6 - White Dragon Venture

[Jon]

Excerpts from an Email Thread:

going forward with Dragon
Shepfer, Graham C

Fri, Aug 20, 12:43 PM

Questars,

As most of you know already, the Dragon got way. She did not get the chest or damage any of us while taking over half of her damage, so I guess it was a partial victory.

My thoughts going forward are we see if we can work out a plan to finish this expedition. If we can’t come up with a good plan, given her great flight speed and ability to go up into the mountains where we are not very mobile, then I suggest we go on to the next expedition (Radagast and Dol Guldur) and come back to this at a later date.

My only good start on a plan is to setup an ambush in the town, which would rely on her attacking there at a point in the place where we are close. Dealing with her at night means our range is mostly 60 ft and the town is very large on that basis.

Graham Shepfer

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Nathan Engle

Fri, Aug 20, 5:30 PM

Agreed. Unless Jon comes up with a way to transport that 10 ton shackle any dragon is very difficult to pin down. We have a limited amount of time to do stuff and I'd rather invest it in things that aren't just going to fly away flipping their middle fingers at us.

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Nathan Engle

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Traas, Mark Thomas

Fri, Aug 20, 10:17 PM

Hey, guys,

Just a short recap on the Dwarrowhall white dragon encounter.

It really came down to a few die rolls that decided success or no success in taking out Wintercloak. Had she missed the (disadvantaged) saving throw vs Melody’s Hypnotic Pattern, she would have likely crashed and burned (literally), however she rolled a natural 16 & 19 on that saving throw. Or… if Celebros (and Aria) had rolled higher on their initiatives and scored damage, it may have been enough to finish the dragon, which had already taken 75 damage (out of an estimated 115-120 HPt size, small even for a young dragon).

The dragon (rolling dice to determine her reaction after being attacked) decided to flee the scene after getting a fireball shot up her tail and suffering considerable injury, rather than fight and die like most dumb monsters do. The dragon did not make a single attack, focused on fast flight and a snatch & grab & go operation and the party came out unscathed. However, she lost grip of the chest and dropped it after a successful Disarming Attack by Fingilote. Moments later, the dragon vented her post-battle anger (at getting badly hurt *and* not getting her treasure) by doing a fly-by against archers atop the tower keep in Dwarrowhall, freezing to death two archers with her frigid breath. It is unknown what she will do next, but she had already threatened to terrorize the population if her demands were not met.

Notably, prior to the encounter at sundown (with the eastward mountainside in the dark), there was a heavy snowfall, reducing range of visibility first to 240’, then 120’ and then 60’ as the snowfall intensified, so the party was literally fighting in the dark and in limited visibility. Celebros has been around long enough (a few Ages) to know that controlling weather is not an inherent characteristic of young white dragons, thus there is the possibility of her having a magic item in her possession, possibly a 2nd-Age made Dwarven Snowglobe, which affects the local area around it with snowfall when it is activated. Ken’s character communed with mountain using Speaker ability, and determined that a nearby 1000’ mountaintop served as the dragon’s OP (observation post) over the immediate area, but her lair is likely at least (If not more than) several miles away in the midst of the mountains.

I know some of you guys felt kind of bummed that you didn’t nail the dragon, but there’s no guarantee of success in any mission, even with the best laid plans and a high probability of success. Sometimes, the dice decide otherwise.

At your service,

Mark

[Jon]

While in the process of tallying up our gold and gems I was informed that this venture cost the party 2,500 Gps. When I asked Mark what we purchased for that 2,500 his repsonse was:

Nada. The Dwarrowhall leader later arranged to the chest you guys put together delivered to Wintercloak by the scout charmed by her.

That's -2,500 in the debit column.

Mark