One of my favorite types of monsters in any fantasy based RPG are dragons. They're a ton of fun to fight and GM.
What are your favorite types of dragons to use and why? Also, what are some of your best dragon stories as a player or a GM?
Due to a life-force transference ritual he preformed from time to time with his followers, he could live forever. He was eventually "killed" by an order of holy warriors, but he had a contingency in place to keep him alive in the case that his body would be defeated in battle (he would eventually regenerated unless a specific spell was cast on him when he was close to death).
Over twenty years after that, Ataceon had returned to life and was secretly gaining power and wanted revenge on the order that took him down. This is where the party came in. We played a year-long campaign of them learning of the threat, gaining allies, hunting cultists, speaking with or fighting other dragons, and finding the spell that would kill Ataceon forever.
Due to choices the players made, the end fight could have been with a weakened or full-powered Ataceon, and they got the full powered version of his stat block.
It was a crazy, long, and difficult fight. And they had three ways of ending the campaign. Success: where they party wore the dragon down in health, used the spell, and killed his body, thus ending the dragon god forever. Failure: TPK. Or Bittersweet: They kill the body again, but don't expel the man's soul, meaning he will eventually come back again.
The players knew before going into it that the campaign could end in TPK, and it almost did, due to the one holding the scroll with the spell on it dying. However some luck and careful planing, they ended up with the bittersweet ending. They technically had a fail and a win. They killed the body of the dragon, but didn't expel the soul, so he will one day return. But there's hope, the order has the spell and can prepare for the next time the dragon shows up and can destroy him again.
This campaign had a lot of dragons in it (besides Ataceon), and it ended up being a huge success. There were some awesome things that happened all throughout the story, both good and bad. The players still talk about how much fun that campaign was to this day.
That's my favorite dragon story so far!
I also think time dragons are cool. I want to use one sometime.
What's your favorite dragons/dragon story?
From an an Arduin Grimoire convention game, way back when.
The party is being shaken down by a dragon whose territory we had to cross.
Speaking to the dragon, "I think you are failing to understand your current situation. We have no disagreement with you at this point, and we do have disagreements with your rivals. You are a Dragon, you have the power and potential to live for thousands of years. We are Adventurers, unlikely to live long lives. We are unpredictable, however, and are often luckier than we have any right to be."
The Dragon, unimpressed, draws in a great breath.
Faster, the speaker let's fly her best arrow. Double 10's, a critical hit; following percentile roll goes to brain penetrated, die instantly.
Even further off topic, my absolute favorite dragon story was RA McAvoy's "Tea with a Black Dragon".