Post/Author/DateTime	Post
frozen-phoenix-feathers 12-29-03, 11:43 AM	Before I begin let me just say that slaying the beast is not the problem, it's dead, don't worry... If you're not interested in the long tale of how we came to it, the relevant question is right at the bottom. The setting is in the Silver Marches, way up North. My (level two) party was following the way between the city of Silverymoon and the citadel of Adbar when, on one of the numerous encounters, we spot a large "something" flying above us in the sky (well rather it spotted us). As what turns out to be a young adult white dragon, turns and dives towards us we realise what it is and everybody rides their steeds away of the road, out of danger and into cover. Everyone exept my character, who had just rolled a 20 on his willsave... I'm still not quite sure why (is it pure idiocy, a death wish, being young and trouble-bound, wrecklessnes, or just some crazy heroic honourable thing to do...) but Lance MacCraw (the character in question) draws his (normal, nonmagical, ordinairy)handcrossbow (mighty impressive against a dragon, yeah I know..) and charges towards the incoming dragon. Hoping that because it's target is now moving towards it at great speed, it wil overshoot and mis. He doesn't even get the chance to shoot or a Gold dragon picks the White right out of its dive and they crah and tumble in a upwirling of dust, wings, claws and other sharp, spikey dragony bits... Our brave Lance, knowing white one's are evil and gold one's are good, decides to help, shoots one tiny bolt at the White Dragon, which offcourse doesn't even scratch a scale. The white dragon turns it's attention towards the stupid human on the horse, whome would have been a good snack, persuming there had been no intervention, and uses its breath on mount and mountee. Both barely survive and (finely) decide to move aside of the battle. But whilst the White Dragon's neck was turned to face the horseman, it had dropped it's guard and left it's neck open to the sharpteeth of one Gold Dragon's mouth. Enter death of White Winged Beasty. The Gold dragon hints on it not being safe to travel these parts and comments on some foolish action, don't know what exactly it meant, and flies off to nestel on the peak of some nearby hill. So here we are with the fresh corpse of one young adult White Dragon, we know it is valuable but are quite far away from civilasation, it would probably take about at least five days to get it back to Silverymoon, not to mention how... We've got six horses, two per person(one to ride, one as pack animal), so I thought of fashioning some sort of sled out of wood and drag it all the way back. The main queston however is, what are we going to do with it, Lance is rather inquisitive (near scientific) and would want to disect it, but I suppose we could get some really neat stuff (arms/armor) out of it too... Any suggestions as to what to do with it are welcome. (and thanks for reading this)
frozen-phoenix-feathers 12-29-03, 11:45 AM	doh I've just seen I've horribly mis-posted this now, haven't I? now where should I put it?
The_Yellow_Dart_Swinger 12-29-03, 12:00 PM	Actully this is as good as place as any. Now this leads to a lot of interesting role-playing situations. Here you have a mighty dragon and your about to drag it into a town. Now unless people are slaying dragons on a daily basis, your low-level party is going to be really really really famous, UNLESS you spread the truth around but if you don't... Good things and bad things could happen from lying and even if you tell the truth, you'd still might be a little famous, though fool hardy. As for what to do for the body, well you could be very rich and retire. Dragon scales are great for making armor and dragon blood can be valuble to wizards for spells and such. Also I'm even sure the bone of the dragon is probably as strong as steel. (Be kind of interesting to have a magical bone sword.) It really depends on what your characters want. Generally I'm going to persume that your going to sell everything and buy weapons/armor/items for your coming adventures.
Landor 12-29-03, 01:40 PM	Watch out for claim jumpers. Remember, not only do you have to get that valuable monstrosity to a place the will actually buy ALL of it (good luck), a mere 4th level party could easily kill you all and take it. A stone you can hide; boots you can wear; but a dead white dragon is going to be very conspicuous. The smell of rotting flesh, in addition to nauseating you, may well attract hungry creatures. The Gold dragon's warning of it not being safe to travel these parts could mean more white dragons; if they're flying over head and see one dead from their own ranks, you can bet they're going to want to know what's up. MY ADVICE: Claim jumpers: Bluff your way out: "We did this to a dragon. think what we could do to you." Hungry guests: Easy XP. Another dragon: You're on your own. Maybe tell him you're taking the body to the local temple of dragon resurection.:rofl: Selling it: Don't. You'll be better off bartering with the people who would buy the parts. You can trade with weapon smiths/wizards for goods at wholesale for things you would likely have spent the money on anyway. You may, however, want gold for 5-10% of the body's worth.
frozen-phoenix-feathers 12-29-03, 06:53 PM	The fact that we'd be dragging a dead rotting corpse around for a while had crossed my mind and the smell, among other things, had troubled me, untill I rememberd that a few (in game) days back we were cursing the weather because it was too cold, minus six degrees celcius, thats freezing (not to mention the snowstorms that gave us some trouble). So its' about time the blasted weather was on our side. If it's freezing, our dragon will stay in perfect condition (kind of like in a deepfreezer, but we don't have to pay an electricity bill) In the worst case, the wether does get better, well at least then the rotting an decomposition processess will be slowed to some degree because of the climate an dit is cold up there. As for claim jumpers, there were none other travelling this road when we set out, except a nomadic barbarian tribe we befriended, which will have moved by now, and I imagine, don't stick close to the road. So that problem is fixed untill we get inside the city. I also thought of covering the the body up with either branches or just our tents, there's enough fabric to probably keep it from unwelcome eyes. If Little White's family members do show up, I shure will explain just about everything to them, if they pauze to chat with us, before tearing us limb from limb and chewing our bones, that is. The who-did-it subject, depends on who opens their mouth first. If people shout look there's the man who killed a dragon, Lance will find it dificult to correct the error, an probably won't want to, though he'll regret that later on. If he gets to open his mouth first, he will never the less be honourable and truthfull, yet he'll not forget to mention how it was that by his distractoin Little White exposed it's jucy neck to Good Gold's teeth, and might just exajurate this part slightly.
frozen-phoenix-feathers 12-29-03, 07:05 PM	I just thought up another possible gain: If one were to study the glands of a white dragon, find out how it produces it's breath, could one possibly determine wich (bio)chemical reaction(s) it takes to produce the known effect? If so this knowledge would translate as to create wel "alchemy frost", (as supposed to alchemy fire), I'm thinking along the lines of liquid nitrogyn. Pretty "cool" stuff ;). The weaponry out of it's bones souds nice, possibly even daggers out of it's teeth or claws, though those couldn't be throwing daggers I suppose. Armor from its hide sounds great too, but my hopes run along leather an or studded leather and I've been told that dragon armor usually comes in the from of hide, banded mail, chain mail and plate. I wonder what one could do with the eyes... I think I've got the dragon-item-craze...
Pencil Number 2 12-29-03, 09:02 PM	If you're really interested in seeing what items could be made from dragon parts, I suggest taking a look at the book "Dragons", published by AEG. It's got a list of things that can be made out of each part of the dragon. That may temporarily satisfy your craving for dragon-made items.
Tzor 12-30-03, 09:42 AM	First of all, the cold will help, but unless someone in the party has gentle repose, the first question that needs to be answered is "does anyone know how to butcher a dragon ... even a vague notion?" That's because it's not just the outside that causes problems, but what's inside, especially in the digestive track, so you're going to have to gut the dragon ASAP. And dragons are strange creatures. If your DM has the Draconomicon, for example, it has a few unique ograns in that cavity, so be careful with anything you can't immediately place, and try not to let the intestine innards open up and spoil the rest of the meat. You will need a dragon skinning knife ... otherwise known as a greatsword. :D
Camu 01-05-04, 11:56 AM	Hi, i'm one of the fellow players of Frozen-phoenix-feathers. My character Evendur was one of the fellow adventurers who didn't want to stay close to the big white horror so he run and took shelter behind a small hill. He didn't see much of the fight, actualy only the fact that Lance was comming his way with a frozen back and that there was a dead white dragon on the road. Since my character didn't do anything he's not going to claim the body for himself for that matter, although if Lance is starting to brag about it that he killed it he will sertainly ask questions about the big bitemark in the white dragons neck. Anyway if Lance is going the body for himself or not my character will defenitly whants a share of the beast if hes going to help dargging it back to silverymoon. Now for the idea's i had what to do with the dragon corpsethis is what i came up with and are not already mentioned here: -White dragons have Icewalking, so maby you could make boods out of the dragons feet (two pairs actualy) that give you icewalking while wearing them. -White dragon bone armor, dragon bones look pretty strong so maby you could also make mastrerwork bone armor out of it just like dragonskin lets you make masterwork hide/plate armor -Make some sort of claw bracer or glove out of the dragons claw's so you could make a claw attack just like the dragon -Study the breath weapon glands to create ice spells like freezing hands (equivalent of burning hands) to give more roleplaying value at creating spells ( my character is a arcane spellcaster so) -If you cannot make a leather armor out of the dragon skin you could try and make an armor cloak out of it or something -You could also try to make a cloak out of the wings of the beast, forthe looks alone you would want a dragon wing cloak -If the beast is a female she could have eggs that you can try to take care of so they will hatch, then you got baby white dragon pets -BoVD says you can use a chromatic dragon heart to enhance spells (also good for me) That's it for now, but if get some new idea's i will post them here.
niesl 01-05-04, 02:50 PM	Just a few thuoghts: - I don't know if it works,(and if it works, if someone can cast it) but you could try to animate it . -If you can't animate it, use the skin and bones to make a sort of 'dragon puppet' of enormous size. Place it on a wagon and drive it into a town, using some illusion spells to create a loud roar. All commoners and other low lvl NPC will run as fast as they can, because they think it's a real dragon. Now you can easily take al of the towns stuff. -As above, but use it to attack a enemy castle/orc camp/whatever. Sure they run if a dragon is coming their way!
frozen-phoenix-feathers 01-15-04, 12:12 PM	First of all, the cold will help, but unless someone in the party has gentle repose, the first question that needs to be answered is "does anyone know how to butcher a dragon ... even a vague notion?" That's because it's not just the outside that causes problems, but what's inside, especially in the digestive track, so you're going to have to gut the dragon ASAP. -Tzor In real life I'm a biology student and none of the animals we've disected have had any sort of damage due to rotting or decomposition to their intestines thanks to the fact that they were frozen (they get defrosted about an half an hour before we start opening them up) so I don't think that it will cause any problem, and even if it does I think the bone and scales are the mean thing for arms and armor manufacturing (I don't know for spellcomponents) Draconomicon Camu, one of the players in the group, was planning on buying that anyway (he's always dragon crazy and then this happenend, can you believe how happy he is?) As for Niesl's thoughts, although they are apprieciated, I don't think we'll do that (others in the group might find it a great idea, but Lance won't find it particullarly "honorable") Please keep posting your ideas here! Due to exams we're not playing again untill february, so you still have time to get your really cool fun-packed awesomely thrilling meta-super-special ideas on my to-do-list!!! to those who already added to this post: thanks again!
Simi 01-15-04, 01:26 PM	I believe there was an article in one of the Dragon mags about making magical items out of dragon scales. I don't have it with me at the moment but I will look when I get home and let ya know.
Simi 01-15-04, 06:53 PM	Found it. Dragon mag issue 308 June 2003. If you want the item made from a white dragon scale let me know and I will send it to you.
Crinos 01-17-04, 11:50 PM	Dragon. flesh. golem. Or is that two words? anyways, Imagine hauling arse around in one of those bad boys. you could empty the stomach out and ride inside the thing like a tank. Imagine the look on your next BBEG's face when you come riding up in the belly of a golem. course, youll need five or six more dead dragons to make it work, but I hear white dragons travel in packs anyways.