Last time, the group gathered at the top of the Kallett Mountains to search for the title of the sound dragon. They investigated an inscribed stone but came up with little results. Then a detective named Regg appeared and questioned the group about their presence in the area, which eventually resulted in Regg threatening Aurora and stating that she'd been hired by Pelor's Mercy to bring Aurora back, accusing her of murdering the two men sent to find her. Combat raged, and the group killed Regg, her twin trained mountain lions, and a tamed bulette. While Brokk built a funeral pyre for Regg, Lethanin figured out the inscription and became the sound dragon, breathing fire onto the pyre.
This time, the group addressed priorities and decided that reconvening with the dragons was their next best move. Aurora contacted Aurix and requested he bring the dragons back together, and everyone met in Aurix's halls to discuss the matters at hand. One by one, the dragons appeared, each one trading updates since they'd last seen the group. Lethanin explained that he'd become the sound dragon and what the elemental dragons were. Aurora told of the battle with Regg and the bounty that had been placed on her head. Brokk explained the meeting with Boccob and the strange nature of the universe. Wing asked what to make of the recovered dragon titles, and there was no consensus. Niela voiced discomfort with how willing to make big decisions for all of reality the trio seemed, which Brokk was amenable to. Each dragon shared their new understanding: Aurix was excited at the prospect of more dragons and content at Regg's death; Wing marveled at the nature of the universe and Boccob; Hriskin shared that she was intensely interested in fighting the other chromatic dragons; Rupert counseled for support for new dragons should that approach be taken; Jarvia said that it was good Regg and the Daltoners had been foiled from taking Aurora; Niela was grateful for agency again but feared what might happen without cautious planning for what came next.
Out of game, this was a really difficult scene to play as the DM. At first, one by one, I needed to have in-character, plot-relevant input from each dragon before hearing the news, and then I needed to give a voice to all six dragons during a complicated philosophical discussion. That means that in real time, I needed to process the thoughts, feelings, and morals of six major NPCs at once. Many DMs will encounter this issue--it's complicated and challenging no matter your level. That said, I am really happy with how it played out. Each dragon felt in-character and substantial (a common solution to this problem is for the NPCs to be brief in their speech). And I think that the reason for that ultimate comes down to pre-campaign brainstorming. Between literal years of thinking about these dragons, concerted effort to establish their personalities, and getting to play each one in weighty scenes, I had a lot of preparation for this situation. With each dragon having plenty to say, I was jumping between characters quickly and often, and as frantic as it was, my players tell me that the scene went very well.
Brokk then raised a new point of conversation: killing Thomas. He mentioned that he had interest in the red dragon mantle, and he apologized preemptively to the dragons who had issues with Thomas--the dragons noted they would rather have Brokk than Thomas. Aurora agreed that Thomas needed to be dealt with; she also said she wanted to form a pact among the dragons to never tell anyone of the unclaimed dragon mantles, adding that she wanted to become a dragon but otherwise prevent new dragons from emerging. This complicated pact caused some confusion amongst the group. A simpler vote was raised: who supported killing Thomas? The vote was unanimous. Aurora offered another convoluted proposal, suggesting forming a dragon-run organization to maintain good forces in the world and foster new and growing dragons. There were many objections to her proposal. Some objected to the broadness of the proposal, and some (notably Niela and Jarvia) were very resistant to the idea of working together with the other dragons. Jarvia even went so far as to point out that working to maintain good with a group of solitary people would approach the impediments to free will that they'd fought to correct. Aurora countered by suggesting a looser council to simply hear out issues that face the world, and while most dragons were mildly supportive or neutral, Niela and Jarvia were outright dismissive of the plan, arguing that secrecy and solitude was vital to them. Aurora explained that she only wanted avenues for communication, and the conversation more or less ended there.
This scene was oddly one of the more pivotal moments in the campaign. Aurora was, in this moment, a lot for forceful and focused than she normally was, and her collection of proposals paired with the suggestion she become a dragon but no one else could left the others (especially Brokk) uncomfortable or even suspicious of Aurora. After the game was over, Brokk and Aurora's players both approached me to talk about this fairly transparent grab for power. Aurora's player was giddy that she'd finally gotten to reveal one of her chosen flaws: power hungry. And I must admit, this was the perfect time for that detail to come out. Brokk's player was split between an in-game wariness and an out-of-game respect for Aurora's player's handling of the situation. (Lethanin's player generally doesn't communicate much about the game outside of the game, but I'm confident they would have a similar response.) I know that the gravity and nuance of this doesn't exactly sound very dramatic or monumental--part of that is the loss of subtle things after the moment--but I assure you, given the context, it was quite massive. Aurora, the character who everyone calls "kid," who's been spoken about as the heart of the group, who has always seemed a soft and gentle character, called for the organized killing of a dragon, her ascension to dragonhood, and a blanket ban on future dragons--that's the character moment that had us all so abuzz. It really changed the tenor of the rest of the session.
At this point, the dragons split up to discuss things in smaller groups. Brokk asked Niela a few questions about life as a chromatic dragon--she said that with agency, a chromatic dragon and a metallic dragon are only really different in terms of who gave them the mantle. Lethanin asked Rupert a series of questions about life as a new dragon, and Rupert explained a few things like how to transform into dragon form and other basics. Aurora, interested in entering the Fae realm to find the Fae dragon mantle, asked Jarvia about transportation to other planes; she shared that it was possible and would help if she could. The matter of Thomas again became the focal point, and the group began to plan. Niela said that Thomas suspected the metallic dragons were moving against him, and the element of surprise may be difficult to obtain. Lethanin asked whether they needed to worry about Horton, the blue dragon, from coming to Thomas's aid--Hriskin chuckled and argued that two dragons versus six dragons and three cosmic heroes was no match at all. Aurora suggested revoking Thomas's dragonhood to make the fight less risky, but Aurix said such a thing was fundamentally nearly impossible, and when Aurora suggested transferring it to Brokk, Aurix said that bestowing dragonhood with a living dragon is like trying to light a candle that's already lit--it couldn't be done.
The group's plans began to become more abstract and elaborate. Aurora, undeterred by Aurix's concerns about Thomas's dragonhood, used a spell to divine the location of the red dragon mantle stone, and she saw a metamorphic obelisk with draconic inscriptions hidden amongst a large and elaborate altar to Moradin, and she could tell from the surroundings that the altar was in Thomas's house. Niela offered to track Thomas the following day, and Brokk countered that Niela could (if willing) serve as bait to lure Thomas into an ambush. But Brokk immediately overrode himself, saying that if Niela told Thomas about Regg's death, he would almost certainly emerge to investigate. This last plan got support from the dragons at large, including Niela, and everyone agreed to rest and prepare before reconvening in the morning. Lethanin privately pondered the situation and played music idly, trying not to think too hard about things. A message from Lethanin's mother arrived in his head, asking about Lethanin's recent step into the realm of the religion (a story Lethanin had given her to placate her, joking about their interactions with the gods before meeting with Boccob. Lethanin's response was brief and cryptic, continuing to evade direct communication with her. Before resting to regain her magical energy, Aurora used the last of her power to create a contigency spell on a simple rock: when the stone would come within ten feet of Thomas, it would block his ability to magically travel, keeping him from escaping the ambush. Brokk spoke casually with the dragons, performed a battle meditation and pondered what good really is (the distinction between good and right was crucial in this), and headed to bed--he was stopped by Jarvia, who asked Brokk to keep an eye on Aurora, as Aurora's hunger for power had struck Jarvia was unsettling. Brokk agreed and sharpened his battleaxe until dawn.
In the morning, the dragons reconvened. Niela set off to bring Thomas into the trap, and the collection of heroes and dragons teleported via a portal created by Aurix to the top of the mountains where they had slain Regg. Niela and Thomas were already there, standing over the funeral pyre. Aurora threw the rock at Thomas, binding him to mundane travel. Thomas smiled. He said that he had armed soldiers positioned outside Drumchapel, Torga, the Edmund Fitzgerald, and Vestry to dissuade them--he even added that he knew Lethanin would not care about his parents and threatened to destroy the Song itself. A tense moment passed, and Aurora suddenly cast a deadly spell that hit Thomas considerably hard, though it seemed he was powerful enough to not be entirely threatened by the blow. Before anyone else could act, Thomas cast a spell that sent multiple messages at once, ordering the waiting soldiers to "Get them."
We stopped here. This battle--ten powerful combatants with lots of health--may take a whole session or more to play out, and we had about half an hour of game time before we had to wrap up. The various dragon conversations did take over two hours, and we just didn't have enough time to address the Thomas battle. This is good in that it gives me time to prepare for Thomas and the other dragons' combat abilities. Thomas alone has 20 levels of Fighter, 20 levels of Cleric, and 10 levels of Barbarian, and I've never played a Fighter or Barbarian. I've also never played a cleric past level 8 or so, so that will also be new. And that doesn't even mention the other maxed out classes of the other six dragons. I'm gonna need to do some studying to be able to handle the seven dragons in the mix.
Another notable thing here is that Thomas obviously doesn't pose much of a threat. Like Hriskin said, a lone dragon or two versus nine legendary enemies is not terribly scary from the nine's perspective. The group did not come all this way to bargain with Thomas, so they are committed to combat. But the interesting thing (that I absolutely didn't see coming) was that the table talk about what to do centered on assigning some dragons to fight Thomas and others to travel to the threatened locations and fight the mercenaries. So come next session, assigning which characters to go where will be a challenging thing to delegate and communicate in the context of the combat. The players have planned well, and unless they decide to let Thomas go, he's pretty well done for. The real stakes are what happens in terms of battle organization and the threatened towns. (By the by, I've had Thomas's mercenary plan set up since session one, and springing it was incredibly fun as the DM. My players' faces fell hard when Thomas announced the mercenaries, and that's a big deal when they have Thomas in such a corner.)
Next time, we will see the combat and traveling unfold, and the consequences will shape the world of Evanoch as much as repairing the rift did. It will be monumental and decisive whatever happens. This is, in a sense, the climax of the campaign. I had figured speaking to Boccob would be the climax, but the way things have shaped up, it's probably going to be this upcoming session. I'm excited, and I know my players are too. It's impossible to know what will happen next time, but it's going to be big no matter what.
That's all for now. Until next time!
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