I'm writing a D&D crack fic, and one of the characters is a silver dragon trapped in her polymorphed form. As she cannot get back into her true form, she's taken the role of mage in an adventuring party. I picture her with white hair, green eyes, blue robes, and a bunch of spellbooks floating around her. Questions, comments, concerns, suggestions?
Something along the lines of a character insert into an already established universe. In this case, Lost Mines of Phandelver quest in the D&D universe
Fair enough. Next question: if your character is a dragon, why would she not seek out the company of other dragons, as opposed to a group of (I'm assuming) non-dragon strangers?
So a Fanfic The character sounds cool though, I'm assuming she's going to be taller than the average height. A little increase strength Edit: oops, missed the D&D part
In the D&D universe, dragons are mostly solitary, coming together to produce children and then splitting apart. Metallic and Chromatic dragons especially hate each other, because Tiamat and Bahamut are enemies. As the character is a silver dragon, she is of the Lawful Good alignment, and Silver dragons are known to appear to travellers, so they're more social thn most
I've played my share of D&D, so I know a bit about metallic, chromatic, and gem dragons. But silver dragons, along with other "good" dragons," usually have a few other good dragons they keep in contact with - if for nothing more than to help fend off predatory chromatic dragons and wicked giants.
No, can't say that I have. I was imagining ways to flesh her character out . Examples like she only realizes her true form when her character morally changes. Maybe she realizes who she is as a person, or how what she was believing was incorrect and holding her back. Of course you can do a flat character arc, whereas other characters in the story grow and change. Just spit-balling here
You could, though I would think that would be a missed opportunity. Imo if you're going to feature a polymorphed dragon in your fantasy adventure, you may as well give them a proper character arc.
You're right, and in this case the polymorphed dragon formerly did. THen she got stuck in human form, unable to do dragon things because of a lack of accessible skills in that form, she took the path of mage. She's fully aware that she is a dragon, however since she is trapped in human form, she has to adapt to that as well. "I'm a big fiery dragon, and I'll eat your family!", doesn't really work anymore for her. So the entire time she's learning how humanoid civilization works, she's learning that the Holier-than-thou-because-my-granddaddy-is-the-dragon-god attitude gets more trouble than not, and she's les.
So she does have a story arc, it might be fun to see this Dragon stumbling around that she tries to fit in
Yeah, I'm still working on the other party members, deciding who's the leader. There's also an elven vampire, a Shifter, and a cleric of Tiamat. THe dragon and cleric are gonna butt heads a lot.
Ah, yes. The edgy dark character who hates everyone and says every plan sucks but never offers an alternative. I'm thinking something along the lines of a halfling Kratos.
I haven't played D&D since God was a small child, so apologies if these are redundant questions but: 1) Can other dragons (humans, halflings, whatever) recognize that she's a dragon dba human, or do they just see her as an interesting-looking magic user? 2) If they can identify her as an inconvenienced dragon, what opportunities/problems does this present her? Would people (broadest sense) want to befriend her to get in good with a dragon, or would they try and take advantage of her weakened state to hold her hostage? That's all I got.
1). It's a bit of both, really. They think she's just a mage at first and then she does something stupid to the cleric. 2). She has to learn to live in human/elf/other friendly humanoid society, adapt to the limits of her form, but she does have some pull with metallic dragons.
By the time I learned of D&D, I was a senior in high school. do not ask how I missed it. Tried to start a character but never really got to finish. I might still like to get into it.
I understand that, as a humanoid, she can no longer fly or topple pine trees with a tail swipe. I'm just wondering why she didn't seek out help for her condition from other dragons? After all, in D&D dragons are often very wise and resourceful. And even if her condition proved incurable, why would she chose to become an adventurer? If it were me, I would consider making her a pariah within the local good dragon "community." That would serve two purposes: it would explain why she isn't in the company of other dragons, and it would give her something (a reputation problem) to overcome.
That's actually very good. I was thinking she was looking for a spell or something to reverse the condition
I'm also thinking she might be very "young" in context to other dragons. Her condition might be seen as "You got yourself into this. This is what happens when you stick your nose into something that bites back.", or immature antics by other draconics.
If you wanted to stick to the theme, you could flip through a copy of the original Dragonlance trilogy and see how they did it. There was at least one polymorphed silver dragon woman in it, and I think Verminard’s red dragon took human form. Yeah, her name was Silvara:
She certainly could be. Though I rather like the idea that she might be burdened with guilt and shame from something she's done (or failed to do), and as a result, she believes that she deserves her disadvantageous condition. Meaning she isn't looking for a cure. That's a foundation for a compelling character arc imo.
