Green Dragons

[TheHolyDarkness]

Please remember the setting for ddo is Ebberon. Now in Ebberon dragons are quite rare due to the giant/dragon war. Now I know just about none of us follow all the story line stuffs, and we are just interested in bashing enemies as much as possible, but you must remember that the devs do try their best to follow the way Ebberon works. With this in mind, the devs must try their best to come up with a good story based reason as to why their is suddenly all these dragons appearing in a world where dragons are almost extinct.

WHAT?! -__-*

I got interested in the backstory after running Gianthold Tor (I was really confused about the Stormreaver's motivations as I was sitting there piking), and actually bothered reading a bit of the introduction guide of Eberron. You don't have to get very far before you run into this:

The dragons saw the giants’ threat to the world traced out in the Prophecy. Shocked and
alarmed at the effect the loss of the thirteenth moon had already had on Eberron and the rest of the
cosmos, this time the dragons chose to act. A scaled army poured forth from Argonnessen, with
flights of all colors led by the militant wyrms of the Light of Siberys.

The conflict was brutal, and its outcome never in doubt. The dragons had no interest in
holding territory. They made no effort to avoid civilian casualties; they brought fire, fang, and epic
magic to bear in the most destructive ways imaginable. In the end, nothing was left of the proud giant
nations of Xen’drik. Giant, elf, and all the other cultures of that continent were laid low by the
dragons, and powerful eldritch curses enacted on Xen’drik by the great wyrms of the Draconic
Conclave of Argonessen ensured that the giants would never again create a civilization advanced
enough to threaten the world.

Their mission accomplished, the dragons returned to Argonnessen to brood. All agreed that
the people of Xen’drik would never have posed such a threat if the dragons had not shared the secrets
of arcane magic with them. The Conclave called the event kurash Ourelonastrix in Draconic—
Aureon’s Folly—and forbade any flight from sharing the secrets of Argonnessen with “lesser
beings.”

Later on in the guide it gets more detailed with this:

...The freed slaves escaped in rafts and boats they
crafted by the thousands across the Thunder Sea to the small, tropical island continent that lay south
of Khorvaire. They carried with them all the possessions they could manage, including in some cases
livestock and even horses. The elves named thei new land Aerenal, or “Aeren’s Rest” in the Elven
tongue.

But the giants were not willing to let the entire underpinnings of their civilization—elven
slave labor—simply walk away. The giants, threatened again with destruction so soon after having
forced the quori to return to the Plane of Dreams, were wholly unprepared to fight another war. Faced
with losing the tattered remnants of their empires to the elves’ rebellion and flight, the giants decided
to unleash the power of the same grotesque blood rites they had used to stop the quori on their
rebellious slaves.

Before the giants could unleash such earth-shaking destruction a second time, and before they
could reach the Oasis of Blood to claim the Orbs of Dragonkind that might have been used to spare
them from draconic retribution, the dragons of Argonessen decided that their former protégés would
not be allowed to repeat their cataclysmic mistake. In a display of draconic power that has not been
seen since, the Light of Siberys and the Eyes of Chronepsis drafted thousands of other dragons into a
military force beyond human comprehension. This draconic armada descended upon Xen’drik. The
flights of dragons blotted out the sun and for the first time since their epic war with the fiends, the full
might of Argonessen was brought to bear. In less than a week, the dragons cast down the last of the
giants and expunged the titans’ empires with their elemental fury and epic magic. When their wrath
was spent, the dragons had wreaked almost as much havoc on a continental scale as they had acted to
prevent. As a race, they lamented their choice to share their arcane power with the giants. To the
present day, that dreadful error is a stain on the memory of all dragonkind and it is one the masters of
Argonessen intend never to repeat.

The giant civilizations literally disappeared under this fearsome draconic assault, wiped from
the face of Eberron.

Now what, in any part of that, gave you an indication that the dragons became an endangered species as a result of their "war" with the giants? It wasn't a war. It was a slaughter. A butchering. The dragons OMGBBQPWNED the giants then went home. Its what they got for first blowing up a moon, then trying to use the same reckless tactic for a simple slave rebellion in the aftermath of driving the Quori out.

Why would dragon encounters be "rare?" Having skimmed more of it, the main reason why dragon encounters are rare from a player character's point of view is because legally, due to reasons mostly related to the prophecy and the experience from the giants, dragons are technically forbidden from expansion beyond Argonnesson without Council permission. Red tape and red tape alone is what keeps the entire planet from being utterly dragon dominated. They had an age where they freely roamed wherever they wanted. Some got buddy-buddy with the giants of Xen'drick and that led to a civilization they now deeply regret. Hence most of them simply stick to their homeland, and they have been doing well for countless millenia.

Their absolute numbers would have us consider them alarmingly common by most DnD accounts. In Eberron, you can have as many dragons as you want. Butcher them all you want too. Matters not. The only story excuse you need is that this is Eberron.

Now where's the Green Dragon? /signed

~TheHolyDarkness Out~

[TheHolyDarkness]

With this in mind, the devs must try their best to come up with a good story based reason as to why their is suddenly all these dragons appearing in a world where dragons are almost extinct.

Hell, even in the context of DDO, there's more than just the dragons you fight as bosses. There are a bunch of dragons who are probably polymorphed as well.

There's the gold dragon polymorphed as an Elf in the marketplace. The Argonesson Matron is clearly a polymorphed black dragon. Velah can be seen polymorphed in the Chronoscope raid. Cynodine is OBVIOUSLY a polymorphed blue or silver or something like that. The guy who transports you to Gianthold? Polymorph. The NPC who gives the feat swap mission is probably yet another polymorph, and there's probably at least two other polymorphed dragons in Reaver's Refuge, being Terrathule and his assistant.

Is it possible some of them aren't dragons? Not every Agent of Argonesson is a dragon-in-disguise, but most of them are. So yeah.

When you envision the dragon continent, try to envision it mostly full of polymorphers of all metallic and chromatic stripes. Eberron dragons like to lay low far more than average versus other settings. Even the normatively evil ones, who are supposed to shun the idea of "disguising their glorious forms," find polymorphing in Eberron a force of habit so compulsory as to make them look like a Silver Dragon by any other campaign.*

~TheHolyDarkness Out~

*Typically, the Silver Dragon alone actually likes to polymorph constantly. But this Eberron.

[BattleCircle]

Hell, even in the context of DDO, there's more than just the dragons you fight as bosses. There are a bunch of dragons who are probably polymorphed as well.

There's the gold dragon polymorphed as an Elf in the marketplace. The Argonesson Matron is clearly a polymorphed black dragon. Velah can be seen polymorphed in the Chronoscope raid. Cynodine is OBVIOUSLY a polymorphed blue or silver or something like that. The NPC who gives the feat swap mission is probably yet another polymorph, and there's probably at least two other polymorphed dragons in Reaver's Refuge, being Terrathule and his assistant.

Is it possible some of them aren't dragons? Not every Agent of Argonesson is a dragon-in-disguise, but most of them are. So yeah.

When you envision the dragon continent, try to envision it mostly full of polymorphers of all metallic and chromatic stripes. Eberron dragons like to lay low far more than average versus other settings. Even the normatively evil ones, who are supposed to shun the idea of "disguising their glorious forms," find polymorphing in Eberron a force of habit so compulsory as to make them look like a Silver Dragon by any other campaign.*

~TheHolyDarkness Out~

*Typically, the Silver Dragon alone actually likes to polymorph constantly. But this Eberron.

+1 to you sir. You have been paying attention