Forgotten Futures Campaign Idea - Dad's Dragons

[ffutures]

This is something I'm thinking of running at Dragonmeet at the end of November, and possibly publishing as a small game supplement with two or three adventures and support material.

Basic idea is a "twenty years later" continuation of Too Many Dragons, one of the adventures from my Nesbit book, Fables and Frolics, possibly adding in some of the Dragon Player Character stuff from the Tooth and Claw setting. The first adventure was set in a Welsh village where a group of meddling kids tried to find a dragon before its eggs hatched and its children devastated the countryside. At the end of the adventure they usually end up helping the dragon deal with the real threat, a meddling dragon wizard who is trying to gain favour in the Dragon Emperor's court (in another dimension) by persuading the dragon to reunite with her husband, the Emperor. The kids aren't going to be a threat if she brings them up properly.

Flash forward say 25 years to 1940-ish. The baby dragons are now teenagers (hatching took a LONG time), and live and work among the humans in the same village (dragon magic includes shape changing). Mum is still around, of course (dragons are VERY tough and live for centuries) and now runs the village pub or something of the sort. But the war is causing a few problems:

• Meat is rationed, and dragons are obligate carnivores who need a sheep every two weeks or so, or equivalent. Each.
• They're coming up to conscription age and while their shape changing is good, it isn't perfect and probably won't fool the sort of medical you have to take to join the forces or be medically excused from service.
• There's now an important and very hush-hush military base in the area - RADAR, mining rare minerals for Britain's beginning nuclear weapons research, or something of the sort - and everyone is being warned to be on the look-out for suspicious activity, aircraft, strange lights, etc. etc.
• Probably other things I haven't thought of yet.

Although they're dragons, they're patriotic Brits and do want to do their bit for King and Country, and since they're not quite old enough to enlist they've joined the local branch of the Home Guard. Some of the older members are aware that they are dragons and will try to help, others are blissfully ignorant.

I think there would be a mixture of draconic and human player characters. Say two dragon "boys" and a "girl", Mum (probably an NPC), and two or three humans, at least one of whom starts off not knowing anything about dragons. Throw in the usual sort of Dad's Army problems, problems from dear old Dad (the Dragon Emperor) who wants his heirs well away from those horrible violent humans, and so forth.

Any thoughts? Plot ideas? And are there any games / settings I should bear in mind as covering similar ground?

Comments

[eledonecirrhosa]

It sounds a fun premise.

Fireborn RPG (I've never read or played it) was about PCs who were reincarnations of dragons, or something like that. Pretty sure they could shapeshift into dragons.

Plots... German spies sent to slay dragons, in case the British weaponize them? Or obtain their blood to give their soldiers invulnerable skin? Called of course Operation Siegfried/Sigurd/Fafnir. They don't know for sure there are dragons in Wales, but they've found these old parchments... The NPCs not in the know will assume they are here to sabotage or steal secrets from the hush-hush military base.

Meanwhile, feral goats run wild in the hills on the hush-hush military base's land. Just the sort of thing for a dragon to snack on.

Or Government officials are noticing the number of lambs born and the number of sheep sent to market do not tally. They, of course, suspect black-marketeering of mutton and lamb, not that dragons are eating them! They recruit the Home Guard to assist their investigations.

[ffutures]

Some good ideas there - I'd been thinking more in terms of the dragons occasionally flying out to sea to catch sharks etc., and finding a U-boat, but the goats would certainly work. And with all the weird Nazi occult ideas a dragon hunt does seem very plausible. Of course this is a universe that does have magic around, so they might turn up tooled for the job with magic weapons etc.

[watervole]

Can dragons be used to sneak spies into German under the radar?

[ffutures]

Sorry - didn't spot this previously. Germany is a bit of a trek, they don't fly fast enough to make the round trip overnight, but they could do it in a couple of stages each way.

[watervole]

Fish could be a useful source of protein, if they can invent a way to use dragons to pull a trawl net.

[ffutures]

Sorry - didn't spot this previously. Fish are certainly a possibility, as are sharks and smaller cetaceans, seals, etc.