Draconic Laziness

It’s new years eve, and the fifth monday of the month, so I’m going to practise the draconic virtue of resting and enjoying my treasures in my home.

No update today, but we will return next week; when we’ll be establishing a new pattern for the new year.

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Gifts for a Dragon

What can you give the beast that’s got everything?

More Shiny Stuff

No matter how large a dragon’s hoard, they always want more – dragons are greed personified. So even if they have everything, consider what they don’t have two of; and get them that.

Dragon Eggs

By gifting a dragon an egg you are providing them with one of three things: First it could be their own egg, in which case they will be grateful for its return, although unless you also provide the thief they may be somewhat suspicious.

Secondly it could be the egg of another dragon they tolerate, in which case you have given them powerful leverage for diplomacy.

Thirdly it could be the egg of another dragon they either don’t know or don’t like, in which case you have provided them with a rare and delicious meal.

Tartare Sauce

It is a well-known fact that one should not interfere in the affairs of dragons – humanoids are crunchy and go well with ketchup. By buying a dragon Tartare Sauce you can spur them to enjoy seafood for some time, distracting them from kidnapping princesses and devouring knights.

Laxative Tablets

Dragons consume a very mineral-rich diet, high in iron, steel, silver and gold. Unfortunately it is also very low in fibre, meaning that dragons can easily become constipated, rather grumpy and overproducing methane – which leads to town-destroying rampages. Give your neighbourhood dragon some mild laxatives to help them stay regular and happy in their lair.

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Ungyzing

Caption: Ungyzing and Sausage and Chips guarding some books

 

Everyone has cuddly toys? People still have ones from childhood? It’s not just me? My oldest is a dragon by the name of Ungyzing. I’ve had him for somewhere over thirty years by this point, Sausage And Chips, the parrot next to him in  that picture, is not much younger. Yes, he’s called Sausage And Chips – don’t blame me, that’s what he told me he was called! I had toys who were older (such as Leopardy, the imaginatively names leopard, and The Whale, a knitted… uh… whale, which my mum used to sneak into my and my brothers’ PE kits!), but Ungyzing was the first who was actually mine!

Well, I say he is A dragon, more accurately he’s the king of the dragons, and his horde is the entire universe. Or so he says – don’t all dragons claim to be the king of the dragons and own everything? Regardless, Ungyzing is a kind, and caring soul who has protected me for many years.

Other than this being somewhat cute, what can you do with this information other than go “awww”? Maybe have a think about dragons. Last week Ali wrote about what we mean by dragons (and introduced you to Alfred, who is also very helpful).

Dragons are supposed to be highly intelligent and independent creatures, so no doubt they have many and varied personalities too. Yet in RPGs and stories they are more often than not arrogant and angry. If they’re not, their personality is mostly determined by the colour of their scales, with only the metallic ones being anything approaching “nice” (ref: D&D). And yet, many dragons in myth are very protective of what they consider “their” – notably the Red Dragon of Wales, who sits proudly on the flag. And as mentioned earlier dragons are wont to claim everything as theirs, so surely they would want to protect everything – at least until it proved uncontrollable.

If a dragon claims the  entire universe as their own then perhaps the only things they would attack on sight are things which are not of this universe – outsider things, daemons, maybe undead depending on your mythology.

Ungyzing, of course, would soundly beat the snot out of Cthulhu!

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Meeting Dragons

Write about dragons this month, says the Boss.That’s not as easy as it sounds, because nobody can agree on what we mean by dragons.

The Welsh Dragon has four legs, wings, and a tail. Her diet is unclear, but probably includes invading Seis (Seisneg is Cymric for the English) She stands for bravery and steadfastness, and her element is earth.

The Norse dragon stands on four legs, but tends not to have wings.. Guardian of gold, he represents greed and selfishness. He eats adventurers, and he might breathe fire

The Oriental Dragon is more worm-shaped, and has either four, many, or no legs at all. It might fly, but without wings. It’s element is water.

The Tibetan Dragon is the Thunder god, ancestor of kings, and guardian of mountain top lands. Physically resembling his Chinese neighbour, I can find no ready reference to what he might eat..

Not forgetting the Komodo Dragon, which exists in the mundane world.

Also included in the draconic mantle are wyverns (only two feet and wings), hydras (many headed serpents), wyrms (no or many legs) and probably a whole lot more fantastical beasties depending on who you ask.

Perhaps a better question is why dragons are how they are. They represent to us the power of nature – whether that be the unpredictability of weather; the uncontrollability of fire; or the obnoxious nature of a greedy person – dragons are the ultimate in powerful monster. They might be benevolent – bestowing magic or material wealth – but they are more likely to eat you, as punishment for trying to control things beyond mankind’s ken.

As storytellers, we choose which kind of dragon fits our narrative. Anne McCaffrey chose a telepathic helpmate to help drive back the alien Thread; Weis and Hickman use both the fiery violence of Red and Black dragons and the helpful Metallics; and Tolkien uses the dragons as monsters, undefeatable by might, but perhaps confounded by guile.

I only keep the helpful varieties of dragon about. For example, here is Alfred, who job is to house treats for sharing, with some of his draconic friends.

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Dragonmeet Design Sparks

This weeks blog is slightly delayed, due to our trip to Dragonmeet in London over the weekend leaving us somewhat drained, and having met quite a lot of dragons! (We brought four with us too, so they could socialise with their scaly comrades)

Whenever we go to a convention there’s a good chance we’ll come back with more ideas than we went with. Dragonmeet was exceptional on this account, with 3 separate concepts crystallising, and a fourth flaring into existence.

First: 13th Age Southlands

The 13th age system suits our gaming styles, and our design ethos, very well indeed. So we’ve been working for a while on moving some of our system-neutral designs over to 13th age specific ones.

At Dragonmeet we actually met Rob Heinsoo and Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, two major writers for 13th Age (Rob Heinsoo being one of the two primary voices) and got a chance for a brief chat about our work, which helped us feel more confident that we’re not going to be stepping on any toes.

So work has picked up the pace on The Southland’s Project – designing a region to go south of The Dragon Empire with something of a different theme – where the core setting has almost half its icons directly tied to Imperial Politics, our region has 5 icons that are tied to Nature in some way; from the Pack Mother – leader of all those who follow their instincts, whether they be red in tooth and claw or maternal caring – to the Lichen Lich who promises that life and death need not be so different after all.

Second: Mine Slayer

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of logic puzzles; and I’ve been considering what it would take to make a game in which one of the players can design a puzzle for others to solve. While I had been thinking of this purely as a co-operative endeavour, talking it over with the team during the hours-long car journey resulted in something rather different – one player laying a minefield and the others playing minesweepers trying to be the first to cross it without exploding.

We have playtests for this later this week – the mechanics are still quite open with a large number of valves in need of adjusting: how many mines the mine-slayer gets to place being the greatest conundrum.

Third: Aspect Cards

The Concept Cards line is great, but it’s only really useful for GMs and writers – not for those stuck in a single skin of their player character. Aspect Cards are our exploration of what would be useful to the player – each containing two tied aspects of a character: backstory, equipment, appearance, connections or anything else that works.

Even more modular than Concept Cards, with no card being an island, they should be perfect additions to an existing character concept; or with half a dozen supply the whole concept on their own.

Fourth: Tinfoil Hat

Inspired by a game we were playing on the card journey, Tinfoil Hat is an improvisational game in the style of “But Wait There’s More”:

How do the Illuminati explain the flouride in our water supply? How does Adolf Hitler’s twin brother relate to the moon landings?

In Tinfoil Hat you’re forced to add ever more unexpected curveballs to your conspiracy theory until it eventually falls apart under the weight of red string and mixed metaphors.

The mechanics of the game are still in alpha-0.0.1, but their simplicity means it likely won’t take long to polish them – the choice of conspiracy elements on the other hand may take a while.

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