Greetings, fellow DMs - I wish to confront my thoughts about something that, while reading this excellent AP, has started to bother me a bit about two of the three dragons of the region of Kintargo.
While the shadow dragon Ithanothaur is an fashinating creature in his uniqueness (a CN Umbral dragon with the pc's can talk and potentially properly bribe), the blue dragon Rivozair and the red Adrakash are giving me a few thoughts of confusion.
The former is the most perplexing to me, since Rivozair is a blue dragon whose actions don't match, at least to me, with the typical blue dragon mindset.
1) First and foremost, she's a blue dragon in a region with no deserts or dry areas that my be of her enjoyment. While i really like the pathfinder version of blue dragons estetically - and we got some awesome artwork for Rivozair - one does wonder why an adult blue dragon chooses to live for a few decade on an uncharted island in the middle of the Dismal Nitch. I fail to see how can she enjoy herself by laying low in such a place, but i can understand the desire to simply lay low for a few generations, allowing time to make people forget of her failures. Was she so much umiliated by the ravens? However ...
2) Rivozair is an adult blue dragon, so she's got between 100 and 200 years. As such, she was probably barely an adult when se tried to "menace" (i believe she was trying to conquer/get tribute from) Kintargo. The mindset i've expressed is more akin to an older dragon, since those have already outlived even the most long lived races. I've the impression she should be a bit older, at least of Ithanothaur's age, but she was "de-aged" to grant the pc a more fair fight.
3) As a blue dragon, Rivozair's lacks a bit of agency. Since she's the "dragon" of someone else, we don't see any plan of her being conducted while gaining access to Kintargo. While this could be due to Barzillai's will, i've noted how a few other of his entourage seem to have more agency and interests, while Rivozair seems fine to just pillaging and read for her new magical book. Which is fine, but very "un blue like", at least by my standards.
Adrakash is less perplexing, since he's older and a red one, which to me are like living disasters, sleeping a lot and waiting a reason to simply wake up and consume the world in fire. However, having an old red dragon actively guarding a "secret underground shrine" a few hundred meters under a mayor city and never popping his head out to spread his wings seems a bit "convenient"
All of these thoughts lend me to believe that Rivozair would have been more interesting as an older dragon, and from a different species. I think a devilbound old brine dragon (CR 15) could have been way more thematic had have made his presence felt more throught the AP by having the various sea creatures the ravens have encountered know and fear her.
However, I've another idea that could be interesting, and that i wish to propose to you: having a returning Adrakash taking Rivozair's place in the lore of Kintargo's history, and have the silver ravens fight Adrakash with the (possibly secret) assistance of another dragon (Rivozair could have been an old brine dragon bribed or an heroic young bronze dragon). Wounded and humiliated for a second time, Adrakash would have fled underground, plotting revenge, but be founded by Nasperiah, with offered healing and asylum to the creature in exchange for a period of service. Then this Rivozair would have drifted away from the ravens (but her hipothetical corruption is something for another post).
What do you think of my impression of these two dragons? Have you expanded the background of Adrakash and Rivozair in some way?
You need to spread out the dragons for the combats to be interesting, just like anything else, but it's especially important in an AP with a lot of humanoid encounters. These dragon encounters should be savored. So, there needs to be a spread of CRs to this modification.
The other consideration is that Rivozair is a key minion of Thrune, so when book 4 comes along it makes the most sense to deal with that dragon then. The CR probably needs to be in that module's range of appropriateness for the heroes.
I wrote out a similar post on the GM thread but it was sadly eaten when I accidentally pushed the cancel button.
Full disclaimer, Rivozair is one of my favorite parts of Hell's Rebels and I think her foreshadowing is one of the many areas the AP really shines.
Also, this is your game, your table, your players. You know your home game best. But here's my two CP:
Personally, I don't think you need to change Rivozair. Maybe flesh out her motivations and backstory. Firstly, Dragons do serve other powers stronger than themselves. And the bestiary description is for the average member of their race, I wouldn't worry about Rivozair's environment and behavior not entirely matching up with the usual blue dragon deserts and scheming.
After all, she's a dragon in league with the church of Asmodeus. I can't imagine that's all that common. She laid low to nurse her wounds and ego, probably opening the door to Barzillai's literal devil's bargain. Plus of all the dragons likely to retreat, hide, and plot revenge, I think a blue is top of the list.
That said, I love brine dragons. I just don't think it fits here.
I'm making Rivozair a mature adult at least, possibly older. And giving her both her lightning breath in addition to hellfire. But even then I'm not sure if she'll really challenge my players.
I'm planning on only running the AP to book 4,so my PC's will probably not get to see more than one dragon.
The other two dragons are interesting because they have basically no foreshadowing and little chance the PC's will know anything about them before they encounter them. That said, I really like Ithanothaur and Adrakash as explorations of alternate dragon encounters.
What other types of dragons might be found in Ravounel? We know that there's a bronze dragon near Conqueror's Bay (c.f. Dance of the Damned, p. 83), in addition to the dragons of the module (Adrakash, Rivozair, Ithanothaur). I think that's a teasing reference to the bronze dragon in the optional random encounters of No Response from Deepmar.
Would there be a green one in Ravounel forest?
Brine dragons in the ocean's coasts?
Anything in the Menador Mountains?