Jump 191: D&D - The Dragons

Jump 191: D&D - The Dragons

Location: Abeir
Age: Juvenile [+100]
Identity: Ascendent, Force Dragon [-800]
Drawbacks: [+700] More Time: 2,000 Years, Draconic Mentality, Pride, Adventurer Magnet, Dragon War

[Free]      Draconis Fundamentum
[Free]      Natural Armor
[Free]      Dragon Intellect
[Free]      Sorcery
[Free]      Breath Weapon
[1000/1800] Living Breath
[1200/1800] Rapid Recovery
[Free]      Flight
[Free]      Frighteful Presence
[Free]      Cross Fertility
[Free]      Inherent Memory
[Free]      Senses
[1500/1800] The Strength Of Ages: Endless Advacement
[Free]      No Time For Philosophizing
[1800/1800] Dragon Domain

"You'll... never be... a god," the warlock hissed between bloodied teeth.

I merely smiled down at her. "I am superior to the gods. I am a dragon. Your argument is invalid."

She'd put up a good fight, to be fair. She'd been told by her patrons that a young dragon styled itself a god and was assembling a following, and so she'd assembled a group of adventurers to slay it and take its hoard. They'd had remarkaby little information, but they were quite reputable and she herself was no stranger to rooting out cultists and slaying demons encroaching on the material plane. A dragon with delusions of divinity was not a new thing, nor insurmountable; she had expected perhaps a particularly clever black dragon.

She did not, however, expect a dragon who was practically transparent. Moreover, she did not expect it to have a small army of what seemed to be animated golems that were more akin to person-shaped force walls. A force dragon. That was far above her pay grade, but by the time she'd realized that it was too late to retreat.

And I'd been watching all along, because scrying artifacts are incredibly useful.

Simply to rub their defeat in, I healed them only to the point of surviving, before sending the half-dozen adventurers away. With a clear message to the warlock: the next group who dared to challenge me would not find me so generous.

---

Xorvintaal is a most interesting game. Those who are unfamiliar with it would consider it to be something akin to chess, only far more complex. Those familiar with it would laugh, and call it something more akin to international diplomacy and spycraft, but for all the nations involved to not truly exist anywhere beyond the shadows. Abeir has many dragons, you see, and Xorvintaal is popular among them. After trying it out, I could see why. It's addictive in the same way that some people elsewhere might find playing Monopoly or Risk to be addictive. Or more likely akin to, perhaps, Europa Universalis. Certainly, one could simply drop it and move on with their lives, but to do that meant that if you ever wanted to play it again, you would be starting over from the most basic level - but you need a sponsor to get you a place at the table, and quitting will reflect poorly on that sponsor. No one would want to give you a place at the table if you dropped out.

My goal of ascension to godhood was not a new tactic to the players of the Great Game, but it was one that usually would put one at odds with other players for multiple reasons. It made you a larger target - and more importantly, a legitimate target rather than an eminence in shadow. Hilariously, that meant a bit of jealousy from some of the other players. Certainly it set me back and ensured that I didn't have as high a "score" as I otherwise might - for what value "score" has, anyway - but it made it less likely for me to be as bored as some others end up being.

It's a hell of a game, but it's SPECTACULARLY boring sometimes. And chasing an ascent to godhood in the way of the locals was definitely a good strategy, as it turns out.

---

The aforementioned elven woman became something of a thorn in my side. Oh, I'd followed the rules quite well, but the conflict with these adventurers who plagued me were acting outside of it for the most part, which made it fun. It became entertainment in and of itself - she'd bring her latest batch to strike me down, each a little more powerful than the last, find herself foiled and yet not outright slain, and do it again six or twelve months later.

Honestly there were times where I had thought that she was taking this all a little too personally.

And then there was the time that I decided to chuck the script out the window, have my force golems waylay her companions, and see what she would do if she continued on herself. Despite her trepidations, she did... only to find me waiting outside the false lair I'd set up to aim her at, sitting with the supplies for a meal outdoors, in the form of a biped similar to herself rather than my draconic glory.

"Welcome. You must be tired after all that," I told her. "But I will admit I do not feel like fighting today, so shall we declare a truce for the day? It would be a shame to ruin a nice picnic."

And so the confused and wary elf enjoyed the exotic meal and dessert (did you know that Abeir did not know the joys of a chocolate mint tart?), and she promised to return with her companions, determined to strike me down, as her patron had foreseen my growth into a threat to all the gods of the cosmos.

"My dear," I told her, a brilliant smile on my face, "Your patrons do me honor, but they do not fully comprehend - I could strike them all down as a hatchling if I chose to stop following their rules. Instead, I've chosen to handicap myself. It would take an act of immense stupidity for me to do anything like that. Even then, I wouldn't kill them. Make them mortal at worst."

She did return again - except the next time, after her adventurers left, I kept her behind to share another meal. And so a moment of amusement turned into an equally amusing regular appointment.

---

Time goes on, the seasons change, and the years slip past. The black-haired young elf had grown from a nubile warlock into a more enlightened spirit with silver hair, the marks of a life well lived on her face. I, too, had gotten older over the centuries. But if an elf might age like a bottle of scotch, we dragons age as the finest of wines, and mine was a particularly fine vintage indeed.

She'd eventually gotten to the point where she stopped attempting to kill me, though this didn't stop other groups; word had, after all, spread about me and many wanted to slay me. I indulged them, because none of them could hope to be a threat to me. Frankly, the elf's dip into toying with hellfire barely made me blink, so there was little others could hope to do short of being of my own race, or the primordials themselves.

"You know, you're not getting any younger," I teased her one day. "Eventually that price will come due and you'll spend your afterlife in service to the ones who thought I should die... unless."

She recognized the bait for what it was, but still took it. Well, some minutes later, anyway, after mutual exertion - after all, what is a dragon without a desire to take that which was pitted against it, to possess them instead? And even better, of their own free will. But eventually, the question was asked; "Unless?"

"Unless you wish for me to sunder those binds and set you upon a new path, with a new youth. This is a world with very little magic, but tell me... have you ever considered being a cleric?"

---

All good things must, in time, come to an end. Or so they say. Personally, I have doubts, but two thousand years is a very long time. Long enough to spend two thirds of it playing the Great Game before pulling the rug out from everyone else in a single fell swoop - toppling a pair of Abeir's kingdoms with those loyal to me, establishing myself as an untouchable dragon god-emperor.

Ah, yes, there is that? Godhood? It's a thing that can be achieved, at great cost and through great hardship. The cost? Everything I had in this world. Everything I owned - not counting the people, anyway. The hardship? My imminent ascension caused the Tarrasque at the heart of Abeir to awaken, burrow its way to the surface, and attempt to slay me. Had I not the massive number of servants that I did, the worshippers I had, and the numerous catspaws to call on, I might have even failed. Or been forced to draw on resources I had forsworn. It was a near thing, even at that, but the tarrasque was eventually slain.

They don't tend to stay dead, I'm told. In fact, as it lay dead, I could see it rapidly beginning to regenerate. And so there was only one thing to do to ensure that it did not return to plague me further: consume it, bite by bite. That meal was the last thing that propelled me beyond nascent god to fully ascended.

The stage, then, had been set. And the signal sent, the curtain fell. As did two kingdoms, the pieces thereof swearing allegiance to the slayer of the Tarrasque, who promised to rule with a light hand. Or claw, as the case may be.

The other players of Xorvintaal were taken aback at the bold moves that were made. Some would claim I violated the rules. Others claimed that I just somehow blundered into the closest thing to victory that existed in the Great Game. And a few were simply astounded that my master stroke caught them all off guard so well.

The game of Xorvintaal never truly ends, of course. There were centuries to go before I could relax my grip on the kingdom and let inheritors take it over.

But the true master stroke happened when none expected it - indeed, actions that others thought would be against me only played to my own goals. For one day, the denizens of Abeir awoke and saw the steel-colored sky now blue, found their world was one among a great many others. And found that I was the one in control of them all.

Truly, the other players of the Great Game were worthy opponents, but none of them were ever truly on the level of a god-emperor. Even the most vain among its players conceded.

Perhaps I'll have to play Xorvintaal again sometime, if I can find anyone who is actually good enough.

---

"What is this?"

"Well, I'm a dragon god now. Therefore, you are now my cleric."

"I was already your cleric after you stopped me from being a warlock."

"Yes, you were. Now you are a double cleric."

"This makes no sense."

"I am a dragon. Your argument is invalid."

"...I really wish you would stop saying that."