RE: (TFT) Dragon (NPC? Monster?)

["rsmith" <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>]

Hi Mark.

Cool character!
	I Love It.
	I would not rule that he loses tail lash ability
for gaining a talent.  Talents make you more capable
not less.

	Rick

-----Original Message-----
From: tft-owner@brainiac.com [mailto:tft-owner@brainiac.com]On Behalf Of
Mark Tapley
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 3:29 PM
To: tft@brainiac.com
Subject: (TFT) Dragon (NPC? Monster?)


All,
	DMGII made an interesting observation last July:

> Listed here are the potions that require dragon dung.
>This is an impressive list.  It also gives dragons a huge advantage
>as enchanters, chemist, and alchemist.  They provide their own most
>important ingrediant.

	The description of Dragons in ITL says "They are never wizards,
though they may use magic items." so I'm not sure whether they can be
alchemists. Anyway, this just kept percolating. So....

-------


ST:	60	Name:	Agrelgar, AKA Muzzleblast, AKA Sulfur (M)
DX:	14	Race:	Dragon (red)
IQ:	20	Job:	N/A.

(cost) Talent:
(1) Literacy		(3) Chemist		(2) Unarmed Combat I
(1) Human Tongue	(1) Tactics		(2) Unarmed Combat II
(2) Mechanician		(2) Strategist		(2) Unarmed Combat III
(2) Master Mechanician				(2) Thrown Weapons

Attacks:
	Claws	2D + 3 (unarmed combat)  - OR -  (many)D (hammertouch)
	Breath	3D	costs 5 ST, +2 DX (thrown weapons)
	Petards	6D/3D/1D, shock, +2 DX, can ready/throw in
					 1 turn (thrown weapons)
	Shock Shield	1D, HTH opponents only.
	Throw (per UC III): Opponent rolls 5D vs. DX (4D if ST 120+)

Protection:
	Skin		5 hits
	Stone Flesh 	4 hits

Useful Magic Items:

in his lair:
	Chemist's Lab scaled up for use by a 7-hex figure.
	Magician's Lab for use by human prisoners
	Circlet: (Dragon-sized)
		Far Vision
		Dark Vision
	Sleep ring (many) for use by human prisoners
	Gates (several) for observation/sudden attack

usually worn:
	Bracer (Left hand):
		Blur, 7-strength (no ST cost)
	Ring: (Left hand):
		Stone Flesh, 7-strength (no ST cost)
	Necklace:
		Spell Shield, 7-strength (costs 7 ST/turn)
	Bracer (Right hand):
		Reverse Missiles, 7-strength (costs 7 ST/turn)

Worn when he's expecting combat:
	Gauntlet (Right Hand):
		Hammertouch, 1D per strength per "thump"
		Shock Shield, 7-strength (no ST cost)




Background:
	Agrelgar lusts for gold as do other dragons. But he is unusual in
that he takes the long view. He is willing to spend gold to enhance his
ability to  capture more gold later. He has also elected to leverage as
much human technology (and magic) as possible in his dealings, in order to
give himself an advantage over his prey.
	His prey consists of two groups. First, those that have a lot of
gold, including other dragons. Second, those that can add to the power of
his possessions and abilities, including both wizards who know magic item
creation spells and martial arts masters.
	The first group, he attacks ruthlessly and with intent to kill
quickly. As a chemist with a working laboratory and an endless supply of
"Dragons' end product", he makes many large batches of gunpowder. This he
uses in traps in his lair and for grenades and petards which he carries
into combat. He is strong enough to throw petards and cuts their fuses
short for this purpose. He lights them with a (small) breath, as he readies
and throws one each turn (cf. Thrown Weapons talent). He is willing to
throw close enough to himself to take some damage if necessary to get
maximum effect on his target. If he closes with a multi-hex figure, he will
enter HTH (to reduce his chances of missing) and use a 10 or 20 strength
punch from his Hammertouch item to finish it off quickly. Nuisance
creatures (like many humans) can usually be handled by the Shock Shield
item while being trampled. He tends not to leave witnesses *but* if victims
surrender, he is willing to release them - if they first agree to hypnosis.
They do not remember the attack afterward.
	His lair is trapped with petards and grenades as well. The petards
usually are rigged to traps and set off by very large weights - like
invading dragons, slimes, etc. For smaller passageways, he favors traps
which fire blunderbusses loaded with clippings from his own claws. When the
scouts set off such a trap and the rest of the party catches up, there's a
good chance for a wrong conclusion: heard a roar, Scout down covered with
dragon-claw marks and scorches, scent of sulfur in the air -> dragon ahead.
If Agrelgar can arrange to be *behind* the party at the time, surprise can
be complete.
	He also favors sleeping gas bombs, which he makes in his lab. He is
immune to them by virtue of his strength, and is sometimes able to capture
large parties quickly that way. The Sleep rings (of which he carries a good
supply) ensure the continued somnolence of his new "guests".
	The second class of prey, he looks for most keenly. He has been
known to lure wizards into the wild with a written invitation, as well as
capturing them enroute when they are so foolish as to travel without a
heavy escort. Once captured, the wizard is brought back to the lair and
imprisoned. Agrelgar applies a carrot-and-stick approach: if the wizard or
apprentice works industriously and well, he is paid (but not Guild rates!)
for his labor and released unharmed; if he refuses, he ends up as gunpowder
raw material. But even if he cooperates, Agrelgar will insist on
hypnotizing him and removing all knowledge of Agrelgar and his lair before
releasing him.
	Prisoners are generally put to bed with "sleep" items on to ensure
that they do not escape during rest periods. Also, they are stripped of all
magic items and given simple shifts to wear. On several occasions Agrelgar
has outguessed wizards who knew Wizard's Wrath and chose to make a
desperate bid to kill him with one mighty bolt. Spell Shield was the
defense of choice usually, but with one particularly obnoxious wizard it
was Reverse Missiles. The cleanup that time took a while. Agrelgar has also
been outguessed but was lucky on the damage roll, so he's careful.
	Agrelgar will not use or allow his prisoners to make magic items
which require killing a dragon - even though he has no compunction about
killing dragons himself. It's just a bad precedent to set.
	Agrelgar spends a lot of time on intelligence gathering. In
addition to the labs, his lair has an "observation room" which contains
several gates, each with outlets overlooking various mountain passes. He
pokes his head through and takes a good look around (using the Vision
Circlet) for caravans or other movement. (A very few lucky travellers have
spotted a dragon's head peering out from a cliff above them. None of the
survivors mentioned it.) He flies around a lot, too, generally at night
when the "guests" are a-Sleep.
	The entrance to his lair is atop a spur in the middle of a cliff,
reachable by and visible to fliers only. After the landing platform,
there's a fairly intricate (and thoroughly trapped) maze of passages on the
way back to the living areas. There is a dungeon, clean, well-lit,
well-furnished and reasonably appointed, for use by his "guests". There is
a hoard with more traps, the labs, and the observation room.
	He is very careful not to leave clues to its location by his
operations. Captives are usually taken from locations far away, and anyone
clever enough to plot a metacenter for his kidnaps and releases would find
that it centered on a colony of mountain goblins, not on his lair.

	Agrelgar has several ambitions. A crystal ball usable by him would
be lovely (but unlikely - crystal balls are Wizards' tools). Learning
Unarmed Combat IV and V would make combat quite a lot more appealing to him
- but he'll need a DX enhancement item to learn them. Combination items (so
he can wear more at once) and self-powered items would also be nice - but
the cost will be enormous, and he's likely to outgrow them before they are
ready. Permanent Pentagrams on the rooms of his lair would vastly enhance
his security, but he relies on the fact that no-one is looking for him.
	Mostly, however, he wants more gold. His pile has been diminished
substantially by upkeep on his labs and by even slave-wage payment to the
wizards who made all his 7-strength items (and their 4-strength
predecessors). He's not dangerous enough to take on cities yet, but he is
pretty likely to be able to clean out towns, if he can find one worth the
risk, or the lairs of his 7- and 14-hex bretheren.

GM Notes:
	A really tough party might be able to beat Agrelgar if he attacks
them as they defend a rich caravan. Petards are pretty bad, though, and
Agrelgar will spend them the way most people throw rocks. He will attack
with surprise, often right after the caravan has encountered mines he set
on the road. He'll tend to save his own strength for Spell Shield, or
Reverse Missiles if the party has a lot of ranged weapons, using petards,
claw attacks, or trample/Shock Shield to do most of his damage.
	A less tough party with a wizard that can perform Lesser or Greater
Magic Item Creation is likely to become a capture target. Agrelgar will
have no use for anybody but the wizard and the apprentices. He'll probably
release them alive (he generally is a "good" dragon), but will precondition
this on their allowing hypnosis (so they won't know what happened to the
wizard).
	A party would have to be very lucky to find his lair, and fliers or
good climbers to reach it. Once there, they'll *need* several good
thief/mechanicians to survive and retain their freedom. Agrelgar is a smart
master mechanician with a lot of time on his hands.

-------

	Comments welcome. For example: if he learns UC IV and gets natural
Eyes-Behind, does he lose the ability to lash with his tail? I suppose it's
reasonable, maybe he's using the tail for balance instead of attacking.
							- Mark
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