I'm in the process of introducing a dragon to my campaign. He's a feathered serpent from Aztlan who's moved to the Seattle area to start rebuilding an empire after having all his corporate holdings confiscated by the Aztlan government (Read: Aztechnology). He's not a Great Dragon, though, which means he can't take metahuman form and spend time amongst the general populace unnoticed (not that many GDs would do this much anyway) so instead has metahuman underlings to do the hard grafting. Once his power's re-established he plans to wreak a terrible revenge on the Azzies.

This got me wondering - what do dragons do all day apart from plotting?

Do they still sleep in giant caverns atop glittering piles of ancient treasures?
Do they hunt like animals?
Do they immerse themselves in all the luxury 2072 metahumanity has to offer?
Do they simply amuse themselves with their impressive Sorcery and Conjuring skills?

It will vary dragon to dragon, but putting that to one side:

What's your idea of a 21st century dragon?

I can see one of the more metahuman facing ones having a audience chanmber much like Leto the second in GEoD,

You walk in and its dark enough for you not to see just how big they are until they flick the lights on at just the right moment to shock you abit further. Or maybe a platform that rises up making you have to lean back to see them fully giving a even greater sense of their majasty. Awe and Fear working hand in hand.

Maybe not very high drama from a dragons point of view but more then enough for the lesser beings such as us

Well the first thing that he would have (and all dragons need) is a Speaker. Most people probably will not even realize there IS a dragon pulling the strings. From the stuff that I''ve read here are a few opinions.

1) They do sleep in giant caves. Don't think dank cave though, think more like a Hobbit Hole. This is their lair and its where they slept through the last magic down cycle. Anything of real importance will be kept there and protected by the most powerful spirits and magic they can produce.

2) They do hunt animals if they are the hunting type. Some just have herds of cattle delivered to them. Mater of style I guess.

3) I think they are very likely to have luxuries of this and the 4th Age.

4) I don't know if they spend time being amused as much as they spend time observing and learning. I can see a lot of time in the astral and a lot of time watching trid. I see armies of informants constantly supplying them with massive amounts of intelligence that they spend time consuming and digesting.

If you want a really great idea of how dragons thing and what they do you should read Rat's fiction. Even if you don't want to know you should read it, its all great stuff.

Now I've got a picture of Jabba the Hut in his palace in my mind.

I would think that all dragons would do drastically different things. Dragons come in an incredible amount of flavors and the thought processes and life systems of GDs are so vastly different that generalities most likely can't be made on that score. That said, you paint a pretty good picture for where this adult dragon you are talking about is now, so here is my take.

Firstly, he's going to need to set up shop somewhere. While his public holdings got taken from him, he was likely clever enough to keep a fair bit of cash in hidden accounts (not to mention any stash that he has left over from a previous age). Moving to Seattle is an excellent way to stay under the radar and quietly plot your revenge, so I am imagining this to be the dragon's motives.

This means he is probably moving into either the outskirts of the city, or a barren part of the city, any place where the rich and powerful aren't poking their noses very often. Depending on his financials, his new lair in the area is likely a run down building with a nice, mostly collapsed roof, or a certain section of sewer that he has spirits getting all nice and clean for him. It possible he got a special place made for him through a speaker, but dragon's living in caves? Passe, these days they most likely live in the nicest, and most private, estate they can afford. Niceness can be waived, but privacy is key.

Hunting would be a very high profile task, especially in and around Seattle. Likely he has picked up a speaker already, or has a new one he trusts from the Seattle region who would arrange for food deliveries. The quantities are suspicious, but no more so then one of the larger ghoul enclaves.

I would say luxury all the way, especially the younger dragons. Most of the dragons that I've heard about are immensely interested in the changes that occurred while they are away.

A dragon has to have its hobbies, likely your boy is looking at a long (read decades) plot of vengeance to wreak on the Azzies. This is likely amusement enough, along with building his power base in Seattle, this would eat up alot of his time. Dragon's tend to leave little to chance, so thats likely what he is doing. His magic does not amuse him anymore, he has had it for 1000s of years, I think he would be much more amused by a high budget trid-show. Perhaps he is addicted to a soap like "Passions"?

But hey, this is just my take, for any given dragon, I don't think you can put a template down for how they act...and I think that's kind of the point.

As far as food go, the easiest way to arrange deliveries would be to put some cash into some sort of food preparation facility and have a mean to arrange unobtrusive deliveries. the quantitites in the books can easily be fudged to disguise what he's eating. MAybe with a double-blind cover to make things safer as Aztechnology is heavily involved in the food market. Which raise the odds for them to poke their noses into what's probably a competitor for some of their brands and fillials.

When it comes to lodging, some sort of former industrial building is the best best : lots of room, strong floors, possibly on-site power supply, many of what he needs would be there. Of course a complete refurbishing is likely.

Maybe they've got some memory crystals.. well, not just lying about, more like carefully hidden.


While I think every dragon is clearly unique and has individual interests, there'll also be some generalities.

They tend to play the long game, and they all expect to change sides now and then. They'll never trust anyone completely; have accounts with different banks that your current allies know nothing about, same for lairs, contacts, identities and so forth.

It takes a lot of effort to keep your head above the water, when there's other dragons, GDs, corporations, vampires, immortal elves and so forth all trying to turn you into their pawn. That means you work on your security and information. All dragons need to do this, so there's another way dragons will be alike even though their interests may be different.