Save the dragon side quest (Spoilers)

[Br1ckmc]

Hey all, so my players over the course of Burnt Offerings, picked up a very peculiar companion, namely a Wyrmling Red Dragon the Kobold Rogue summoned by a Deck of Minor Things (https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?541216-A-Deck-of-Minor-Things). For now, this dragon (henceforth known as Tilbym), is under my control. the party has just defeated Nualia and are delving deeper into Thistletop while Tilbym guards Orik and Lyrie up on the surface.

I'm thinking I want to give Tilbym a reason to change alignment and put him under our Rogue's control. My current thoughts are to have a band of Half-Orcs abduct Tilbym, alongside Orik and Lyrie, as well as the treasure hoard my players have left up there.

My question is, what sort of encounter would you recommend for these Half-orcs? I currently have a sample put together of a CR9 Encounter (Which could hypothetically be split up into smaller chunks) and I'm unsure if this is too difficult for my party (5 people at level 4), and would anyone have a good idea on how to perhaps tie this into the Adventure Path as a whole? (Perhaps something to do with the Skinsaw Cult?)

[mousmous]

Do the characters in the party have any backstories that could be used to create links?

[Br1ckmc]

When creating characters, no-one made a backstory for their characters (My group isn't the strongest in roleplay) so I gave them all very rough reasons to be in Sandpoint, but they do not have backstories that I could use.

[mousmous]

That makes it harder... any number of nefarious groups would love to get their hands on a wyrmling, I bet. The skinsaw might, if Xanesha learned of it and directed it to happen. More likely would be a group from Sandpoint, like the Sczarni. They could have connections linking them to your half-orcs and to Mokmurian and he could be looking to add to his collection of draconian pets. The Scarnetti family might also be willing to set something like this up for the right price.

If things go poorly and your bad guys get away with the wyrmling- Mokmurian being the buyer would give you a place to insert it into the AP at a later time.

[Br1ckmc]

That's a very cool idea. Having the Sczarni sell it off to Mokmurian is definitely going to be my go to plan should the heroes fail. And the encounter being to get the Wyrmling away allows me to use Higher CR enemies that would maybe be too difficult just purely set to kill the party.

Thanks for the help :)