Campaign Concept: Dragons' Claw

What Are We Making?

This post relates partially to my original sestina-esque poem "Dragons' Claw" which is also published on this blog. If you haven't read it yet, I'd highly suggest it. It was a joy to write, and also super fun to create little fantastical vignettes about dragons.

What I'm looking to do in this post is take those vignettes, and make some kind of campaign concept surrounding them. Let's see what we can do!

The Setting

For this idea, we definitely want a high fantasy setting. I also want the poem itself to be "canon" in the world; I want it to be part of the world's lore. This is a poem or song of some kind about something that happened hundreds or even thousands of years ago. It's a series of stories that most people would know, or if they didn't know the stories, they'd know that they exist. 

There are six dragons - blue, green, white, black, red, and gold - mentioned in the poem. Bear in mind that these dragons do not have to have the same traits or characteristics as their counterparts in the Monster Manuel. This game is all about creativity. Can these dragons be played that way? Of course, but they can also be played in an entirely different one. 

Let's make six kingdoms, all on one continent, and that will be where our campaign takes place: across those six kingdoms. Are there other kingdoms and continents? There could be, but they're not necessarily relevant to this particular story unless the DM wants to mention them in passing or create a larger world to be used later on. I'm going to name each of the kingdoms, loosely based on the color of the dragon that the kingdoms are associated with.

- Alabaster: The northern-most kingdom, where the story about the white dragon takes place. An elven mage and advisor to the king brought his liege and a small party on a hunting trip to try and kill the dragon. The elf made a deal with the dragon, who killed the king and his hunting party. The elf became king and now feeds the dragon every day to make sure his kingdom isn't destroyed.

- Carmine: The kingdom in which the red dragon resided and destroyed several cities. One city was destroyed at the behest of a gnomish man, who wished for the dragon to kill a local tyrant. The dragon warned him that "he traded tyrant for tyrant" but the gnome insisted.

- Ebony: This kingdom was destroyed by a female black dragon after her mate was killed. She left one survivor: the kingdom's princess, who had been "held captive" by the male black dragon.

- Gilden: The gold dragon that resided in this area was approached by a prince who wanted the dragon's scales. The dragon swapped bodies with the prince, and went on to rule in the prince's stead. He sent a knight to kill the prince, still in the body of a dragon. However, the prince returned to his kingdom as a dragon and killed the dragon king to reclaim his crown.

- Verdant: This kingdom is probably the most "magic-based" and definitely has a portal to the Feywild in it. A knight of the Summer Fey Court slayed a green dragon and stole ancient arcane tomes from its hoard. She brought them to the Fey King, who went mad with power and became a tyrant. She killed him, and then herself. 

- Azure: This is the southern-most kingdom. The "half-devil" hero here is probably a tiefling. He was sent to kill a blue dragon and bring the large horn on the nose back to his king. Instead, the dragon came to the king with the tiefling's horns in its claws after the tiefling tried and failed to swipe some gold from the dragon.

The Plot

At large, the plot can be almost anything that requires the party to travel to each of the six kingdoms. My first thought was that maybe a researcher from another continent wants relics that they've heard about from the infamous historical poem "Dragons' Claw." They want to know if the poem is true and if it is, if there are any relics left over. Maybe there are other texts that they've read that have some accounts about interesting weapons that the heroes or kings had in their possession. The party is hired to travel around and locate as much information and as many relics as possible.

There's a social and intellectual aspect to this game; the party will have to research what really happened in each kingdom they go to. Obviously, Alabaster is going to know more about the relationship between the elven king and the white dragon than Gilden or Carmine would. Go to libraries. Talk to townspeople. Find out what was important to the larger story. Try to find multiple perspectives. The poem itself is rather vague, isn't it? Doesn't it leave a couple questions unanswered? Like:

- What did the blue dragon do once it gave the tiefling's horns back to the king? Did it destroy the city? Did it just go home? Did it strike a deal with the king?

- Where did the green dragon's arcane tomes end up? Who has them? Are they being used at the moment?

- Elves live for a long time. Is the elven king of Alabaster still feeding that dragon? Are his children? Was he overthrown when the poem came to light, and was Alabaster destroyed shortly thereafter, only to be rebuilt later?

- What happened to the princess after Ebony was destroyed? Why was she "kidnapped" in the first place? Is this Stockholm Syndrome? What happened to the kingdom? Who rebuilt it? Has it fully recovered yet, or not? If not, why not?

- Is the red dragon in Carmine still a problem? Does it still destroy cities and live in their ruins? Do the people know it does and choose to ignore it?

- How did the golden dragon perform that body swap? Did the prince get his body back, or was he stuck as a dragon forever?

Questions like these allow for DMs to play with different plot ideas and hooks. If it were me, I'd have my players start in Azure, and work their way north. They'd look for relics for this researcher.

- Azure has the players hunting for the tiefling's horns, or maybe something that he had and left in the dragon's hoard when he died.

- In Verdant, they're looking for the tomes, or maybe for the sword used to kill the Fey King. Hell, they could even look for the Crown of the Fey King (cool magic item right there.)

- Gilden is a little hard to say, just because the ending is ambiguous in terms of who's a dragon and who's not anymore. I'd say a crown or even some golden scales would suffice here.

- The swamps of Ebony hide the princess's diary, where she recorded everything that happened with the black dragon she allegedly loved and/or cared for in some capacity. She is also described as a "warrior princess" so maybe a weapon of hers could be recovered.

- Carmine has the players searching for the red dragon's hoard, or even for something from the tyrant(s) it has killed.

- Alabaster is interesting because it can, like Gilden, also be interpreted many ways. Maybe the elven king is only just now dying, and the party needs to parlay with a white dragon. Maybe they need to convince the new king to keep up with the feeding schedule. They could get the elf's spellbook, (he was a mage, remember) his crown, something from the late king, or even something from the king's hunting party.

Once they have all the relics, have the researcher be the BBEG! He's actually gathering all these things in an effort to harness the power of dragons from history. Why? If you really want to tie in the theme of greed from the poem, the researcher's motivation could be that he's hungry for power. He wants to be as strong as the dragons of old.

To really tie this in, have magic be able to imbue itself into items of great historical significance. This is a homebrew world, so anything is possible. In their mini research quests, this could be something the players discover about magic. Maybe that makes them suspicious of their patron. At the end, they fight him and save the continent from being totally wiped out by the might of the dragons' claws.  If the players were kind to the other remaining dragons, maybe those dragons can come to help them fight! If the players, too, were greedy, then maybe this fight will be harder or maybe the dragons won't help.

I think that there are a lot of possibilities here, and a lot of potential. Feel free to use this concept - or build upon it - in your next campaign!