Draconic December is the Alexandrian’s Discord channel community challenge for the month. Here is my entry.
The Dungeonshell Dragon
“For ten thousand years, a hill is a hill. Then one day it gets up and crushes your home!”
-Brill Grothbone, de-hoveled transient
The Draco Dormitabitesta (commonly known as the Dungeonshell Dragon) displays a unique and extreme version of draconic lair-making/hoard-building behavior. Before entering a centuries-long slumber, the dragon creates a “cocoon” from its melted hoard. A twisting maze of dungeon passages form a ventilated “shell” around this cocoon, and this structure is in turn surrounded by earth and stone, hidden from the outside world. Until one day, it all starts to wake up.
The Moving Mountain
A hill, mountain, tor, plateau, or similar prominence of earth has separated itself from the surrounding terrain and is on the move. At first, its speed is no faster than an average person’s walking speed, but it doubles each day, topping out at 10 times its initial velocity.
Hooks
For low-level PCs, simply avoiding the moving mountain or dealing with its second order effects may be the source of many adventures. Mid-level PCs can adventure inside the Trembling Dungeon. High-level PCs may seek to stop the phenomena, up to and including facing the Awakening Dragon.
Complications and Hazards
Stampede! Mundane animals panic for miles ahead of the mountain, storming through villages and campsites even while the mountain itself is only a distant rumble over the horizon.
Landslides. Sections of the mountain slough off as it moves, crushing terrain to the left and right of its course, and inhibiting attempts to scale its sides.
Disinterred dead. The churning motion of the mountain has plowed up the long-slumbering warriors of the Great Skeleton Army, who will march in the ruined wake of the mountain, intent on plundering the rival city-state that fell into ruin a thousand years ago.
Gonna get some hop-ons. Opportunistic oxenfolk from the wilds have climbed aboard the moving mountain and now use it as a raiding platform. They have rigged ballistas with retractable lines to use to snare interesting loot or zipline down to unfortunate communities they can pillage.
Fumaroles. Sulphuric gas, long contained within the mountain, is now released in stanky jets from fissures in the slopes of the mountain. A keen sense of smell or an eye for sulfur crystals can spot these dangers before they blast the unwary.
Unlucky village. They built their homes at the top of the hill for the nice view, but now that hill is changing their perspective. They are too busy squabbling with each other to mount an efficient evacuation.
Rolling stones. A scree of Galeb Duhr have (understandably) misinterpreted the mountain’s movement as the return of Storstein, the primordial boulder god. They will send animated boulders tumbling down the slopes at any meatbags who attempt to interfere with their god’s holy procession.
Kaiju battle. A tarrasque, titan, or other big boi interprets the moving mountain as a rival and attempts to fight it.
Investigating and Understanding the Phenomena
Destination. The mountain’s destination will not be inherently obvious, but PCs who track its progress over time may be able to figure it out. The mountain will move toward the nearest heavy concentration of powerful magic. This could be an archmage’s tower, an extraplanar portal, an arcane metropolis (in a sufficiently high-magic setting), or something else entirely. The destination may even be secret, hidden, and lost to time, attracting ambulance-chasing wizards, nothics, and even more unsavory sorts to the mountain’s passage.
Means of locomotion. The moving mountain acts similarly to a tectonic plate, riding on extremely hot magma. Differences in temperature, viscosity, and gas composition, intuitively controlled by the sleeping dragon within, control its course.
Interacting with the mountain. The mountain is not a creature for most rules purposes. Abilities like the ranger’s Primeval Awareness may reveal that a dragon is within the mountain. Spells like Commune with Nature may also reveal clues as to the source of the phenomena. The dragon cannot be seen, and cannot be directly targeted by most spells, but at the DM’s discretion, some forms of telepathic communication or divination magic may allow glimpses into its restless, dreaming mind. Creatures with tremorsense (like the aforementioned galeb duhr) can sense a “heartbeat” deep within the mountain. Venturing into the Trembling Dungeon and closer to the dragon itself will improve the effectiveness of these techniques.
Few things will stop the moving mountain, but it will not cross oceans or mountain ranges. Fresh spoor from another ancient dragon (not easy to get), usually used to mark territory, could motivate the mountain to circumvent a particular region. Adventurers may come up with other schemes; it should be difficult, but by no means impossible, to subvert the mountain’s path.
Early awakening. Sufficiently powerful magic, such as the spell Earthquake, may cause the dragon to awake before reaching its destination, for better or worse.
The Trembling Dungeon
Twisting dungeon tunnels and ancient subterranean ruins separate the dragon from the surface. Accessible through openings created by landslides and fumaroles, the dungeon is home to both ancient and recent occupants.
The DM could adapt an existing dungeon to serve this purpose, or randomly generate one. Because the dungeon serves primarily as an ecological/mystical purpose for the dragon, rather than an architectural/residential one for its denizens, it may have any number of dead-ends, illogically arranged rooms, or other “impractical” dungeon features.
Complications and Hazards
Restless slumber. The dungeon shakes and moves with the mountain’s movement and the dragon’s slow process of awakening. While it is not in danger of collapse until the dragon is fully awakened, chunks of stone and earth may fall free and land on the unwary.
Too greedily and too deep. Dwarven miners driven mad by gold fever refuse to leave the dungeon. They believe the dragon’s cocoon is a pure vein of treasure. Dangerous to themselves and others.
Disrupted parasites. An entire ecology of purple worms, bombardier beetles, and dire dermacentors has lived for hundreds of years within the mountain, depending on the dragon’s waste (and waste energy) to survive. They are now completely freaking out.
Pollyanna gnomes. These simple folk only wish to craft tall red felt hats and drink mushroom tea. They are self-deluded about what’s happening around them, but can be useful guides if convinced to help.
Doomsday cultists. They’ve been looking forward to the end of the world, and are hoping this regional disaster will turn into a global one.
Probing tongue. The dragon’s prehensile tongue is more than 120 feet long, and begins to instinctively explore the dungeon halls, even as the dragon itself still slumbers. For mechanical purposes, the tongue is more like a natural hazard than a monster, bowling over or grappling adventurers it encounters. But dealing more than 50 points of damage to it will cause it to rapidly retract toward the cocoon at the heart of the mountain. Dealing more than 100 points of damage will likely lead to the dragon’s early awakening.
The Awakening Dragon
The final awakening process takes a full hour. The Trembling Dungeon begins to fall apart at this point, and the various denizens attempt to escape in a panic. During this time, the dragon is immune to all damage and any abilities or magic that would affect it short of Wish, divine intervention, or equally epic magic.
Use an Ancient Red Dragon stat block for the awakened dragon, with the changes and additions as noted below.
Lacquered in Gold. For the first three rounds of combat, the layers of metal coating the dragon give it +5 bonus to its AC, but limit its flying speed to 20’. Beginning on the fourth round, enough gold has sloughed off to allow it to fly freely, but the AC bonus also ends.
Awakened Rage. The dragon is acting in a highly instinctual manner when it first awakens, and at best will be disoriented, aggressive, confused, and violent; but damage may serve as a shock to its system. As a general rule, the DC for any ability check to influence the dragon’s behavior (e.g., Charisma (Persuasion) or Charisma (Intimidation)) is equal to its current HP divided by 10 (minimum 12). The DM should give fair consideration to PCs’ non-violent proposals for reasoning with the dragon, but also be clear about the dragon’s agitated state and the difficulty of reasoning with it or diverting it from its purpose, at least at first.
Fixed Purpose. The dragon is immune to the Charmed and Frightened conditions.
Immutable Form. The dragon is immune to any spell or effect that would alter its form.
Breath of Gold. The first time the dragon uses its breath weapon, it also expels the vast quantity of liquid gold that filled its throat and lungs during its long slumber. In addition to the normal effects of its breath weapon, those who fail their saving throws are coated in a thick layer of molten gold. They are restrained and take 7d8 damage on each of the dragon’s subsequent turns (as if affected by the spell Heat Metal cast with a seventh-level slot). Creatures restrained in this way may make a DC 21 Strength saving throw at the end of their turn to end the effect.
Still Groggy. Treat the dragon as if it had only a quarter as many hit points as it actually does for purposes of the Sleep spell. It has disadvantage on saving throws against spells such as Imprisonment that would put it in a sleeping or sleep-like state.
Unimpeded Awakening
If the dragon is not killed, subdued, reasoned with, or otherwise stopped from consuming the source of magic toward which the moving mountain moved, it will attempt to carry out the mythical impetus of its catastrophic slumber. This may take the form of opening a portal to the elemental plane of fire; spawning a new flight of red dragons; inciting all of the continent's volcanoes to erupt at once; or simply ending the world (hey, those cultists were right after all!)
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