Mountains, there might be an ore vein or fifty for your followers to mine and you need to keep your infamy low while you're still inexperienced.

Mountains. We want a natural fridge for our statues.

Chilly mountain fortress

In the mountains. Nice, chilly mountain air will feel good.

The snow glows white on the mountaintop~ ...providing good camouflage potential for a dragon who presumably has vaguely white scales from being an ice dragon.
Also, an environment that is hazardous to most things but not us generally makes for good security. (I assume we have resistance or immunity to cold, and steep cliffs are no problem if you can fly).

Northern mountains all the way.

Cygnus 2015/01/09(Fri)12:27 No. 619084 ID: c0c685
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You fly north, heading towards the mountains. You do your best to avoid flying over any of the kingdoms or villages for now, having knights hunting you down before you even have the chance to make a proper lair wouldn't be good. As you fly through the mountains searching for a suitable home you notice several Mines in the mountain.

Eventually you find a small cave higher up on the mountain. The area is covered in white fluffy snow and you immediately feel right at home. The cave isn't very deep but it's big enough for you to fit completely inside. It's a good starting point you decide. Later you can look into expanding your lair or finding a new one. Maybe even take one from one of the other dragons.

WIS: It's not hard to put one and one together. If there are mines in the mountains then there will be MINING VILLAGES fairly close by too. The mining villages might have a small guard force and attacking them would catch the attention of the kingdoms they inevitably serve, but you could get a fairly good haul of precious metals from them.

Now that your lair is set up, what do you plan on doing next?

>Raid mines
>Search for Mining Villages (May be guarded)
>Search for Villages
>Search for Kingdoms (Under heavy guard)
>Search for Caravans passing by

((You can ask about any of the words that come up in RED or BLUE colors for more information. Depending on your level of WISDOM you can get information such as what treasures or resources could be found there, the difficulty in attacking, or a brief history about it.))

>>619084

consider this me asking about all the colored words- the two in this post and any that come up in the future.

I will vote against destruction in favor of domination. pick out the settlement closest to your cave and start raiding all outgoing caravans, messengers and travelers, prioritizing the lack of survivors over anything else. I want them isolated and too terrified to leave the village, knowing surely that once they leave, they never come back, devoured by some unknown, inescapable predator.

it'll take a while for them to notice what's going on, and a while before this actually has an impact on our hoard, but fuck it, we're a dragon. time's on our side. and this way, they just might be fully obedient before news reaches any of the major settlements about our deeds.

because manual labor is below us, and we need some thralls.

>>619089

>MINES
Where most of the other races get all of their precious metals from. While not refined, these metals are still valuable and make a good addition to any dragon's hoard. Unless the mines are producing something of exceptional value, they will not be guarded. Mines will be busy during the day but at night there will only be one or two night workers on the watch for bandits or hooligans. Mines can and will be shut down if they're raided too much, cutting off your supply of precious metals.

>MINING VILLAGES
Every MINE will have some mining village close by where all the workers and their families live. This is where all of the precious metals are kept until they can be packed into caravans and sent to whatever kingdom the village belongs to. Mining Villages are typically guarded by a small task force suited to handle small skirmishes, but nothing to handle dragons. Anything of exceptional value found in the mines, such as rare gems, is immediately taken to the mining village for safe storage. Mining Villages are in constant contact with their kingdoms with caravans constantly going to and from them.

but what about, like, less significant, non-mining villages in the area? I'm guessing we'll want to start slow.

For the moment, play Vlad the Impaler. Introduce yourself by making dead game fall from the sky in a time of great hunger. Store food for yourself and the miners so that they don't go hungry during the winter (and can mine MORE). Demand a tribute for your dominance, but also be ready to give back in case the villages are in dire need of money for taxes or resources.

And if you kill anyone, mercilessly freeze their mutilated bodies on the mountain, their faces twisted in complete horror. Bonus points if you can keep them in cryo, for that extra zombie horror effect. Be sure to kill bandits in front of their friends and your followers. Be ruthless, but merciful. Show these villagers that they have everything to gain if they cooperate and everything to lose if they don't.

I vote raiding mines, and scope out caravans or deliveries too and from the mines. We want to keep a low profile for now.
I feel like we should try and find out about the local political landscape (any enmity between nearby kingdoms we could take advantage of), but I am not sure how we would do it without being noticed.

>>619089
The kingdom would probably assume something bigger than us if a village seemed to just drop off the map.

I agree that we should get a band of followers, but terrorizing them into obedience isn't how I think we should go about it. We want loyal followers, a cult maybe. Plus we don't know much about the area, there might be some big players in the area and it'd be good to find them before stepping on any toes. We're a dragon...but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be careful.

We're new to the area so we don't want to pull too much attention to ourselves. Definitely not going to go hunting for kingdoms.

Attacking a caravan might be okay as long as it doesn't have too much in the way of guards. Our hunting experience should help with that. I'd rather raid through a mine though, get some basic precious metals together without making too many people want to hunt you down.

The best thing would be to get a mining village on your side, mining for you. Maybe offer them protection in return for a cut of what they pull from the mine? Could be an easy way to sit around and get some treasure because who in their right mind would raid a mining town protected by a dragon?

>>619105
Getting the villagers to worship you (rather than fearfully accept your dominance) might enrage the church. The only thing more dangerous than an army of synchronized dragonslayers is an army of fanatical, suicidal, and absolutely unquestioning (aka completely enslaved by their church masters) berserkers. Still, you don't want one individual villager to learn your weaknesses and kill you as some twisted rite of passage. I guess you'll have to decide for yourself.

In any case, you need the villagers to co-operate with your efforts, while also accepting your terms and rules. Respect, friendship, fear, greed, worship, or even hatred are means to this contract.

Pick one and get your game face on.

Raid the mines directly. Quickest way to find out what they're mining and you'll have an advantage in dark tunnels.

>cult
Ugh. Tacky. We're ice. Tricks and deceptions, subtlety and mirrors. We want an air of unapproachable mystery, master of our own domain. To approach us is to leave the normal rules behind.

>what do
Explore and learn as much about the area as possible. Let's play smart before picking targets. Dragons can afford to be methodical.

We'll make it count when we hit.

Raid a caravan, then a mine, then a mining village.

Consider this. The moment we try to isolate a village, the associated kingdom will come to investigate where their money is. As a young dragon, that should not happen. So lets leave domination or conquest or cultforming for later, when we can defend our holdings and servants.

For now, explore and get the basic area down. Maybe keep an eye open for passing caravans. One or two missing of those would be accredited to bandits, as long as there are no remaining witnesses

Go CHECK OUT the mines, see what's inside and freeze anyone that sees you. You can see enough from the ores lying around the entrance. Sneak there at night. Don't attack a village, that'll summon unwanted attention from a Kingdom. At least not a mining village, because that's where the biggest hoard lies. Play it cool while you're a young dragon. Have fun and try to find the things that make it worthwhile.

I don't think it's a good idea to make ourselves known this early.

For now, let's just raid the mines at night when they're almost empty. Make sure to leave no witnesses, so they blame the raid on bandits.

>>619256
Second. We have the hunting stealth/stalking experience and agility to pull off a sneaky night raid, I think.

Observe the adventurers and treasure hunters who enter the ABANDONED MINES. Make a tally of the ones who make it out alive, and the loot that they carry. Occasionally analyze an adventurer by swooping down in front of them, demanding a share of what they found in exchange for food and safety. If they are being hounded by a horde coming up from the caves, ice it down and cause a rockslide, and then demand most of what the adventurer earned. You can also demand intel on the mine itself, allowing the adventurer to flee with their life and their gold. The REAL treasure is knowing how much is down there.

You also want to analyze how villages are doing, where to find game, how your abilities and skills interact with the environment, come up with new skills, learn the local culture, invent some cooking recipes, anything that you can do while you're not killing people.

After you're done analyzing, get your followers to dig in the mines that minimize risk and/or maximize profit.

You have years to do this, so take your time and don't be seduced by short term gain.

Dragon's Hoard Quest Cygnus 2015/01/11(Sun)23:55 No. 619819 ID: c0c685
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((Feel free to use the map to highlight any specific areas you would like to ask about or use it for future planning. Your LAIR is high up on the mountain with the X on it, facing SOUTH.))

You're torn as what to do, there's so many options. Taking over one of the villages would be nice, getting the villagers to work for you either through force or offers of protection could work... but it would also draw a lot of attention your way. You decide to hold off on raiding any villages for now, choosing instead to carefully fly through the area once night has fallen. You scout out a small radius around your lair to see what is close by.

The mountain your home is in only has a couple ABANDONED MINES on it. You see something skittering about but you don't get a close enough look to identify it. Whatever it is it's not human and it's more than likely nothing that would pose a threat to you.

To your NORTH, directly beside your mountain is a small village. Several abandoned mines dot the mountains near them. You assume, at one time, it may have been a mining village as well. Now it seems kind of dead and empty, with several of the houses having fallen into disrepair. You do not see any caravans coming or going from this village.

To your EAST is a small mining village. It has several active mines and one abandoned one much higher up the mountain. Most of the mines are high enough up that the village won't notice you if you're careful. Beyond the first mining village is a much larger, much more well protected one. You do not fly too close to it to avoid being spotted. The two villages have the same red banners and flags. Many caravans come and go from the two villages, most heading NORTH.

To your SOUTH is a wall of mountains. You do not spot anything worth while there, but the valley below has some wild game you could hunt.

To your WEST is a small mining village on the other side of a large lake. It has several active mines in the area. Most of the mines are high enough up that the village won't notice you if you're careful. The village has blue banners and flags. Several caravans travel to and from the village. The bridge crossing a section of the lack is broken, no caravans come through here.

[1/2.5]

Dragon's Hoard Update Cygnus 2015/01/11(Sun)23:56 No. 619820 ID: c0c685
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>>619819

Once you finish scouting the area you decide to hit a couple of the smaller caravans travelling out on their own. Your strength and speed make this a fairly easy task. You simply swoop down, slam into the caravan to knock it over and quickly devour the passengers and the horse pulling it. Once finished with your meal, you manage to haul the caravan back up to your lair so you can pick through it for the valuables. You don't find much besides a little gold and some various knickknacks made from precious metals. You toss the caravans down the mountain and them break apart on the rocks, littering the upper part of the mountain with debris.

After hitting a few caravans you decide to check out some of the mines, heading WEST to the closest ones. You devour the unfortunate workers left to watch the mines over night before checking the mines. Sadly, you are too LARGE to fit into the mines yourself. You do take a mine cart full of precious metals as you leave though, getting something worthwhile from the trip.

You wake up sometime in the afternoon, checking your lair and your hoard but everything seems in order.

>What do you do?
[2/2.5]

>>619089
[As per request, all colored words will automatically be added after the update.]

>Abandoned Mines
Mines that are no longer being actively used for any number of reasons. Lack of interest, all valuables have already been removed, frequent dragon attacks, or the mine is too dangerous due to natural hazards or monster infestations. Abandoned Mines can attract the attention of ADVENTURERS and TREASURE SEEKERS looking for long lost loot.
[2.5/2.5]

>What do you do?
>You see something skittering about but you don't get a close enough look to identify it. Whatever it is it's not human and it's more than likely nothing that would pose a threat to you.
Kobolds! Let's go enslave them. We need minions to work in your land, and to crawl in small places (like mines) and bring out tribute for you.

>>619819
Heyyy, we could take over the nearly-abandoned village. Since nobody goes there, nobody would notice! Well, until they sent someone out to call for help, anyway. Yeah, let's avoid that for now. At least until we have a reason to outright abduct whoever's left.

Scout north, over the mountains! Raid another mine in that direction if you can find one.

yeah, go after the skitterer. with some luck, it'll be enslavable.

that abandoned village is ripe for looting. loot it.

>Flags, abandoned village
Ooh, political strife. That will provide someone to take the blame provided we are not seen and don't leave obviously dragon damage. And at some point when we have more information we might be able to leverage their conflict into having a neutral or better relation with one side, letting us raid the other side more openly while lairing in friendly territory.

>Kobolds! Let's go enslave them.
Lets recruit them. We like collecting shinies, kobolds also like collecting shinies. We have strength that kobolds lack, and kobolds have an ability to move unnoticed that we lack. If we can communications with them without them panicking and running (perhaps leave a gift of good will like a dead game animal) it is likely we can come to a mutually profitable agreement.

>>619808
Adventurers who are competent enough to survive are exactly the people we don't want to run into. We don't want them running back to tell their adventurer friends about us, and we don't want to fight them to silence them since adventurers are a leading cause of dragon death.

Find villages that are down on their luck. Help the one that is desperate for a savior of any kind.

Also, check the before/after status of adventurers in the mines. Should help when ordering future expeditions and mine expansions.

>>619820
>littering the upper part of the mountain with debris.
Don’t leave such obvious signs of your presence in the future. Drag it a bit away first or hid the trash somewhere.

So far we have:
>A steady source of food.
>Barely satisfied the urge for a hoard.
>A mostly empty lair.

Right now the villagers are aware that there is a new monster in the vicinity, but it has not become a huge problem. I suggest you let things cool down for a while, or go farther away for your plundering before monster hunter teams are gathered.

I say it is time for leisure! Adorn your cave with ice statues, explore the surrounding area, if opportunity arises for a good loot, take it, but don’t go searching for it. Maybe look for the local bandit population. Some villagers might be willing to pay tribute for security from other threats.

also, spy on some laketowners, make life-sized ice replicas of them dying and then plant them around the village. teehee.

if they send for help, just disappear for a while.

>>619857
This.

Dragon's Hoard Quest Cygnus 2015/01/13(Tue)21:28 No. 620258 ID: c0c685
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You sort of regret tossing the caravans down the mountain. It serves as a good intimidating factor but... it would attract attention if you did it constantly. You'll think of something for next time.

You have plenty of things to keep you busy today. You dream of the day you'll be able to laze about on your massive hoard of treasures, but you have much work to do before you can do that! First things first, that thing you saw skittering about last night, you MUST know what it is. If it lives on YOUR mountain, then it should obey YOU. If it is smart enough to anyway. You crawl from your lair and work your way down the mountain until you reach the abandoned mines. There's nothing moving around right now, so you peer down into the entrance of the mine. Eight eyes stare back at you. It appears that the abandoned mines on your mountain have become the homes for GIANT SPIDERS. You are slightly disappointed that it wasn't KOBOLDS.

With your curiosity quenched you crawl back up to your lair and decide to spend the day mostly relaxing. You use your FROST BREATH to coat your cave in a thin layer of ice first, being careful not to freeze your TINY HOARD OF MOSTLY JUNK to the cave floor. A frozen hoard would be unsightly and uncomfortable. What would you sleep on then? You begin to use your frost breath to make little chunks of ice that you chip at with your claws, attempting to shape them into villagers. None of them come out looking like anything than blobs and you chuck them down the side of the mountain, taking some pleasure in how they shatter so nicely. The fragments of ice will either melt or blend in with the snow, nothing that would draw any attention. While you're chucking ice blobs to the rocks below you look out to the abandoned mines and the villages right next to your mountain, watching for anything intersting.

You notice several larger caravans leaving the mining villages throughout the day. They have more guards and are too large for you to carry up the mountain at the moment. No one that you can see goes anywhere near the abandoned mines.

Using your breath constantly to practice sculpting quickly tires you out. Once it starts getting darker out you only have enough energy left to do a quick trip up north to scout the other side of the mountain.

NORTH: You don't manage to go far. Almost directly on the other side of the mountain range you find out where all those caravans from the red villages. There is a massive town, with high stone walls dotted with guard towers. It is well fortified and would be somewhat of a challenge to take down. They would have some pretty good loot though
[1/2.5]

Dragon's Hoard Quest Cygnus 2015/01/13(Tue)21:29 No. 620259 ID: c0c685
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Exhausted from your long day of practicing ice sculpting, you glide back to your TINY PILE OF MOSTLY JUNK and flop down on top of it. You almost fall asleep immediately.

>You dream of tiny little kobolds carrying mountains of treasure into your cave, the villages below in flames. You worry that all the chaos will attract the attention of the nearby kingdoms but your worries fade away as the kobolds rain gold and diamonds down onto you....
>MAG UP
>WIS UP
>FINE ARTS UP

You wake up early in the morning, the sun just barely peeking out over the mountain top.

>What do you do?
[2/2.5]

>GIANT SPIDERS
Giant spiders are pretty much exactly what they sound like. They're spiders, and they're giant. They aren't big enough to cause any harm to you though and will avoid you and your lair. Giant spiders will attack any ADVENTURERS and KNIGHTS that get too close to their home which is good for your defense. They will also attack any of your followers though, which could become an issue.

>KOBOLD
Kobold revere dragons as if they were gods and will follow a dragons lead to the death. Unless another dragon comes into the picture. What kobolds really bow to is POWER. They will unquestionably follow a dragon as long as it is the strongest and biggest dragon in the picture. Sometimes, after years of service, you might just get some actual loyalty from them if you treat them right. They are extremely crafty and are good at building traps and doing hit and runs on towns for some quick loot. You could even get a KOBOLD ADVENTURING PARTY together to hunt down some really rare loot in long forgotten dungeons and temples. Kobolds are sort of doofy though and can potentially lead an entire kingdom back to your doorstep without realizing it. Kobolds DO NOT get along with most of the other races, especially ones like HUMANS.
[2.5/2.5]

>>620258
Hmm... alright what's down over the mountains to the south? Also, slink through the mountains to the west to see if anything's beyond the small blue village.

Keep the giant spiders. They make good guard animals and their silk can be woven into a powerful fabric... or used as a framework for ice sculptures.

Go hunting today. You need food and so do the villagers. Look for villages that are in dire need of food and drop it from the sky in an awe-inspiring fashion.

>>620263
Second.

Next we should scout the area around the blue village, and see where the road coming from it leads. We should keep out of sight for now, since we don't yet know how isolated that village is.
Also, next time we raid a caravan we should take a few soldier corpses back with us. That would then give us the opportunity to plant them at a rival caravan when we raid it.

>Ice lumps
Could we keep a few large spherical ice chunks around? More likely than not there will be adventurers eventually, and when there are we should be prepared to go bowling.

>giant spiders
Huh. I wonder if we can train them. Or maybe selectively herd them around with cold. Problem for later.

Frozen spider-web might be pretty useful in the right conditions (suspension in ice structures? Effective razorwire?). Or heck, it would just look cool.

Free defense for now, but we'll need a way to control them when we have minions.

>>620259
Things to look out for while flying around:
>Isolated groups of humans (hunters, loggers, druids, whathaveyou)
>Bandits

I think we should set up a hunting ground that is separate from the immediate surroundings of the cave, but close enough to carry loot back. That way, Wanna-be adventurers and dragon hunters will have a slightly harder time finding the cave when looking at the activity of the dragon.

It would also be good to find trade routes or similar where one can expect to find valuable targets with some frequency. If such is found, ambush points are the next step. Bonus points if these allow you to make it look like a non-dragonic creature attacked.

An example of this would be routes along cliffs where you can drop boulders on cars or cause a mountain-slide. Other options would be to leave no survivors and either take care to hide all evidence or to leave as little evidence as possible (eg, not using the claws to rip apart wagons, not biting chunks out of carcasses and leaving said carcasses there.)

Dragon's Hoard Quest Cygnus 2015/01/17(Sat)15:45 No. 620736 ID: c0c685
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You decide to explore a little more around your home today.

First you head towards the NORTH-WEST to check out around the little mining village with the blue flags before most of them wake up. You carefully slink through the mountains until you can get a better view of the other side. You see a fairly large village, but it has no walls or flags. There seem to be some sort of militia there, but they don't wear any recognizable uniforms. It seems like they're just armed villagers. You spend some time watching the village, noting that whenever soldiers or people from the red or blue village come to the town, everyone seems to get more on edge. The town's militia would follow them around until they finished whatever errand they were on and left. How curious.

Once you're done watching the village you head south, scouting out over the mountains. Much further to the south you see a fairly large town with high stone walls. It has blue flags and banners, and you don't get too close for fear of being spotted. Directly on the other side of the mountains however, is a large forest nestled right in the valley. Plenty of wild game seems to run free however you immediately notice several areas where the humans have made little hunting lodges or camps. It would be a good hunting grounds but you'll have competition.
[1/2]

Dragon's Hoard Quest Cygnus 2015/01/17(Sat)15:46 No. 620738 ID: c0c685
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For now you decide to do some light hunting directly outside your own cave. Snapping up wild game is pretty easy for you and you manage to take out a good number of deer. You even collect several extra deer to distribute to the poor village just outside of your home. Perhaps you can win them over with some simple gifts of food?

You fly over to the village and swoop low, depositing fresh game right in front of several of the houses. The people panic and run about in confusion. It doesn't take long before everyone has hidden themselves, either in their shoddy homes or out in the fields. You roll your eyes. Do they actually think that will protect them? With a huff you fly back to your cave knowing that they won't even dare to come out to check the gifts you left them until after you're gone.

You spend the rest of your day lazing about and watching the villages. Eventually the villagers you dropped the meat off for come out of hiding and investigate what the hell just happened. They poke and prod and the deer, almost scared to touch it. It's all very boring to say the least.

Eventually you retire back to your cave and lay down on your TINY PILE OF MOSTLY JUNK to sleep.

>That night you dream of waking up to the villagers singing your praise. They respect you as a deity and shower you with gifts and lifelong servitude.

The next morning when you wake up you immediately notice a group of eight humans climbing up your mountain. Most of them are well equipped and appear ready for combat, clearly seasoned adventurers, while two of them are appear to be there for some other purpose. One is dressed as a miner and the other is wearing pretty fancy clothing. You take note of his sparkling jewelry.

>What do you do?
[2/2]

>>620738
Well, that was fast. Your infamy hasn't even budged... I wonder what called them here? The tiny village, or was it due to murderizing the caravans? Or maybe they're here to clear out the giant spiders in the nearby abandoned mines? A miner being with them indicates they are interested in the mines, not you.

Watch them, unnoticed. See if they're heading towards your lair or the spidermines. If they pass you by, you will continue to fly under the radar. Only by completely eliminating the group would you hope to gain from this... and that's risky. Besides, they probably don't have much of value. They wouldn't be carrying magical equipment just to clear out the spider mines.

Speaking of magic, can we cast any yet? A scrying spell would be useful here.

Meet them away from your den, but stay chill. If this was a serious effort to kill you, they wouldn't have brought noncombatants. They probably want to talk, and brought the fighters for insurance.

Stalk them from a distance. If they get close to your lair, approach them from a different direction so you don't lead them back to it.

They're likely here for the spiders as suggested above.

Not worth the PR nightmare to kill them and loot their stuff. See if the spiders can scare them off, but try to use your intelligence to figure out what it is that they're looking for.

Given that one is a miner and the other just openly wears jewelery, they might be after a special gem or something. You may want to capture the one with the jewels after they're finished looking. See if the remaining adventurers trade their stuff in exchange for his safety.

Also, you may want to learn the local language.

>The town's militia would follow them around until they finished whatever errand they were on and left. How curious.
The village is unaffiliated? Not part of the blue or red 'pack'. They're worried the larger or more powerful groups of humans might try something.

Possibly useful information. Maybe you can play the human factions against each other. Or at least plan your raids so you don't upset the balance. Humans competing with one another is better than one unified faction that can gang up on you.

>adventures
Either they're here for you, or they don't know about you, and they're here to look for something valuable in the abandoned mines filled with spiders.

If it looks like they're going for the spider mines, let them. We'll ambush them on the way out, after they're worn and weary, and take whatever treasures they manage to recover for ourselves.

If they aren't clearly headed for one of the old mines? Let's cause an avalanche. Bury them in rock and snow.

>>620738
We need to find out what they are here for, watching them is one option, asking them is another. If they are here to reclaim one of the mines, then perhaps we could make them a deal that's beneficial for both parties.

Dragon's Hoard Quest Cygnus 2015/01/18(Sun)14:04 No. 620957 ID: c0c685
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You stalk the group, sneaking a little closer to get a better view but still careful to maintain a safe distance. Upon closer inspection you notice that five of the adventurers are covered in scars and their gear seems well maintained but still worn. The sixth one looks significantly younger than the rest and he constantly fidgets with his gear in an attempt to find some comfortable way to carry it all. The miner carries a backpack of various mining tools and the one dressed in fancy clothing carries a satchel full of scrolls and papers that he keeps checking and double checking as they climb.

Thankfully the group heads towards one of the abandoned mines. They pause outside, taking a moment to prepare for combat before they head inside. The five older adventurers head in first, the sixth younger one nervously following after them, then the miner and the man in fancy clothing. You hear some sounds of combat coming out of the mine but it fades as they venture further inside.

You try to figure out what they could be doing on your mountain. Adventurers being hired to act as body guards was not an uncommon practice. What the two men who presumably hired these adventurers for was hard to say though... you assume the town either wants to reopen the mines to use them again or they want to retrieve something from the mines. You will have to see what they do when they exit the mines. IF they exit the mines.

You decide to wait a bit and see what happens. Several hours go by with nothing happening. Either the mines are much bigger than you thought or they all got themselves killed off. Right before you decide to fly off to find something else to do, a sudden commotion from the mine catches your attention. You can hear shouting and banging sounds as they quickly get louder. It isn't long before the miner comes running out of the mine, followed by the man in the fancy clothes. Both of them have left their belongings behind and are pale and out of breath, only able to make it a yard or two before toppling over. A second later the young adventurer comes out, his right arm a bloody mess. He makes it a few feet out of the mine before he collapses. Behind him a couple of giant spiders exit.

Curiosity gets the better of you and you decide to intervene on the humans behalf for the sake of finding out what exactly it was they had been planning on doing. You rush out of your hiding place, the man in fancy clothes shrieking in terror as you land over the young adventurer and let out a fierce roar. The spiders scuttle over themselves to get back into the safety of their mine.

You glare at the mine entrance where you can see the spiders watching you, waiting for an opportunity to steal their prey back from you. The miner has passed out, either from exhaustion or fear, the man in fancy clothes has curled up into a ball and is blubbering and sobbing on the ground, and the adventurer is just clutching his arm and moaning in pain. You won't be able to get any useful information at the moment so you collect the three up and fly back to your lair. You set them down along the back wall and lay down on top of your TINY HOARD.

>You already plan on questioning them about what they were doing on your mountain, but is there anything else you would want to ask them? And what are you going to do with them afterwards?

Hrm. Well.
A few questions come to mind:
Why did you enter the mine?
There are towns with Red flags and towns with Blue flags-what is the difference?
As for what to do...Assuming they don't do something silly like attack us, I think flying them back down the mountain seems like a possible idea.

First concern: do you speak a tongue shared by the humans? They have so many little languages.

>questions
Ask them what they're doing on the mountain- what they were interested in the caves. (And what happened to their companions- they perished?).

Ask where they're from. Determine which settlement / group of humans you're dealing with.

Ask what state the injured one is in. You're no expert on human biology, after all, and if this conversation has a short time limit, you'd prefer to know.

Your authority here is that they were on your mountain, and that at this moment, it is only due to your intervention that they are still alive (and not being used to incubate spider larva). Make sure they are aware of this. (Might be useful with the warrior, if he follows any kind of honor code).

>what do with them
Depends on their answers. We might be able to make some kind of deal to our benefit (their service, or something in exchange for their lives and transport down the mountain) or we might end up killing them rather than letting them spread word of our location. We need more information before deciding.

>>620957
Ask them about the nearby villages and what the political climate is, exactly. Are red and blue at war? What are the names of the civilizations around here? What happened to the other adventurers?

Oh, definitely take the satchel of paperwork and read through it.

As for what to do with them afterwards... well, if they're cooperative, kill them cleanly and then give them back to the spiders. If they're NOT cooperative, give them back to the spiders alive. Just make sure the spiders are still in there and not dead. If one of them gives you lip, freeze a limb or perpetuate some other nonlethal horror against them.

If they are after the mine, perhaps we could help them. In exchange for some of the profits of course, but let's not mention that until after we are done with the questions.

>>621064
I don't see how we could. Can't fit in the mine!

>>621065
No, but the spiders could be aggro'd to the fore of the mine and then frozen/slowed by our breath for easy kills. Make clearing out the mine a bit safer.

>>620967
This.

>>620973
Don't torture or kill them. We want these tiny creatures to sing our praises and shower us with gifts, remember?

Ask them what they were doing. Threaten to freeze them solid and drop them from a very high distance.

If any of them die, do your best artwork on their faces, impale them on sticks, and freeze them on the mountain.

>questions
Who are they, where are they from, and what interest do they have in this mine in our territory?
If they are uncooperative and we need to threaten them, our threat should be to give them back to the spiders (both because if we kill them we should actually do that to get rid of the bodies, and because it references how they would be dead without our help).

>What do
Depends on what they say. While there is a risk to letting them live, if they are cooperative we might be able to arrange for the mine to be re-opened with a portion of the proceeds payed to us as rent.

On security risks in general, I think our position between two kingdoms gives us some amount of protection from military forces, but a small group of skilled adventurers sneaking in while we are asleep is a worry. Perhaps we should come up with some way of using ice-shaping to make it harder for people on foot to get into our lair without making a lot of noise.

Dragon's Quest Hoard Cygnus 2015/01/23(Fri)18:34 No. 621853 ID: c0c685
File 142206689266.jpg - (206.61KB , 1000x1000 , Stats8.jpg )

>First concern: do you speak a tongue shared by the humans? They have so many little languages

True. It would be a shame if they spoke some dialect that you didn't yet. You do speak Draconic and the common human language of the land, so they should be able to understand you.

It takes a bit for the miner to wake up and the fancy man to stop blubbering long enough that you can talk to them. The young adventurer stops moaning too, which is nice. He doesn't look very good though and is just shivering and sweating pretty badly.

Who are you and what are you doing on MY mountain

The fancy man yelps and cowers behind the miner. The Miner bows low and begs you not to kill them. You roll your eyes and huff. Always with the begging. Why do they do that? If you wanted them dead they already would be.

Enough begging, answer my question!

The miner manages to sputter out an answer this time. "W-w-we were c-clearing the mine to re... reopen it. We didn't kn-know you l-l-lived here!"

So you hired a band of adventurers to clear the mine out? The rest of them perished then?

Based on the surprised look the two men give the young adventurer, it seems they had completely forgotten about them. "Y-y-yes! Th-there were more sp-spiders than we had thought." For the first time the fancy man speaks up, peaking around the miner. "And bigger!" He squeals. "And and and m-monsters!" The miner points to the boy. "He got bit! He... he'll die unless we get him help! And soon! Please you must let us leave!"

You rest your head on one hand and impatiently tap your claws on the floor with the other. You know enough about the giant spiders to know that while there poison IS lethal, it takes a little time for it to actually kill something. The spiders prefer their meals alive.

I save you from the spiders and bring you here, to my home, to SAFETY! ... and you make excuses so you don't have to answer a few simple questions?"

You glare at the two men. The fancy man squeals again and smacks the miner. "H-he didn't m-mean to offend! P-please forgive us!"

What town are you from?

"B-brundel. The town t-t-to the west of here."

The village to the North is... ?

"Th-they used to b-be a fairly large mining colony until the wars. They refused to side with any kingdom so they were simply ignored. Y-you can't survive long when you get no help w-with monsters and bandits. The mines shut down and it is mostly abandoned now except for the families who can't afford to leave and don't want to get involved with either of the nearby kingdoms."

And what of the towns to the north and south of you? With the blue and red banners.

"O-oh... The blue villages belong to the Roana Kingdoms under the Grand Queen Roana while the red villages belong to the Dreinuss Kingdoms under King Randruff."

Are they currently at war?

The miner scoffs and shakes his head. "Not since the peace treaties they were forced to sign." The fancy man seems to have calmed a bit, though he's still clearly terrified of you, he is no longer hiding behind the Miner.

"It.... it is not that simple. They are not just killing each other out in the fields or razing towns but they are actively trying to destroy the other... it is just... complicated."

The young adventurer is exceptionally pale by this point. Any more stalling and he will certainly die from the poison in his system. If you let them free it is almost guaranteed that word will spread about your home which could lead to some very unwanted attention. You could just kill them, the villagers will assume that the spiders did it but that could also lead to more activity on your mountain. Tough decisions...

>What do you do with the humans?

>Draconic
The language of dragons. Kobolds are generally the only other race to speak this language though it is not entirely unheard of for elves and humans to learn it as well.

Attempt to save the one that was bitten

Demand that the well-dressed one reward you for saving their lives. That jeweled necklace catches your eye.

If he does, let them all go with a warning that your price will not be so petty next time.

If he doesn't, kill him and take his jewels, then let the miner and adventurer go. Inform them that the sniveling one was eaten by spiders, and if anyone says otherwise they will have you to answer to.

Either way tell them to ask permission next time they want to open a mine in your territory.

>>621866
Wonder if we could give them some ice to keep him cool. Cold would slow the venom, right?

I like the young adventurer so make sure to try to save him.

>unaffiliated mining town
Possibly useful. Humans mining shineys for you in return for protection, or working land you control?

>what do
Eh, we can spare them, I think. If we're claiming territory, we need to let word of mouth spread. If we're the ruler of this mountain, it's our place to deal with trespassers as we see fit.

...and debts, while not as immediately fulfilling as treasure, are good to have. (Say this bit aloud).

Help them. You can increase your standing with one of the kingdoms if you bring the lad to a doctor. If you freeze the lad to subzero temperatures fast enough, you can preserve his body without killing him.

As for your mountain, I don't think anyone is going to risk stealing from a gigantic horde of monsters plus one giant frost dragon without serious backup. You'll need to decide if you're going to join one of the two factions, or claim this land as your own.

You may as well ask which side the noble is on.

Tell them that if they wish to establish a mine on your mountain, you will permit it if they pay taxes for operating on your territory. If they negotiate beforehand you might even help with any spiders they can lure out of the tunnels.
Fly them back somewhere near their town but out of sight of it.

>>621868
Don't take the necklace from him; this guy will hopefully be a long-term investment, so starting the negotiations with a grudge on his part is not worth one item.

Can we help the adventurer? If we can then let us do so. If not, send them on their way to get him help, but not after promising to return. We expect to talk more about this mine, and how they can repay you for saving their lives.

>>621853
This location is no longer secure anyway. Given the lack of ability to keep it secret (or rather the apparent need to make the location public at every opportunity) I think it would be best to keep this place as our public domicile, where you can rest and eat things, talk with people and keep your ice statues, while searching for another cave. And then try to keep that cave secret.

As for those guys? Carry them to a place a little bit away from a settlement of their choice. Tell them that you would be willing to kill spiders and allow them to use your mine for a part of the profit as a tribute, but you don’t fit into the tunnels. If there’s a larger mine infested by monsters a similar agreement could be hashed out at a later time.

You will return after one day to whichever settlement you bring them to and would like to talk to someone about this or other potential agreements.

>>621868
Voting against that for now. I want the dragon to appear as someone they may want to negotiate / trade with in the future, not as a short-sighted vulture.

>>622116
Ooh, that is a good idea about the public vs home caves. Perhaps we should tell them some signal for contacting us now (like to go to the entrance of this cave and setting up a fire).

>>621853
We can't afford to attract a lot of attention. However, maybe you can use them as continued contacts with the outside world. Take all their valuables as payment for letting them live (assuming the rich guy can still pay for the trainee's injury from funds he has elsewhere), and tell them if they want to try to clear out the mines again they'll have to pay a toll. If anyone tries to steal from you or kill you, then the toll will go up. This makes it in their best interest to keep people from bothering us.

I think it's fine if people know about us, and that we're not actively hostile, and we can make some money this way.

>>622116
If we have two caves, and we use this one for sleeping but not our hoard, then the majority of the time we will not be guarding our hoard. Also, having a publicly known meeting area means that someone can set up a meeting then send a thief to steal from us while we're at the meeting. We cannot afford to leave our hoard unwatched for long periods of time and we cannot afford to allow people to know when it's unattended.

>>622162
Oh, no. I meant that as in, we can use this public cave every now and then when we are in the area, or as a first stop after a hunt (eg taking loot there and sorting through it, or eating there while nearby). Our security already works only by obscurity, anyone who finds the cave can just hide until the dragon leaves and take whatever they want then. Therefore, we have absolutely security in this old cave. It is a lost cause.

We should keep our hoard at a secret location, where we will also usually sleep. This location should only be used for our hoard and dragon, no one else is supposed to know about it. I would even go so far as to hide and seal it with ice or rocks if we can whenever we leave, while this seems to be difficult for the current cave.

>>622291
Okay, good point. If we don't keep a regular schedule for checking the public meeting area nobody can predict when the hoard is unattended or for how long.

The miner and the adventurer is useless for conversation purposes. Take them to help, to build up future goodwill.
We can keep Rich Guy around, though, to negotiate a deal and ask a few more questions (unless he is required to get treatment for the adventurer fast enough, in which case nevermind).

Draon's Hoard Quest Cygnus 2015/02/03(Tue)21:52 No. 623461 ID: c0c685
File 142302915625.jpg - (203.84KB , 1000x1000 , Stats9.jpg )

"And which kingdom do you side with?" You say, looking down on the fancy man.

"N-neither. Brundel doesn't agree with either kingdom. We do trade with them but we refuse to negotiate with them. The town to the north tried to sell itself to the highest bidder and was destroyed. Not physically, b-but you can see what h-happened."

>Wonder if we could give them some ice to keep him cool. Cold would slow the venom, right?

You don't know enough about humans or the poison to really know. It could slow the poison. You could also accidentally give him frost bite.

"Hmm... I have decided to let you all free. You trespassed on my mountain but you did not do so knowingly, so I will forgive you. Should you still wish to reopen that mine however, I would be more than happy to set up negotiations with your town."

The fancy man bows his head. "Y-yes! Of course! We apologize and promise not to trespass again, I will personally spread word through our town."

"I will take you back down the mountain and drop you off a short walk from the town. You will return and let them know that I do not want people on my mountain uninvited... and ensure that boy gets medical attention. Pay for it if you have to."

You aren't sure why, but you like the young adventurer. You hope he recovers.

It's a short trip to carry the three of them back down to the foot of the mountain. The miner is strong enough to carry the young adventurer over his shoulder and they set off to town almost the second you set them down. You fly back up the mountain a bit and pause to watch them, ensuring they make it back safely.

You fly back into your lair when you see that they've reached the gates.

The town will surely respond to you in some way now that they're completely aware of your existence. Since you saved some people, hopefully you will be seen as a good dragon. Or at least one that can be reasoned with. Still, dragons of any stature attract the attention of brave adventurers and treasure stealing thieves. The idea of creating a second cave to act as your true home strikes you and you decide that you should probably set some time aside in the future to look for other available homes.

>WIS UP

But before you can do that you have more pressing matters to worry about. Negotiations may begin soon and you haven't even decided on a proper name that the other races may know you by! Your mother gave you a name in Draconic but that would make it difficult for anyone else to pronounce and it isn't really fitting.

Deciding on a name is a pretty serious issue though! Your name will carry a lot of weight and will say a lot about you. This will probably be the first thing the other kingdoms will learn about you, so it needs to leave a good first impression. You could go with something fearsome that would keep all but the bravest and most daring of adventurers from approaching your home ...but then it would make peaceful negotiations a little harder to manage. Hmmm...

>What will your name be?

>>623461
Aw c'mon, the jewelry could've been payment for saving their lives! At least we'll have a chance to bring that up at negotiations...

Name: Ishtak. Sounds similar to the noise that cracking ice makes.

THE IMPALER.

>>623463
I like Ishtak.

And yes, some payment for saving their lives would be something to bring up when they send someone to speak with you.

>Ishtak
Sounds good to me. (Titles come after we have sufficiently impressive deeds to reference, and are preferably given by others rather than invented ourself).

>Aw c'mon, the jewelry could've been payment for saving their lives! At least we'll have a chance to bring that up at negotiations...
First impressions are important (especially first non-secret contact with a local civ). Next time we negotiate with those guys though, I agree we should totally bring up how he owes us.

>>623461
>Icey McDragon

Illothris the Friendly
Isthak Evilbane

Something with a title that tells everyone we are an ok dragon to have around. Usually we would be supposed to wait for someone else to give us a title, but who will know…

Ishtak, just Ishtak though, no evilbane or anything pretentious like that, I think.

How about Balthasar der Weise?
Granted, the title is german, but that should give him an otherwordly aspect.
That aside, "der Weise" can be translated in two ways. "The white one" and "the wise one". And considering our color and our recent wis up, both kinda fit.

>>623492
"the white" would be "der Weiße", not "der Weise"

>>623508
Meh, phonetically there´s nearly no diffrence

Stealing the jewelery would have made a bad impression. Leaving them with the impression that they owe a dragon is going to be more valuable (especially if we kind of allude to it later. Magical creatures of alien moral codes and debt is scary bad). That's a debt they're going to be eager to get off from over their heads, and that will give us a nice edge in future negotiations for mining rights. (With a nice percentage tax on what they dig up, of course).

Plus, hey, if the warrior follows the right kind of honor code, he might owe us service. A human avatar / champion might be useful in the right situation.

tl;dr- the debt unpaid gives us a lot more leverage, and potential for long term gain, than the short term gain of a little jewelery.

>name
Isthak sounds good. It's suitably dragon-y sounding.

I'd agree no title-ing ourselves. Titles are things people give you, or that you earn.

Now that we are picking a name I realise there is one piece of information that hasn't come up yet. What gender are we?

Okay, how about "Ishtak der Weiße Impālāre"?

>>623538
Nein.

>>623534
Not sure if that even came up now. As far as these tiny scale-less sacks are concerned, gender is "dragon"

Ishtak der Weiße, no impaling unless we get there.

Dragon's Hoard Quest Cygnus 2015/02/06(Fri)17:38 No. 623796 ID: c0c685
File 142327310175.jpg - (205.17KB , 1000x1000 , Stats10.jpg )

Ishtak... Yes... Yes! You like the sound of that. You consider for a moment adding a title to your name, something cool like 'Der Weise' as a fun play on words but ultimately you decide that giving yourself a title is like giving yourself a nickname... just sort of sad.

>WIS UP

Now that you have a proper name, negotiations can begin... if the town ever works up the courage to negotiate with you. Only time will tell though.

With the humans gone and a name chosen, you find yourself with a little bit of free time.

>What will you do?

((Fun mod notes! >>623534 I only bring up options that will affect the world and the dragon. The dragon's gender holds no weight on how other beings will interact with you nor does it affect any of your stats. So you can pretty much imagine the dragon as whatever gender you want it to be! Or you can just say it's gender is "Dragon" like >>623646))

>>623796
Let's go over the mountains to the SE, and maybe ambush a caravan or rob a mine that's down there.

Look for a secondary cave. Preferably something out of the way where it won't be easily found.

>>623801
Please don't raid before negotiations. Makes you look less genuine in your peace talks.

Scout the nearby kingdoms so that you have some preparation before discussing politics. Hunt some animals store the food for your guests to eat.

>>623821
The people we're negotiating with are not in that direction.

I'm with not raiding just yet, either. If we have a negotiation looming, looking like the monster makes us look more like a threat than a potential partner.

And I don't want to raid haphazardly- it would be nice to try and maintain a balance of power between the disorganized humans by striking at the right places.

Which really means, if we want to manipulate them, we need a source of intelligence. Where do we go about finding that, though? Spy networks aren't exactly up for sale.

We should find a second cave, and also maybe experience with ice sculpting some to see if we cane make defenses (like spikes, barriers, or sheets of thin ice over pits) for areas/caves we don't want humans getting into.

Let's spend the time making our cave look more impressive using our frost breath and ice scuplting, should be good practice.