Unfortunately, this change in the local politics draws the attention of the pirate lords. While you had anticipated that they would object to this new power rising on their island, you expected they would avoid open conflict for fear of weakening themselves. In an unexpected change of attitude, they both agree to put aside their differences to crush the upstart alliance. Early on morning, they send in their own troops to seize the smaller merchants.

Your new militia puts up a decent fight at first, but quickly breaks when it becomes clear they're facing experienced killers. Around thirty of the one hundred troops you sent die in the fighting. The alliance is quickly subdued, though many of the senior individuals involved manage to escape.

A few hours later, you receive word from your trading company (so far uninvolved the fighting) that more than a hundred troops have been sent to the northern villages. They are travelling by ship and will probably arrive at the first late in the afternoon. Around two hundred more troops are still in the Penskar. The brief alliance they formed seems to be disintegrating as they are arguing over how to split the seized assets.

You have about four hours before the ship full of troops arrive at the first village. There are around seventy of your own troops making their way back to their home villages, most will probably be out of contact for several days.

>>22803296
Well I guess Pirates have a taste for fire breath...

Burn the fuckers alives

>>22803296
Burn them on their ships, tear them to pieces on land

Burn em,

>>22803314
>>22803323
>>22803355
Do I need to say it?

The ones who didn't die in the ships and float on shore have enslaved, we can use the raw labor

when we are done, lets destroy these pirates homes, teach them we do not fuck around

yeah go in under invisibility and burn the ships. Then reform our alliance backed by our kolbold fighters and "discuss" things with the pirate lords

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Considering the situations from the pirate's point of view, the decision to move by sea makes sense. They know that someone has been seizing power in the countryside and the local roads are quite poor. Moving by ship is faster too and they have far more experience at hitting settlements from the sea. Unfortunately for them, they couldn't have made themselves easier to wipe out if they'd tried.

You take off, racing for the most likely position of the ship. With a practiced motion, you spell yourself invisible just before heading out past the forest. The spell has to be renewed only once before you catch sight of the ship.

The men on the deck barely have time to scream as the ship is engulfed in flames. The sail and most of the main deck are instantly set ablaze. The hull proves slightly resistant to the growing inferno, most likely the wood has been alchemically treated. It does nothing to stop the blaze from consuming everything else and soon the hull starts to burn too. The protections were probably only meant to stop simple fire potions from setting the ship alight.

A few more passes and blasts of your breath and the blackened hull starts to list, the weight of the surviving wood being unevenly distributed. A few dozen survivors are scattered in the water, some are clearly too badly burned to do much, but a few are desperately trying to swim for the shore. You turn to pass them and release your breath once more, burning most of those on the surface. One sees you coming and dives beneath the water, giving him some protection against the heat of your breath. You fly past, almost skimming the water before lashing out with your claws. The speed of your flight means you slap into the water so hard you can't be sure if you hit flesh. Glancing back, you confirm yo
u did as a cloud of blood begins to form.

Taking care to destroy any pieces of debris that might hide more survivors, you survey the scene. The ship is gone, only a few pieces of driftwood remain. Bodies litter the water, most having died from the burns they received in your first few passes. No one remains alive and you loiter for around a quarter of an hour to ensure there are no survivors hiding somewhere.

The pirates won't be sending any troops to your villages today, but they still have two thirds of their forces in the town - not to mention whatever is at sea at the moment.

How do you intend to deal with them?

>>22803537
Are there ny survivors on shore? if so enslave them

>>22803537
Well... I guess we head into town and Rip their shit, destroy their ships so they cannot get away, and offer them their lives for surrender

>>22803548
No survivors, remember.
>>22803537
Okay, how many loyal fighters do we have out of our kolbolds and elves?

destroy any pirate ships out to water then head to the town docks to do the same, then we give the pirates a lesson never to be forgotten

>>22803537
Let's do this smartly. Don't bring the fight into the town, take it outside. Try to lure their troops out by placing our village minutemen outside (but outside arrow range). If they bite, have our kobolds at the ready. They're small, so they should be able to hide in the coast or under vegetation. If they take the battle to open ground, we can even get to make a few passes and catch them completely off-guard with our breath.

>>22803569
Nah, we need a raiding fleet eventually. What we should do is wait for nightfall and then torch their respective headquarters while invisible.

>>22803592
good point, far to much that can burn in city limits, have our elves and kobolds on the ready to draw them out, also see if we can get the sea devils to aid us, they can keep any trinkets from downed pirate ships, also lets see how good our lizard men our, put them with the kobolds

>>22803614
No deals with the sea devils. The sahuagin will just seize the chaos to raid the town and get valuable shit. Shit that is rightfully part of our claimed domain, and shit they are not getting.

>>22803632
who said anything about letting them into town? the ships out patrolling around the island and yet to land though... only promise them whatever trinkets that came from ships with black sails

>>22803645
Yeah, I dislike it. I'd prefer to just reform our troops, add the kolbolds and elves, lure the pirates out of the city and crush them.

>>22803645
Well, it's either them or setting fire to the ships. But if said ships are at sea, they probably aren't returning any time soon before the battle. So I think we can very well burn them at our leisure as we wait for the battle to come.

Your lizardmen aren't particularly good fighters. There are around a dozen elven hunters who have proven quite adept at tracking and quietly killing prey, though so far they have only operated in the forest, so the open terrain around the city might give them problems.

The pirate ships aren't easily distinguished from any other vessel in the area, it was just your breath that left them blackened.

>>22803661
We could make a grand entrance, and demand the surrender of the pirates, methinks they know they have bitten off more then they can chew, by nature pirates are cowardly and will be looking for any out, that is when we make them an offer they cannot refuse; work for us and have the riches of the earth laid at their feet, or burn to ash

>>22803661
Hmm, could we cast an illusion to aid our elves? Maybe an inconspicious Silent Image?

Also, if the kobolds aren't very good, can we at least equip them with some fire arrows? We have at least one kobold that's good with a crossbow after all, might as well put that band of heroes to the test.

As for the pirate ships, we might as well deal with them after the battle, then. Can't waste our hidden identity before luring out the bastards after all.

Well the slow approach sure helped avoid conflict...
If we're intent on keeping secrecy, we should sent a few kobolds to the beaches close to where we attacked the ship to bury the pieces of burned wood and flesh that will drift back to shore.

>>22803592
We don't have enough troops.
There's 200 of them and we have 70 humans at most (if we can gather them at the right time), plus maybe half of our 160 kobolds.
That's not enough to fight their trained men, and that's too many to hide in shrubbery.

We need to hire more men first.
Is there any available in town ?

>>22803710
>There's 200 of them and we have 70 humans at most (if we can gather them at the right time), plus maybe half of our 160 kobolds.
what is fire breath of terror of doom

>>22803727
terror AND doom*

>>22803689
I think the pirates lords have to die for what they did.
The two pirate lords are the same people as the two guild leaders mentionned in the last thread, right ?

>>22803710
How can you even access the town, anyways? They're fucking occupying it. Our agents will just get kicked out.

>>22803736
good, that cuts down considerably on the people we have to kill, find these two and reduce them to cinders, then offer the rest, an exiting new career advancement

>>22803727
True enough, but do we really want to do the fighting ourself ? Revealing ourself in that manner certainly won't endear us to the population.
Actually, I don't think sending kobolds is a good idea either, because people will then understand that the red dragon is an actual dragon even if we don't show ourself.

>>22803755
Well, what are we going to do? No town access, no deal with sahuagins because of collateral, no kobolds, no breath... Give me something to work with, CREEEEED

>>22803747
kill the Pirate Lords, The Captains, The Officers, and the rest will be tripping over each-other to betray the rest

>>22803743
I'm pretty sure we can use secrecy and rumors.
They're only pirates, not experienced policemen.

>>22803537
By the way, is there any reason, except revenge, to actually fight those people now ?
We might be able to back down for a while, then send assassins or organize a coup when they're not looking.

>>22803291
Among the minor guild leaders we allied with, is there anyone we can trust to reveal ourself to, who would help us gathering new forces for a takeover ?

What about the red dragon society, was that put in place ?

>>22803790
How do we go about that? We don't have any stealthy guys in our arsenal.

>>22803807
I would say direct action would work best, all indirect means how so far failed, sometimes there is simply no better way to deal with things then good old draconic might

>>22803727
I believe it is an equalizer. Plus, we have a ton of gold, we can afford to spend some to import mercs.

>>22803822
Okay... How do we go about killing the officers as a massive dragon in the middle of the town without getting our head placed on a pike?

>>22803807
Actually, we do have a couple of kobolds trained in stealth, but I'm not sure they're able to do it.

Can we locate the pirate lords ? do we know their name, and where they sleep ?
If so, I think it might be time to actually do that coup. Recruit as many guys as we can, gather them outside town, reveal ourself and make them obey, then we go take care of the two pirate lords, have the men walk back into town in the confusion, and then we'll tell the rest that from now on we're ruling the place.
I want to avoid a frontal battle.

>>22803755
Yes we do. I'm not that keen on hiding ourselves anyway.

>>22803710
Most of the mercenaries present are already working for someone, the few that aren't enough to tip the balance.
>>22803736
Yes, they are the same individuals.
>>22803799
Most of the guilds you got to work under you have been seized. Your trade company and a few others remain untouched for now.

Your small hit team of kobolds have been itching for a chance to prove themselves and have yet to be given a major assignment.

>>22803857
Simple, we wait for them to meet together, order a few spy's to tell us where they are, then a little controlled burn

>>22803857
Burn the headquarters at night. While invisible

>>22803857
I bet on the fact that no one will actually want to fight back.
These guys are the ones who couldn't even push back a sahuagin raid on their port.

>>22803872
True, but I'm willing to bet we could basically do the same thing with some mercs on the continent that we did with our elves.

>>22803872
we circle around town a few times, get everyone inside good and scared, then in the confusion sneak the Kobolds in and have them hit our targets, once they are in have our agents lead them, eventually the pirates will be desperate enough to make any deal

just sink a few ships and show off some pyrotechnics

>>22803881
Hmm, that might work. We could also try sending in the Kobold SEALS.

>>22803901
This sounds great. Shock and Awe, everyone in a panic, meanwhile shadows of small lizards, everyone thinks they're just imagining stuff, WHAM, sudden and concentrated death.

Guys, what if we just called them for negociations ?

They just lost a hundred men with no notable loss on our side. A third of their forces.
They won't be too keen to risk the others.

We can send a messenger calling for a truce and negociations. Hopefully we will be able to get to meet them in person, and kill them. But if they send representatives, it's okay too.
Just make them understand that fighting back will only make them lose everything, and that fleeing at sea is a bad idea too. We can go there with enlarge person to be more impressive.

>>22803931
Because they dared to attack our holdings, the leaders must be made to answer for this, how contrite the rest will feel remains to be seen, but until then a little compensation is in order

>>22803931
>pirates
>negotiating with us

So we just try to intimidate them into surrendering the fruits of a life's worth of effort? They won't buy it. We could try it, and then try assassinating them, but we would lose the shock factor.

>>22803916
>>22803901
I'd rather not send the townsfolk into an uncontrolled panic, and the ships we're burning are (or will be, which is the same) ours. Destroying our own stuff is a bad idea.

>>22803940
Also this. I wouldn't let guys who would put a knife on our backs live for anything longer than a milisecond.

You don't need to act right now, you could wait and see how they take the loss of men first.

>>22803957
We don't burn anything, we just look menacing and and scaley and "oh god what the fuck is that a dragon oh god oh god" while Metal Gear Kobold sneaks into the headquarters.

>>22803957
only a few, and besides, what better way to introduce ourselves then, We just saved your town from pirates who would rape, murder and enslave you

>>22803973
Waiting? I like the sound of that. Sounds very dragon-like. Let's do it.

>>22803973
give them a little while to loose their nerve, then we will pick how to react

I've got the perfect plan to lure them out of the city. Have our militia start seizing the other towns. They'll have to move out then or surrender the initiative, and probably starve to death.

>>22803979
this, we don't really even need to burn anything so much as dragon laser-floyd

>>22803942
I don't think shock factor is beneficial to us. We want to rule those people, if they panic too much, it'll only make our job harder and less rewarding.
>So we just try to intimidate them into surrendering the fruits of a life's worth of effort?
When they'll come, they'll only assume that we're a regular human with some hidden forces, with which a compromise can be reached.
Then they'll discover we're an actual dragon and will freak out, but we'll make them calm down and offer them to keep doing what they do, but under our direction and for our benefit as much as for theirs.
The alternative being to meet the same fate as the 100 men they sent to us, I think they'll choose to obey and keep some of the fruits of their labor.
If they try to flee, we'll be able to single out their ships and solve the problem.
Then later, when things calmed down and we're in power, we'll think about replacing them.
>>22803940

>>22804047
>>22803960
They tried to kill a small-time merchant. They won't try to kill a dragon. Or at least, not before they have a solid plan of action, but by the time they do we can secure our position or kill them.
>>22803940
They will be made to answer for this. But losing their autonomy and a bit of their money is enough for now, until we have a better hold on the city and the pirates.

>>22803973
Let them find out that they just lost a ship full of their trained killers. With some luck they'l blame it on eachother and spark of a fight in the town.

And if that doesn't work we should try to lure them into the woods and have the elves and kobolds go all Vietcong on them.
They need the island to make the town a viable base of operations. And hired thugs arn't keen on long costly glory and booty less campains

>>22803979
Looking menacing is enough to send people in a panic.
And the kobolds might fail.

I think that we shouldn't show up in town until we can get our men to control the inhabitants.

>>22804108
We do not have many other options, we should wait till dusk and see how things go, then either proceed or make another plan

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While the delay in your rise to power is irritating, the losses the two pirates just suffered aren't something they can ignore. The agents that lead the alliance of merchants were forced to flee, but you still get reports from your trading company. It's leaders might suspect who was responsible for recent events, but they know better than to mention it.

Within the week it is apparent that the ship sent out is missing. The two lords have been meeting and without the usual arguments that usually accompany such events. A few days later, two more ships depart, headed for the easternmost village. They have a regular sized crew and are keeping well away from the shore, though not losing sight of it. While their course takes them past the more populated areas, their distance means they are difficult to see from the shore. They burn as easily as the first, with no survivors and little evidence.

Two weeks after that, it is clear that things in the city are tense. They know that someone has been seizing power across the island and that ships they send out to investigate don't come back. Word on the street is that a wizard or sorcerer must be at work. If they have tried investigating by land, you've haven't seen or heard any sign of it.

For now, they seem undecided on how to continue. What do you do?

>>22804150
Metal gear kobolds, give em some good magic items and weapons and have our agents lead them in

nix the dragon flyovers

>>22804150
have our agents compile a hit-list and send in the kobolds

>>22804169
Alright, no panic-inducing flybys. Let's metal gear!?

>>22804150
>They burn as easily as the first, with no survivors and little evidence.
Ugh.
I don't approve of all this killing. We should have revealed ourself, cowed the potential opposition and taken power earlier.
Now the population will just see us as a monster.

Well. I think calling for negociations is in order. Don't invite just the two pirate lords, but the rest of the leaders too.
Then, tell them we're taking over, and they'll have to accept it.

>>22804199
But those are pirates, not townsmen. They know what they're getting into. Those who head into war/battle can only expect death.

>>22804150
Do what dragons do best: wait and plot.

Get the remaining humans back in line and get them and some of the other forces into position to block the posible overland advance.

They need the town and to have use of the town they need their hinterland safe and secure.

Let them come we can wait and if they refuse to come we can make them. By raiding a few ships or having our human hands start harrasing the land around the town from the forest.

Roll 4d20 for kobold assassins.

>>22804047

Once they find out our true nature, they will consign all of their combined fortunes to hiring dragonslaying murderhobos and still end up in better position than if they decided to make a deal with us. They need to go. To the afterworld.

>>22804150

Send them a letter warning them about rousing the dire wrath of some powerful archmage. Claim that the ships were all destroyed by us, and their headquarters would be next if they don't stop interfering.

Rolled 8, 6, 9, 3 = 26

>>22804213
fate be not cruel

>>22804206
They actually didn't know anything about what they were getting into. Or they wouldn't have got into it.
They expected to be able to defend themselves or flee. They expected death by sword for some of them, not to be all burned alive.
The fact that they're pirates won't stop any human from sympathizing with them. They probably have family among the regular folk too.

>>22804223
thank you fate

>>22804169

We could also bring kobold kommandos from air, then extract them, both under cover of invisibility.

>>22804223
not bad but remember to say the name of
the dark lady next time

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>>22804223
based dark lady

>>22804218
They won't be able to consign their fortunes if we control their fortunes.
in the process of taking over, we'll send men of ours or kobolds to keep tbs on those we keep alive.

>>22804241

pardon my newfaggotry, but where is that "based" adjective coming from?

>>22804268
No newfaggotry here, it's not a 4chan meme.

>>22804268
It's from a hip hop-culture rapper called Lil B, that has a song in which he calls himself a God that's all about bitches and hos, the based god.

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>>22804284

I see. Thank you for expanding my pop culture horizons.

>>22804299
>kobold knight
That is amazing. We need those as champions of our cult.

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>>22804305

It's been crafted by a drawfag on /tg/. I'm reposting it every chance I get.

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While we are on the subject of Kobolds, I want to throw it out there that one of our long term goals should be to have our agents and spies find lone and wild tribes of Kobolds, we must build a large underground city of kobolds to serve as our minions, and main workforce

>>22804351
we could also make them dig tunnels that connect to the city, and setup ambush guardposts in case we need to defend our territories from land armies, later on.

(Totally stealing this idea from another quest)

>>22804351
Also we should get the Kobolds building a temple to their god;

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurtulmak

it would fit our agenda seamlessly

>>22804388
>Kobolds
>worshipping anything but us
heresy heresy heresy

>>22804407
Why we let the elves do it? besides Kurtulmak is a servant of Tiamet, it reinforces the idea in their head, plus allows a new way for them to be more religiously shaped

>>22804425
oh, that's okay then.

>>22804388

>No compassion
>No sense of humour
>Demon
no thanks. Last thing we should do is compete for Kobold attention with a demon. Much less endorsing it by mandating such a construction.

>>22804425
>Why we let the elves do it?
Good question. I was okay with them being in contact with their old culture, learning about crafts and magic and martial arts, but I'd prefer them not to start worshiping elven gods. Even those whose creed would not directly encourage insubordination, will bring them closer to the other gods.

And I don't see the advantage of encouraging religion in general among our servants.

>>22804467
>>22804484
Yeah, gods are a pain in the ass. Not the dark lady, because she actually likes us, but the others would favour our subjects more than us, which is lame.

>>22804467
>>22804484
>>22804491

We're still in a rather early stage, its best we get a pantheon started to provide us with a range of useful clerics, Kurtulmak has always been friendly to dragons, and elven gods give great nature powers, besides the best way to piss off beings much more powerful then us is to subvert them

it is better to work organically with our subjects, not try to force things which will only end badly

>>22804491
Actually, tiamat too.
I don't want to owe more powerful dragons anything.

>>22804525
I'm not saying to spread tiamat's faith amongst our members, but all chromatics to a degree believe in Tiamat. In our case, it's as meta dice-rollers.

>>22804521
>it is better to work organically with our subjects, not try to force things which will only end badly
Not forcing things didn't help against the pirates...
Of course, repressing actively religion is a bad idea, but encouraging it won't help either.
I'd rather to have a small group of clerics, and to get the rest of our servant to focus on other things.

Is worshipping concepts enough to get cleric spells in this universe ?

>>22804558
I've already seen a lot of rolls made in her name fail hard. Maybe more than succesful rolls.

>>22804578

I'd say the amount of good and bad rolls while invocating Tiamat has been rather balanced.

>>22804578
What. Tiamatfagging basically started when we destroyed the silver dragon's ass, and later when we rolled three 4s (with one of the rolls being a 2d20)

>>22804605

The Blessed Dragon giveths, and takeths away.

All else fails:
Find the pirates head quarters.
Drop a ship ontop of it in the middle of the night with the words: Don't screw with the red dragon. scorched onto the side. Then begin building a tower at our end of the island. Sure were not going to use it, but itll keep them thinking were a wizzard or such.

>>22804743
The scions of the red dragon?

>>22804743
We don't want them to just stop screwing with us, though.

To be honest, they're going to go over land if we don't stop them now. But if the pirates are also the merchants, we're kind of screwed in that respect in that we'll never win them over and be able to trust them.

Our plan to take over peacefully is going to need salvaging at the very least.

I say we just start burning all pirate ships (though being able to distinguish which is which is difficult). Possibly use the saughin as cover to leave no survivors, though we have no decent collateral.

>>22804150

You there, OP?

>>22804934

Well, we're taking out the pirate lords and offering an agreement to whoever takes over their business. If nobody does and their operations splinter, we'll simply cash in on our monopoly.

>>22804945

He's writing the James Kobond story around those:
>>22804223

>>22804934
I'm against a new massacre. And ships are valuable parts of our future hoard.

We don't need to trust them, just make them fear us.

>>22804974

Oh! Didn't see those two posts. My bad.

>>22804934
We had a plan to take over peacefully?
Anyway the plan is simple. We take out the two pirates and reenstate our ousted allies to their stolen property. We take whatever is left of the two top merchant/pirate guilds and combine them into one guild, ours. Which we will use as our open merchant interest while our original one stays our espionage arm.

>>22804966
We don't even need to do the piracy our selves. When we controle the town we can focus on making it the only pirate port in the wide area and charge the pirates for the privilage of using our port facilitys.

>>22805004
> We take whatever is left of the two top merchant/pirate guilds and combine them into one guild, ours. Which we will use as our open merchant interest
Why not use all the companies for this ?
We'll rule this island, we can tell them what to do when we need them and let them take care of their affairs and pay us taxes the rest of the time.

>>22805019

I didn't mean the piracy. Those two were bigwigs in regional trade, merchant princes. Piracy was just their violent pastime, and a barrier of entry.

We burned that barrier.

>>22805060
Keeping faith with those who allied with us. Also, it encourages the merchant guilds who have fled to return and generally makes us seem more trustworthy and reasonable. Basically, PR.

>>22805004
>We had a plan to take over peacefully?
The plan was to slowly build up our forces without revealing our nature to them or to others, then stage a coup by showing up and making it evident that fighting back was suicidal.
It was not a great plan, because it pushed the existing powers into fighting us, and because we won't be able to trust our forces to follow us in a coup when they don't know we're a dragon.

>>22805110
And there was the proposal about creating the Red Dragon Society to garner a more solid support, but it was not put into action apparently.

>>22805133

Yes it was. It's at the beginning of this thread.

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The six strong team of soon to be assassins have yet to prove themselves, but this is going to change. You summon Kekik, leader of your small band of infiltration specialised kobolds. He quickly enters and kowtows before you.

"Greetings, Kekik. You may rise." The greeting is more of a habit now, and you want to get on with the matter at hand. "I have a pair of targets for the champions you have chosen."

"Great One, it will be our honour to kill all those who impede your plans," he says, eagerly.

"I know. How has your practice in infiltrating human dwellings been going?" You've had him and your loyal elves working against each other to see who can do better. So far, it's usually been the elves, but they did know your kobolds were coming.

"They have gone well enough Great One. We may take some casualties, but we will prevail." That's one of the good things about kobolds. While they prefer living, they're always willing to make a sacrifice for the whole.

"Especially since these targets will not know you're coming," you add.

"Yes, Great One. Those who defy you will die," he says, with conviction.

You let a predatory smile slip through. "Good. Now, for the assassination itself..."

A pair of kobolds bring in the documents containing what your spies have learned so far. There isn't much, but it's all you've got to go on. You spend the next several hours discussing how the attack should take place.

Eventually, you settle on an aerial assault. Featherfall spells will allow the two groups to drop directly into each lords compound. With each having an invisibility scroll to be cast during the descent, they will be able to avoid detection. Ideally, both groups will poison the pirate lords as they sleep, though they have numerous backup plans in case that proves problematic. Among the contingencies is amulet of message, held by each team leader. Should things go wrong, you will know about it straight away.

Night falls, and your assassins prepare. During the very early morning you depart, the six kobolds hanging from a small rig you're carrying. You've always disliked flying at night. No thermals to ride means it takes far more effort than usual. The sense of purpose behind this trip is enough to make up for the extra effort. You activate your own invisibility shortly before nearing the town, extending the effect to the kobolds for as long as they are in your grasp.

A minute later you pass of the town. Carefully timing the moment, you release the first group of kobolds, immediately casting featherfall on them as they start to plummet. The spell takes and one by one, they soon wink out of existence as they cast their invisibility scrolls. You repeat the process with the second team, with similar results. You can't be sure, but you think you can see grass being displaced in the shape of a kobold foot, though it might just be the wind.

With the teams dispatched, you glide out to the small copse outside the town - the same place you and your sister hid nearly a year ago. Several minutes pass before you hear the first report.

"Great One, Karpos team has entered the villa. There was a window we could reach from the roof. We are checking the upper floor now. So far, no signs of humans" The whispered draconic refers to the first team you deployed, containing Kekik himself. Karpos Aristede has a reputation for deviousness rather than brutality, so you want him gone the most. Open conflict will serve you far better than any opposition on this island.

Soon after the second team reports. "Great One, Alcaeus team has evaded the guards and entered the house. They suspect someone might have been sneaking in the garden, but found nothing. They look like they have relaxed again. The door they came through to check was left open, so we used it." So far so good.

A minute later, you hear from the second team again.

"Great One, we have killed Alcaeus. I tried to pour poison in his ear as instructed, but it woke him up, so Rinnik shot him with his crossbow. He isn't invisible anymore. We're leaving now." Perhaps you should have provided them extra scrolls for this eventuality. Something to consider in the future, though by that point the sorcerers should be able to do it themselves.

Your wait continues and you start to get a little concerned about Kekik's group. "Great One, Alcaeus Team has escaped and are heading to the place you instructed. Our invisibility has worn off, but there are few humans about and we are keeping to the shadows."

Eventaully, you do hear from the first team. "Great One, we have escaped Karpos' villa and he is dead. He was in bed, but there was a woman with him. We waited, but she was not leaving, so Kekik decided Yiknik would shoot her with the his crossbow, while I would use magic missile to kill him. She died, but he wasn't killed straight away. I cast at him again and blew his head open. The guards heard us and came, so we ran. We got out of the villa, but Kekik was injured, Yiknik is helping him now. We are hidden, but the guards are in the street looking for us, so we might not make it to the safehouse." It's better than you were starting to worry it would be. Still, they need help getting out. Fortunately, that is one thing you can influence from here.

With a thought, you cast your own message spell, directing it at the agents you know to be waiting for your kobolds.

"Avrus, the guards of the Karpos estate have been alerted and are preventing my assassins from escaping. Find a way to distract them."

"Of course, my lord," comes the whispered response.

Nearly twenty minutes later, you hear the reedy whispering of the message spell once more. "Great One, we have escaped Karpos' guards and are at the safehouse. Alcaeus team is here too, they were going to contact you when we arrived. Several drunk humans came past singing and offered them wine, they chased them away and we escaped when they were distracted."

You focus on the message you received, forcing the spell to carry your words back. "Well done, my servants. Make sure Kekik is well enough to travel then depart as discussed. I will be awaiting your return." You have already arranged to have them smuggled out by cart. They can then make there way to the arranged meeting point where one of your agents can transport them back up to your village.

With the matter settled, you recast your invisibility and take off, heading back towards your lair.

A few days later, Kekik and company return. Kekik himself has his arm clipped by an arrow that almost hit his chest. He'll recover, but needs some time to do so. The others are all relatively unscathed.

With the deaths of the pirate lords, their organisations have been thrown into disarray. It's not clear who's likely to end up in charge just yet, though there are over a dozen contenders. Neither lord liked the idea of someone being in a position to easily replace them.

How do you wan to continue?

>>22805175
No, that's just us dealing with other guilds under the alias "the red dragon".
We wanted to create a secret society of people who supported the idea of a new united leadership for the island.

>>22805227
Find one of them and give him an offer he can't refuse. Side with the red dragon and be the second most powerful person in the city, or don't and die when one of your rivals takes the deal. With a dozen contenders competing for a pool of 200 men our 70 men are the most powerful force. And our assassins can help remove rivals.

>>22805227
This is the time to strike. Stealthly of course. In the political chaos bound to arise we have our agents infiltrate the old guilds and contenders. When things have started to die down we will have several agents on the inside and hopefully directly connected to some of the new contenders. We then find a suitable one and use him/her as a front, help him to the throne and steer him from the shadows.

At least that is what i want.

>>22805331

I vote for this.

>>22805227

That's excellent news.

While not everything has gone as well as it could, it seems the Kommandos have done very respectable job. Make sure to commend them, perhaps with a mild rebuke on the collateral damage of Karpos's companion. But main thing is they have completed the mission.

Do we have a candidate for successor in either guild that we know is willing to make a deal with us - in our favor? Perhaps we could lend him our support to put someone malleable into position. Gang wars might weaken our competition, but they are bad for economy overall.

>>22805331
Nope. do this >>22805326

>>22805344
>>22805326
these two.

>>22805379
Agreed.

>>22805326
>>22805344
Let's do this. As a bonus we will make the demise of the other lords look like an 'accident'.

So it's try and force the underlings to start working for the Red Dragon, with subtle threats about further assassinations if they don't. While this is going on, congratulate the assassins for the job.

Roll 2d20.

>>22805227
I think that now is the time to move in directly.

Hire out as many as we can from the town. Now that the two main guild leaders are dead, that should shook up their allegiances enough to make them switch sides for money. Do it under the name of the red dragon - we're publicly known as such, right ?

Gather them outside the town close to the forest, along with our own men. Gather also a force of kobolds.
Have someone explain to them that the humans what we expect of them. "The red dragon has had enough of this pointless conflict, and sees now that letting the various interests on this island run free was a mistake. He will install a new order. You are to help." Reveal ourself, calm them down, then march into town to tell the people of their new leader.

Call every guild leader for a meeting.

Fly over the port and make people understand that fleeing by boat is a bad idea.

I don't want to rule from the shadows, I want a great number of servants from whom we don't have to hide.

Rolled 20, 13 = 33

>>22805443
Tiamat bless our 'accidental' threats!

>>22805452
The only accident here was you making that roll.

Rolled 14, 12 = 26

>>22805443

Make them an offer they cant refuse.

>>22805452
Can we reroll that 20 and take the 14?

>>22805466
You can.

As far as hiding goes, you only need one more age category (about 24 years) before you can learn alternate forms.

>>22805443
You did not say had to roll low!

>>22805452

fuck Tiamat. Seriously. The Lady frowns.

>>22805494

But we always do.

>>22805494
Yeah, no

>>22805500
we just need to deal with it. So, do we take that 14 guys?

>>22805452
I think she prefers the direct approach.

>>22805506
>>22805556
But i want clutch at straws!

>>22805500
That's just the way she shows affection - by casually delivering a severe injury. If you die, you're not worthy of Tiamat's love.

>>22805576
See, we're already starting to get insight into tiamat's personality.
She:
-Likes to crush metallic dragons with brutal force
-Likes finding loot
-Likes bird shit
-Dislikes "the Godfather"

>>22805618
This.

We keep trying to play Illuminati, but red dragons are given towards violent, obvious displays of power.

Quit pulling strings and start cutting them.

>>22805740
>cutting strings

We are not going to impress our yandere goddess with that kind of thing. What we need to do is BURN THE WORLD AND DOMINATE ITS ASHES.

But we're still just a kid, so let's wait.

>>22805740
While I disagree, you might be on to something. It's just a matter of changing our brutal cunning into cunning brutality.

There is a time for power. This might be a good time for a grand entrance. After all, if this is to be our base of operations, wouldn't we be more comfortable using our true form?

>>22805740

That's not how you build an empire at all.

It's certainly not how you hold one.

Our plans have worked mostly to our satisfaction in spite of several less fortunate turns of events. No need to expose our still not quite hardened belly in an attempt to draw everything into our hoard at once.

>>22805785
I think he just wants us to reveal ourselves. To be honest I'm kind of sick of doing everything with an intermediary, for fuck's sake this is our /lair/.

>>22805785
Disagree.

>>22805557
bump?

>>22805804
We shouldn't be acting openly at this age category.

>>22805804
I agree. Lets face it, after more than a year, no one has given a shit about the dragon, and if a few murderhobos try to kill us, then that just means more magic weapons

>>22805818
Stay secret for 25 more years? Fuck that.

>>22805836
You'd prefer being dead in 25 years?

>>22805841
No, I just don't agree with any of your doom-saying, which isn't remotely supported by evidence.

>>22805804

We took that pirate ship personally. We personally dropped the Kommandos to their assasination attempt. Those who know us already know that we mean business. Those who don't know us can stay ignorant unless it actually brings us some benefit.

I would happily wait until we get an alternate form and then emerge as the "Red Dragon, the Sorcerer."

But if you insist that we should reveal ourselves as dragon king of the hill, I will not object anymore. Although we might built up our power base on the southern shore too, so we control all the ports.

>>22805854
Yeah. Heck, the gold at the north might not even have their jimbobs rustled considering they might be able to relate to our pirate problem. Lawful Good is not Lawful Stupid, especially with dragons.

(Except that bronze but he was pretty young dog)

>>22805862
What if our sister makes not-very-sublte visits? Or we're forced to fly out because of something drastic and forgot invisibility, or were spotted in the split-second it takes us to cast? How are the people going to react? To be honest, it's better to reveal ourselves while we're in control of the situation than to have the choice taken out of our hands.

>>22805854
More than one person disagrees with you. However, as the question of evidence has come up, let's check... KEJ, can we confirm some things? Is it common for adventurers to try killing Red Dragons? Do they tend to target the ones who set themselves up as rules of domains? How big a part of dragon mortality is "Death by Adventurer"?

>>22805910
I am aware minority of more than one person disagrees with me. Some of these people claim that if we reveal ourselves great wyrms will come to personally kick our ass because of reasons. That, and the various other claims that have been made like it are the whole "not remotely supported by evidence" bit. As for adentures, yeah, they'll show up but they aren't that big of a deal. Mom dealt with them all of the time and most of them didn't make it past the traps her kolbolds made.

>>22805987
In the last thread you claimed that the majority backed you. There was then an outcry and people chimed in saying that this was based on willful misrepresentation of their views. I momentarily - to my great regret - voiced a temporary agreement. However, on realizing what a gigantic faggot you are, I am opposed to your plans on principle.

The reality is that Juvenile Reds don't tend to even be this active, because they're pretty far down the food chain. That's the evidence. Everything else is your incessant screeching.

>>22805987
Dude. The first set of adventurers that showed up on our doorstep to kill us were experienced dragonslayers. We do not want more of that, regularly.

And it's always good to be wary of any other dragon. They all play the game, and if we go around all smash and roar, all we are is a pawn or dead. The longest living dragons, the smartest ones, are the ones who avoid the smash and roar unless they're forced to and run things like a very long played chess game. Don't fuck up our plans just because you think Red Dragons should be stupid fucks who do nothing but fly around and smash shit after setting it on fire.

Our agents are already in there. I say they keep things hectic while the power struggle goes on. We can direct our energies elsewhere for a while (really like the idea of consolidating more control over the elves, since they're one of our longest-term assets). When we finally return and sweep aside the weakened, squabbling factions the Red Dragon will be hailed as the one who restored order.

>>22805910
Death by adventurer is second only to death by other dragon. They do tend to go for reds in particular, but that might just be because reds are the most aggressive in their raids.

Adventurers tend to go after whichever dragons they think they can take in a fight. This usually means several dead groups who overestimated their abilities before a sufficiently powerful group comes along.

>>22806055
Let the blood run in the streets. Let them fight amongst themselves, let them tear their own factions to pieces and the people will beg for someone to save them.

Which we well... for a price of just simple governorship, of course.

>>22806046

>Juvenile reds don't tend to be this active, they're down the food chain

This. We'll have millenia of grandstanding ahead of us if we survive the few years when our scales are note even immune to normal weapons.

Why are there so fucking many people who wants us killed? We can reveal ourselves after a couple of more timeskips.

>>22805871
Honstly I think if the golds wanted to come down and start telling everyone how to do things they would have done it already. As long as we're not being pointlessly evil removing us will probably end up being more trouble than it's worth.

>>22806071
>Adventurers tend to go after whichever dragons they think they can take in a fight. This usually means several dead groups who overestimated their abilities before a sufficiently powerful group comes along.

Does anyone else read this as a warning from the GM?

>>22806054
You seem to believe that opponents of that caliber will show up regularly. To even fight us they have to first get past the city, who's army will probably object to their dragon killing antics, since we pay them. Then they have to find our lair, which we won't exactly advertise. Then they have to get by the elves, then the traps the kolbolds made before they can even fight us.
>>22806046
I should point out that the only juvenile red we know of besides us is this active.

>>22806071
Hey KEJ, would it be possible to learn Planar Travel later? I want a Rust Dragon Waifu.

>>22806136
Not really, no.

TIAMAT DID NOT SURVIVE LONG BY BEING AGRESSIVE!
SHE SURVIVED BY BEING PATIENT!
THIS IS WHAT WE MUST DO!
WE MUST WAIT AND BIDE OUR TIME!
FOR THE OPPORTUNE MOMENT!

Then and ONLY then will we reveal ourselves.

IF we choose to reveal our true dragon self. Which is something i am still against.

>>22806136
Yes.

>>22806136

I read that as an answer to a direct question.

It's not even this surprising - this is a fantasy world, and dragons make fine trophies, if you manage to slay one. Plus hoard.

>>22806149

They WILL show up regularly if they learn that there's a dragon with vulnerability to ice and normal weapons sitting on a throne and a pile of gold.

>>22806090
Because we disagree with you on the danger of revealing ourselves. Lets face it once you here this:

>And when other dragons realize that you are bringing unnecessary attention to Dragonkind? When rulers of foreign kingdoms launch campaigns to rid themselves of local dragons, for fear of having them rise up to rule? When Ancient Wyrms come down from their lairs to kick our ass, take our hoard, and restore balance to the force?
As a serious argument against revealing ourselves when our mother has been openly ruling a small kingdom for longer than we have been alive some people will stop listening to you

I rarer we don't revealing ourselves. It will be easier to ruler and trade with people thinking we are just some wizard or eccentric rich merchant than oh fuck its an evil dragon! Plus any enemies we make in the future will be constantly underestimating our true power.

>>22806223
This. Younger Dragons are bigger targets. Especially if they go around announcing themselves.

>>22806249
Dude. Our Mother is a fucking Great Wyrm. The only things that can take those on are other Great Wyrms and retardedly high level adventurers. We are not a Great Wyrm. We are a young dragon that doesn't even have resistance to normal weapons. All of our victories up until now have been based on cunning and tactics, not RAWR DRAGON SMASH!

>>22806172
Yeah, lets be honest, what else do dragons normally die to anyway?
>>22806223
Do you have any evidence that people of that caliber will show up regularly? After all, they were described as an very unusually powerful group.

>>22806223
Before us, it was a human with vulnerability to ice, normal weapons, fire, lightning and poison sitting on that throne.

>>22806287
>mother,
>great wyrm
Read the quest, she is a mature adult. our Father is a Wrym, but he is off plane/dead

>>22806287

Actually, I think Gol's only a mature adult, or somewhere around there. I don't remember there being any wyrm-level dragons in this quest thread yet.

>>22806223
If we do have to make a personal appearance I'd suggest we do it with alter self or whatever and pose as a powerful wizard/sorcerer.
That way we can kinda blend in with all the other wizard-lords of various city states in the vicinity. Also if someone were to try and dispose us they would likely severely underestimate our real power.

No need to advertise that there is a metric shit-ton of glory and gold to be had at our island.

>>22806249

How old was our mother when she came into the open?

And how big our sister's domain is to compare? Is it a nation, or just a few goblin tribes?

You are saying that if we reveal ourselves, we may be successful and fend off random murderhobo attacks.

I am saying - why take the risks? There are literally no benefits to it, only hazards that can be completely avoided.

>>22806249
I did not know she ruled a small kingdom openly. I thought she ruled a few villages where nobody is allowed allowed to travel anywhere so nobody else would know there was a dragon ruling them...

>>22806289

What evidence do you have that they will not? Is there any other kingdom successfully ruled by a juvenile dragon?

We'd be seen as a fair and easy prey. Most of our adversaries would no doubt underestimate us, but that does not mean we won't get a professional dragon hunting party or some epic-level hobos looking for a place to retire.

>>22806335
She controls several small towns and a city. She doesn't really rule them, as she doesn't actually care how they're run as long as they pay an extortionate tax rate in exchange for not being burned.

>>22806303

>human
being the key word.

His head does not look well above fireplace, nor can he be expected to have mountains of gold in his cave.

Plus there are social repercussions of marching in and killing a king, as opposed to marchig in and killing a dragon.

on this discusion of revealing ourselves what benifits do we get out of it?

>>22806335
A small city and a few villages, slightly smaller than our domain, but comparable and less geographically isolated. She was such an asshole
>>22806328
Benefits:
1. The ability to operate openly. Which both pleases our ego and allows us to openly burn things
2. I think it is more fun
3. Your supposed constant influx of adventurers means more money for us.
4. I don't think keeping the secret forever is particularly viable.
5. It settles the argument once and for all.

Alright, you guys convinced me. Let's not reveal ourselves. We'll try to work in the shadows until we can shapeshift, and work from there.

>>22806402
Anyways. It seems like most of us except the retard are against outright going "Hey, we're a dragon. Don't call the Murderhobos."

What were we suppose to be doing before we got sidetracked, KEJ?

still think revealing ourselves ASAP is the best option.

>>22806427
So the entire point of you being an idiot is "You think RAWR SMASH is more fun, and will bitch and moan and whine until you get what you want?"

Can we just ignore his ass and keep playing?

>>22806462
And you are in the minority...

We were deciding what action we wanted to take after our successful assassinations. I believe there's 12 other merchant princes vying for power now.

>>22806427

People are more willing to trade and work for other people. As a Dragon ruling the island some trade ships will be unwilling to get even near for simply fear of us. It isolated us and robs us of the trade and taxes that gives us gold. Just for that I am against it.

>>22806427

1) I give you that. It would give us relative freedom of movement and it would pleasure your ego.
2) That's your opinion. Fine. I wouldn't mind.
3) As long as the dice will favor us.
4) Forever maybe not, but a timeskip to next growth stage seems viable.
5) How does that benefit the dragon...

>>22806319
Further expanding this, how about we make our wizard tutor our figurehead ruler? He could go around pretending to be the big cheese while we secretly give him directions. He's already a relatively powerful wizard so people would be inclined to believe he was the one who seized the island. No doubt he'd enjoy living in a huge cushy mansion with lots of servants and a bit of disposable gold to do his wizard stuff.

>>22806427
WHY THE FUCK DO WE WANT TO OPENLY BURN THINGS? THAT IS NOT THE WAY TO BUILD A BIG HOARD!

>>2280645
Predudicial and assholeish namecalling aside, no.

>>22806499
This is a good idea actually. And when we get Altershape, we can pretend to be his apprentice, since he'll be getting on in years. Nobody ever expects the apprentice to be the mastermind.

File: 1359227258338.jpg-(109 KB, 500x736, dragon_10.jpg)

109 KB JPG

The pirate lords are no longer an issue, but any one of their lieutenants could still gain enough power to be a problem. For now, they're just posturing, trying to see who will side with whom should fighting break out. Before they can get much further, you have one of your best agents arrange a meeting with each of them. It will take several days before he can discuss matters with each of them, but the unknown risk you pose should be sufficient to get their attention.

---

In the meantime, you have yet to properly congratulate your kobolds for their assassination work. Calling a meeting of all of them, you prepare for a small ceremony to recognise their actions. Over a hundred kobolds pile into your small hoardroom, all chittering excitedly at the news of the coming celebration. You have cast invisibility on yourself before they started entering, purely to allow for a more dramatic appearance. The crowd continues to talk for a few minutes, most have a good idea what this is about. Your invisibility finally expires and the gathered kobolds fall silent and kowtow as you snap into appearance.

"Rise, my servants," you say, in the most imperious tone you can manage.

The room rises as one.

You look over them for several long seconds. "Yesterday, history was made. Kekik, come forwards."

The leader of your team of assassins eagerly strides out towards you before dropping to one knee. "I am here, Great One."

You nod at him. "Tell your tribe what you accomplished three days ago."

He turns to face the crowd. "Three days ago I, Yiknik, Denat, Rinnik, Zizak and Assak were taken by the Great One, to the human city in the lands below. With his spells, we snuck into two of the rich humans homes and killed them." He pauses, trying to think if there's anything further you might be referring to.

You continue before he has the chance to come up with anything else. "Indeed. Three days ago, six kobolds entered the dwellings of the most powerful humans in these lands...and killed them. Six of your kin were able to overcome every obstacle that the most powerful humans of these lands could present them."

The crowd gives an excited cheer, small at first, but it quickly grows when they realise they aren't interrupting.

You raise your forepaw and the cheering instantly stops. "This is how your loyalty is rewarded. You have served me faithfully."

More cheers emerge from the crowd.

"And in return, I grant you the magics that can overpower any foe. Kekik and his team obeyed my orders and struck out at an enemy that most would think would simply kill him. Yet he prevailed."

The crowd cheers again.

"In recognition of this, Kekik, from this day on, you will be armed with these." You draw the two enchanted daggers that have adorned your hoard for years. You had though they might prove useful when you finally learn to shapeshift, but Kekik has proven he's skilled enough to be worth risking them on.

Many of those in the gathered crowd gasp as you present him with items from your hoard. They all know how rare it is for a dragon to part with something from its hoard, even if it is only to give to a trusted servant. Kekik stares wide eyed at the two blades, the significance isn't lost on him either. He takes almost gingerly. They look more like short swords compared to his small frame. "Th-thank you, Great One, I will see that they are forever at your enemies throats."

You give him a knowing smile. "I know."

The assembled kobolds are dismissed to enjoy their small celebration of Kekik's heroics. You turn your attention back to dealing with the humans of the island.

>>22806493

I think we should adjourn the reveal (which I still think is a poor idea at the time) until after we know how the power vacuum after the two mafia bosses is getting handled. If our agents facilitate a smooth transition, there will be no reason to go out of the lair. If there will be blood in the streets, the citizens might actually welcome a new party taking over - in whichever form.

>>22806502
because we have enemies, and they need to be burned

Your agent reports back after several days of discussions. They have been largely successful, he estimates around of third of those he met would be willing to consider working for you. The problem is, they want to meet you in person. A preliminary suggestion of just outside the town walls has been made, though they are open to a different location as long as it doesn't put them at a significant disadvantage.

While inconvenient, it may be possible to use a scroll of clairvoyance and a scroll of major image to give the impression you are a human mage. It would stand up to close inspection, but it should be enough to give the impression of a mage teleporting in and talking.

How do you want to handle this?

>>22806427
1. No. Openly burning things is not a good thing.
2. No. Will not get us a bigger hoard.
3. No. Will get us killed more easily
4. No. We should keep it as long as possible.
5 What. What does this have to do with our red dragon? You shutting up will also stop the argument. DYEING WILL ALSO STOP THE ARGUMENT!

>>22806523
Execpt for if he would agree, and the fact that he was hired by a dragon, and certainly told some people

>>22806544
This >>22806499

>>22806544
Hrm. The Scroll idea is actually pretty good. If anyone asks, we can say that the last two lords were killed and we're taking precautions to attempt and prevent that from occuring again.

Another idea would be seeing if our Wizard would be willing to play us, as it were. We'd feed him lines and use a Clairvoyance spell to keep taps on the conversation.

>>22806544
Use the scrolls for the meting. On that note we need to improve our own magic.

>>22806544
Go in person, as ourself.

>>22806544
What if we take the one of the contenders most likely to be loyal and have him pose as us and the mastermind behind it all. And we will control him from the shadows. Like Tiamat would have done.

>>22806592
Seconded

>>22806592
No

>>22806592
>>22806622
No.

>>22806592
>>22806622
Nope. We shouldn't reveal ourselves as a dragon until absolutely necessary.

>>22806544

Do we know how well equipped the lieutenants are with magicks? It wouldn't do at all for them to see through our illusion, although I suppose we could wave it away as a precaution any mage would take.

Maybe we could spend some gold and throw a feast in the capital and meet them there. They are liable to try some dirty tricks on us, which is also why I'm not too hot about idea of sending our mentor in our stead.

>>22806659

By "meet them there" I of course mean the illusion trick.

>>22806616
Tiamat does not do things from the shadows you know. She's usually portrayed as a rather direct sort of god.

The wizard could be useful, but he also a little too smart and power and not devoted to us. We're already paying him as a human that's willing to teach us magic, but if he becomes our face to the rest of the island. I'm not saying it makes us vulnerable, but he's smart enough to take advantage of what we give him if he sees some personal benefit. I don't want to give him any leverage.

>>22806659
>>22806675
No. He's already told people that he is working for a red dragon. Also for the people who want to use a major image, don't forget to make sure we can actually use the scroll, which is by no means a certain thing, as we aren't powerful enough to cast the spell normally, and never learned how to activate scrolls we normally can't use.

>>22806659
Seems nice. But i think we should have my idea from here >>22806616 as a backup plan in case our illusion fail.

>>22806684
Am i reading wikipedia and 1d4chan wrong then? Should i read from somewhere else?

Major image up a new form, go in a guise. Tell them you've cast an illusion upon yourself to change your appearance, since you're not a fool.

If they try to attack you, fry them.

>>22806713
Hmmmmm, true.

>>22806718
What?? He has????

>>22806730
Hey! There's a good idea!

>>22806740
We use the moniker, "the Red Dragon"

>>22806728
Try any of the dragonlance books. In them she is usually trying to openly conquer the world in some fashion or another.

We could also reveal ourselves with the wizard. Tell them the wizard is in charge. A wizard is bad, but a wizard that can control a fucking dragon?!?

>>22806749
That is not telling people he works for a red dragon...

>>22806754
Are they good books?

>>22806718
When did he tell people he is working for a red dragon? Because I always figured him keeping his mouth shut was part of the deal. If he told people he was working for The Red Dragon, that's completely different and he can play it off as subterfuge and being careful.

>>22806713
You have a point though, if we use him we should be very very careful.

>>22806749
>>22806740
When we hired him he told us he had taken precautions. Logically, that includes telling his friends what he is off doing. If he suddenly start ruling an island somewhere under these circumstances it will take said friends all of five seconds to figure it out, and who knows who they will tell. Oh, and Btw, do we have any reason to believe he will keep our secret once he leaves?

>>22806754
We aren't in Dragonlance. Also, that kind of stuff has no baring. In the old D&D cartoon she ran around trying to smash things too, was rivals with Venger, and guarded the Dragon Graveyard. Does that mean we should watch out for Venger?

>>22806754
But are we playing in the dragonlance book universe?

>>22806778
The first trilogy is quite good.
>>22806813
Please stop arguing what is and isn't allowable evidence.
>>22806821
Are we playing in whatever universe you are thinking of? Face it, OP decides what Tiamat does,

>>22806754

Dude those books are fucking terrible with cliche as fuck villains and power of friendship bullshit and you want us to use them as reference for how we should act?

Make sure our illusionary avatar has red hair. That could help the speculations going on how we got the nickname.

Red on account of hair color.
Dragon on account on casting fireballs.

>>22806879
Any book over 5 years old is automatically full of cliches. Some of those books are quite good.

>>22806884

Yeah, lets go with this.

>>22806884
Can't cast fireballs yet.

>>22806865
>Please stop arguing what is and isn't allowable evidence.
You first. If you say Dragonlance is legal evidence, I can say the cartoon is legal evidence.

>>22806903

They don't need to know that.

Dragon breath is better anyway, and they don't need to know that either.

>>22806865
You have a point. Lets ask our DM:

*Summoning KEJ*

O great OP, answer us this question. Are we playing with the traditional Tiamat, the puppeteer and Dark Queen or are we playing with Tiamat from another setting?

*Finish summoning*

>>22806909
Very well. The cartoon is allowable evidence.

>>22806947
Then i want Wikipedia and 1d4chan as allowable evidence as well!

Mostly lurking, but would like you to know that I'm really loving this quest - hits right there in the large-scale fantasy roleplaying spot.

>>22806789
He knows that blabbing people's secrets when there's nothing to gain is a bad idea and he does (according to Thorom) have a reputation for keeping his word.

Looks like it's meet them with an illusion then. I'm assuming just outside the city walls is fine?

>>22806975
Yep.

>>22806947
Right, let's begin Anti-Venger planning then.

>>22806975

A little away is better for a more private meeting.

>>22806975
A small flammable house right outside the city walls is fine yes.

>>22806946
I'm going for the subtle, sneaky version of Tiamat. Though it's unlikely to ever become personally relevant

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>>22807004
Yey!

>>22807004
Yay! Cancel all Venger Defense Plans!

>>22807004
What? Are we not fulfilling the destiny of becoming Tiamat's fifth head.

>>22806975
Remember red hair though.

>>22807126

I would rather have Tiamat give us a head, if you know what I mean.

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>Pic because there are no red headed wizards I can find in two minutes on google.

The day of the meeting soon arrives. You fly out equipped with the needed scrolls, plus a few backups in case the meeting drags on longer than expected. Casting invisibility to cover the last few minutes of your journey, you return to the same copse once more. Carefully positioning yourself so you won't be seen when the spell ends, you look at the expected meeting site.

Several guards are on the wall. They seem to waiting for you, though no-one matching the lieutenants descriptions are there yet. Casting clairvoyance, you survey the scene more closely. Only a few guards that would have an easy view of the meeting area, one to watch for your arrival, one to make sure the first doesn't fall alseep.

As the time agreed draws close, several figures leave the city. They look a little on edge, most likely unhappy about leaving their holdings unsupervised for any length of time. They stop a few hundred metres from the walls. No need to delay further. You cast major image, manifesting before them as if teleporting in. A tall, red haired man in elaborate red robes and along beard now floats before them.

"Greetings men of Penskar, you would know me as the red dragon. I understand you are interested in entering my employment?"

They glance at each other, clearly not expecting the teleport. "First, we wish to know what your intentions on this island are, and how you intend to rule it. We will not support someone whose policies might damage our enterprises." You can detect a hint of wariness, but they seem more determined than anything.

How do you wish to respond?

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>>22807189
We should be careful not to anger Her Dark Majesty. Cause i just got this captcha again...

>>22807239

We might as well respond truthfully: It would be in our bet interest if the region developed a sound economy that would create plenty of wealth, some of which would go into our coffers.

I don't think we need to enact an extortion scheme, or if yes, make it a modest one - our bird shit enterprise promises great revenue on its own.

Main thing is, we don't want violence to interfere with our economy. This is a bad habit that doesn't help anyone, least of all those who organize it (such as their bosses).

Their enterprises are our interests. In exchange for a small consideration we'll ensure that the island runs more smoothly and efficiently than ever before. Their business is our business.

>>22807239
I have no intention of depriving you of your commerce raiding enterprises, if that is what you are asking. That said, my previous associates will be making a comback, and there will be taxes. On the other hand, according to my numbers, I will be able to nearly double the agricultural output of the island quite quickly. Which of course means more money for a lot of people. And I fully intend to ensure the Saguan are no longer an issue, one way or another.

>>22807239
Well you seem to have the right man then. My policies are quite ... liberal. What i wish from you and most others are faithful and loyal employment and a decent cut of profits. Other than that you would be quite free to act as you see fit as long as you and this island continues to prosper. I might also require a few favors from time to time as well, but nothing to big.

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>>22807239

quick delve into my wizard folder yielded this. But he seems too young to be taken seriously.

>>22807239
"To put it very simply, gold. Exotic reagents and experimental subjects are quite expensive, and to further my research I intend to make this island profitable enough to support my experiments. Damaging the enterprises of my employees are detrimental to that I assure you. As for how I intend to rule it, I seek to make this island a major trade hub, bringing in more commodities and gold of which a portion will enter my coffers."

>>22807365
I actually like this guy

>>22807327
>>22807331
>>22807332
>>22807350
Seems we actually are in an agreement then? My self at least don't find anything wrong with any of these.

>>22807365
It seems fine by me. I don't mind them underestimating us a bit.

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>>22807365

...and this one does not seem intimidating at all

>>22807365
I like this one. Maybe he should be our human guise when we get Alterself?

>>22807406
Well to be honest that guy does have access to an epic level spell.

>>22807406
Rincewind is a redhead?

>>22807438
It uses up all his spellslots, though. Not a good rolemodel.

Having just woken up and read up, I must say I love the way Tiamat/dicebot is favoring classic red-dragon things to do.

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>>22807365
It seems most red headed wizards are depicted as young.

>>22807462
Is it? The three things She blessed last night were: Birds shit, elven lore and subverting villages.

Maybe we should start building a sorcerer's tower in the town. A rather large one. That would take some years to complete. And with a very large balcony.

>>22807500
Could be wrong, I've got a bad memory and may have misread some of the stuff in this thread. (Don't even remember bird shit.)

On the other hand, from what I do recall, we were busy doing subervtan' and elf lore basically openly. Sure, we're pretending to be human, but the name is right there, and it's not like we're hiding our nature from the elves. (And our reasons were entirely greedy.)


Which is a very long-winded way of saying "whoa, I might be confused but could still make a case for it."

>>22807365
this is fine. A younger appearance is good anyways, being underestimated is always a plus.

>>22807327
Seconded.

>>22807575
We're not exactly actually old, anyway.

>>22807575

We've just taken out two most dangerous men in the area. I don't think they'll be ready to underestimate our organization just yet.

Well, I suppose the image fits with our actual age too.

>>22807546
I think taking The Red Dragon as moniker is a master stroke. Every one assumes that a dragon doing sneaky things would be more sneaky. Its like hiding behind the truth.

Perhaps when we gain the shape changing spell we should make an attract shape changed as a human but with a more easily unraveled illusion of a red dragon.
Its a bit of a gambit but if works it could pay off. -> people think your some wimpy wizard with a fetish for dragons and an illusion of grandeur.

>>22807627
Personally, I thought the good part was that we were't having to bend our pride as much. We shouldn't be sneaking or hiding or pretending to be human, that's.. demeaning. Sure, it can be useful here or there, but to plan on doing it essentially forever (or until we're a great wyrm, which is basically the same thing,) seems insulting beyond belief.

Just my opinion, though.

>>22807627

That would have been pretty neat. It's always better to be underestimated than the other way around.

>>22807520

Put a damn shirt you flaming faggot.

>>22807546
Neither the bird shit nor the suberting villages were done oepnly. Both were very stealthy and Tiamaty.

The elven lore is only a guise for getting the elves to make us more pretty things. It also makes them happier and more loyal.

>>22807627
>>22807644
It is brilliant because it works on both of those things.

>>22807672
Seems i cannot into english to day. Sorry.
subverting* and openly*

>>22807644

Hmm, you're right, dragons tend to be rather vain. Then again, we've exhibited rather functionalistic attitude over petty vanity so far.