range like an inkblot
>fire erupts from its mouth, cascading over the entire mountain slope
>the dragon is still roaring
>this continues on for some minutes
>the less-stable buildings in the village collapse
>the bell snaps itself from its holdings and topples out the tower, falling into the church's stone steps with a ringing crash
>the jet of flame ceases, the roar cuts off like it was terminated with a butcher's cleaver, though its echoes still ring off the mountains
>the inkblot takes flight again and dives beneath the edge of the visible world
>the entire western horizon is burning

I dunno how big or powerful your dragon actually is, so I guess adjust to taste.

No, the 4d6 to roll another character...
Also if you're 1e I just summon WotC to come drag you away in shackles.

At that level of That's about 15360 damage, assuming all rays connect. 240 points per ray, 64 rays. The save DC on that is at bare minimum 33.

Could be worse. They could have fucked them.

>Also if you're 1e I just summon WotC to come drag you away in shackles.
Yeah no. I'll stay with my old TSR and 3d6 rolls to make characters. Rude people like you are the reason as to why I never played any of newer editions.
Thus why I don't play 3e. I like it when my saving throws simple like BW 11, which means if I got hit with a breath weapon, I need a 11 or higher to save.

"Fuming" is generally a good way to start

>the dragon goes rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

What? 3e simplified it into three save types: Fortitude, Reflex and Will. It's simpler than 1e, and all you have to do is roll a 33 or higher on fort saves sixty four times. That's all.

I'm not trying to be rude either, but your children were merely accidental casualties of a high-stakes friendly duel between me and another fellow wizard.

Also
>15360 damage
Can't have instant death spells such as symbol of death or finger or death. Got to have some fancy dualcasted ocular multistrike splitting ray maximized and second swift casted followed by a greater celerity second clone of the same thing. God dam, someone made my wizards into Dragonball Z characters.

most serious shit have immunity to death effects. You have to get creative.

I polity disagree, I find 1e more simple then 3e. However, that's me and you are you. Maybe because I was raised on 1e and never felt the need to move to a newer edition, well that and "Also if you're 1e I just summon WotC to come drag you away in shackles". I know this is Veeky Forums, but sheet mang, no reason to go that far.

I prefer to think of myself as being thoroughly efficient. Saves for every ray, and even if you do save you still take massive damage and get to roll a fortitude save to not die instantly from all the damage anyway.

I could always just switch out disintegrate for Enervate and say "Fuck you. You take 40 negative levels with NO save." in one round.

This, pretty much. Failing that I can just hurl a planet at you and deal several billion points of "falling" damage.

I apologize then.

It's ok. People have editions they like and editions they dislike. We're going to disagree on somethings, but the big thing is that if everyone's having fun then it's ok. I like my dungeon crawls and high lethality, and you like blowing the living shit out of things with super powered rays (which by the way, I can see the appeal of doing that much damage that quickly).

Make it become Hydra-like. Hatred permeates its whole body, tissues regenerate into forms tailored to combat, drops of blood and cut appendages transform into some kind of The Thing-like monsters fixated solely on giving Players slow and painful death.
After a while what they're fighting will become an eldrich abomination embodying grudge.

Hope this is not too edgy.

And they defeat it by teaching him the meaning of love.

Same way you describe a regular dragon, duh

>How do I describe an angry dragon?

Make it a college feminist.

>the dragon is majoring in social science and is enrolled in Columbia U. The rage of losing it's children is nothing compared to hearing someone assume someone else's gender.

it's an ANGRY dragon.

A horrible, angry, ancient reptilian beast from a time before the gods themselves wants it's revenge.
It will not rest until it has killed you all.
It will not rest even if it has destroyed the world in a storm of rage and grief.
You must kill it, before it kills us all.

The dragon becomes obsessed with burning every (Insert race of player characters here) infestation he can find, but leaves the ones other dragons own alone.

...

An angry Dragon should be more akin to a natural disaster like a mighty storm, an earthquake, a Volcano than a living thing. The only real difference is that the Dragon has a target in mind, and is more than clever enough to find it.

Pic related would be a good after effect, provided it is a suitably old/powerful dragon.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=qGaqFK1FMfs

It starts of slowly, in small ways. At first, nobody knows what is really going on. All the towns the party has ever been to are having major problems. Caravans disappear, livestock vanish (along with the shepherds watching them). Then, things get serious, quickly. Crops are being burned, small villages are being set ablaze, ponds and lakes used for water are being filled with dead animals and large amounts of dung.

The strangest thing, though? Nothing is being taken. Gold, silver, and other treasures are being burned and melted with everything else, so it takes a while for people to figure out that a dragon is involved.

Then comes the ultimatum.

>I have burned your homes
>I have eaten your cattle
>I have burned your crops
>Your roads are not safe
>Your water has been fouled
>You will not find me. I have abandoned my lair, and am constantly on the move. Try to stop me, and I will make things worse, and you know full well I can.
>There is only one way to stop me
>My mate has been slain. My children, mere hatchlings, slain, dead before their time. All of your folk will know my anger. Unless.
>Unless the ones responsible are delivered to me. Unless they are made to pay for their crime. Until then, I will continue to make this kingdom burn.

There are sudden, completely unexplained losses of communication with settlements.
The first ones are the ones around the "lair".
Then they begin to be random, unanticipated.
People have sent out messengers, none returned.
These disappearances begin to happen to cities where the friends/family of the players reside.
If the players travel there, they find pure obliteration, nothing is standing, the sky is filled with soot, the ground is black, the bones of the civilians carpet the ground. If this settlement contains a friend/family member, the bones are piled into a hill. The players then climb the hill to find the barely identifiable corpse of said friend/family member, crucified, tortured, mutilated. If it was recent, they could still be alive, and die when taken down. These events start following your group around, any settlement anyone spends more then a minute in, gets obliterated soon after you leave. You are blamed for these events, and are violently barred from all settlements.
Eventually, the dragon starts picking off players one by one, then torturing them to death over several days, then dumping the corpse in the middle of the party as they sleep.
Eventually, over several years, it kills all but one. It then attacks that character over the course of several days, making him/her fight near constantly at the most inconvenient times.
Then, when they have finally collapsed in submission, it finally reveals itself, and burns the character to death...slowly.
Dragons are powerful and wise, they will take their time, but they will make you truly know despair. (assuming it is powerful enough to do this)

Describe it as you would any other dragon, then it flips a table.

I like this. If OP doesn't use this description, I sure as fuck will.

>The dragon looks mad

That's all you need. Let your players fill in the blanks.