[Channel Teaser] How To Tame Your Dragon - Raise The Dragon
As My Daughter (Step 1) Please enjoy this amazing and epic tale from
our viewer, Philip. Hello again everyone. Today I would like to share with you all another
memorable story that occurred during one of my older Pathfinder sessions in the Kingmaker
campaign. As a side note, I promise there will not be
any spoilers for the adventure path, so there is no need to worry. To give a brief backstory, our DM informed
us that this particular campaign involved a lot of wilderness exploration, and that
it would likely take place over many years of ‘in-game’ time. As such, my group was encouraged to make characters
who would be able to do something fun during their downtime, so I decided to roll up a
half-elf summoner of Erastil, the lawful good God of farming, hunting, and family. We were also told that we would be building
our own kingdom as well, and with all that in mind, I figured it would be cool to become
a farmer who raised exotic animals and sold them off for profit. After all, the forests were practically teeming
with wildlife, and the idea of taming owlbears seemed like an amazing concept. Now, for those of you who do not know, the
cost of raising and caring for an animal is not really that expensive, and as long as
I had the necessary farmland along with enough workers, I was basically guaranteed to turn
a profit, especially since a fully trained owlbear sold for a whopping 5,000 gold. Maxing out my Handle Animal skill and getting
the Leadership feat became my top priority, and after a few good sessions of leveling
up and saving gold, I was finally able to purchase a respectable plot of land for my
farm. As my party continued to traverse the wilderness,
I quickly began capturing as many owlbears, hippogriffs, and axe beaks that I could find,
knowing that these animals were the easiest to rear and sold for a hefty amount of coin. Fast forward a few years later ‘in-game’
time, and my farm was quickly becoming one of the most profitable industries in the entire
region, housing a large collection of rare and exotic -- yet fully tamed animals. Needless to say, I was very happy with the
way things were going, and now that my character was a high enough level, I soon began setting
my sights on capturing a new type of animal: a roc -- which is basically a powerful gargantuan-sized
eagle that, if properly trained, sold for an incredible 10,800 gold. I figured it would make the perfect addition
to my little farm, and I simply could not wait to capture one alive or, at the very
least, acquire some of their eggs. However, little did I know that fate had other
plans in store for me instead. During one of our exploration missions into
the swamplands, our party had a random encounter with an adult black dragon who was apparently
attempting to defend its territory from unwanted intruders. At the time, my party consisted of a lawful
evil wizard, a lawful neutral cavalier, a true neutral alchemist, and myself as a lawful
good summoner, and while my allies were not exactly the most ‘noble’ of heroes, none
of them had any issues with killing this vile beast. Although the encounter proved to be rather
difficult, our party eventually managed to slay the monster without much issue, and as
luck would have it, we also rolled high enough on our knowledge checks to know that dragons
typically nested in lairs and enjoyed collecting treasure to store in said lairs. As such, our wizard quickly went to work and
cast ‘Create Treasure Map’ in the hopes of locating the dragon’s lair and obtaining
some much-needed loot. Thankfully, the lair in question ended up
being only a few hours away, and we immediately wasted no time in seeking it out. However, upon arriving at our destination
and after going through what seemed like almost half a dozen traps, our party was disappointed
to learn that the lair was mostly filled with dead bodies and broken equipment, with only
a few jewels and gems scattered throughout the cave. Not wanting to miss out on any secret chambers,
we quickly rolled our perception checks and proceeded to search the area while our wizard
took it upon himself to appraise and gather the gemstones. As it turns out, there was at least one more
thing of note hidden inside the cave, as our party eventually stumbled across a group of
curiously shaped ‘rocks’ nestled away in the corner of the chamber. Upon closer inspection and after making another
knowledge check, we quickly learned that these rocks were actually dragon eggs… black dragon
eggs to be more precise. Sadly though, most of the eggs looked as if
they had been smashed or crushed from some prior event, but after taking a few moments
to rummage through the nest, our party managed to discover that one of the eggs was still
very much intact. This revelation immediately led us to discussing
what we should do about the egg, as our cavalier quickly suggested that we should simply ‘smash
the damn thing and be done with it’. Meanwhile, our wizard and alchemist both agreed
that we should take the egg back with us and sell it for a profit. I, on the other hand, had another idea in
mind. I can’t exactly explain what compelled me
to do it, but after taking a few seconds to consider my character, I realized that selling
an intelligent creature into slavery did not exactly sit well with me. In addition, I also could not stomach the
idea of destroying the egg, and leaving it here alone simply was not an option. Therefore, seeing as how I worshipped a God
of farming, hunting, and ‘family’, I decided to take it upon myself to adopt the dragon
as my own. As you can imagine, my party was not exactly
thrilled by this, as they immediately pointed out that I was depriving all of them from
a great deal of gold by ‘adopting’ the dragon rather than selling it. In response, I offered to count the egg as
my share of the ‘loot’, and even added to give each of them a free owlbear from my
farm to keep or sell as they pleased, which was a rather considerable offer since I only
had five fully-grown owlbears left on my farm at the time. They agreed to these terms and promptly proceeded
to help me transport the egg back to my home. Thankfully after the dragon encounter, our
party was given another week of downtime to manage our businesses and mingle with NPCs. As for me, I quickly decided to use my time
to learn everything I could about black dragons while delegating my farmland affairs to my
cohorts and followers. I will admit, while I had previously never
considered roleplaying as a ‘parent’ with this or any other character before, I soon
found myself very excited by the idea of becoming a father to this little black dragon. Unfortunately, after doing a bit of research,
all that excitement was immediately replaced by dread as I discovered that black dragons
were perhaps the most psychotic little bastards that ever existed in the history of… well…
anything. Even when compared to other chromatic dragons
which were all pretty much evil in one way or another, black dragons were particularly
nasty since they basically possessed a wicked and sadistic nature that could easily put
Ted Bundy to shame. On top of that, black dragons were also incredibly
violent and unreasonable, and would often inflict harm upon other creatures simply because
they could. As you can imagine, none of this was very
encouraging information, and to make matters worse, the egg was due to hatch almost any
day now. I realized that this was probably my DM’s
way of saying that raising this dragon would be a very bad idea, but to be honest, I really
did not care. My mind was made up and my course was painfully
clear: I would raise this black dragon right or die trying. When the big day finally came, I had already
prepared one of my barn houses to act as a makeshift ‘lair’ and had stocked it with
a large tub of drinking water and about thirty pounds of dried fish. I figured this would be more than enough to
make a good impression with my newly-hatched dragon, and the barn was certainly spacious
enough not to mention more inviting when compared to that filthy corpse-ridden cave. Now, keep in mind that while a black dragon
is only the size of a house-cat when it is first born, I knew that over time it would
get a hell of a lot larger. On top of that, I also realized that dragons
for the most part were surprisingly very intelligent even at birth, and I did not want to expose
mine to too many people too quickly especially given a black dragon’s natural psychotic
tendencies. As it turned out, that was probably a live-saving
idea. When the egg started to hatch I could barely
contain my excitement, and as I watched the little creature crawl out of its shell, my
character literally had to resist the urge to go over and pick it up. Thankfully I restrained myself and waited
a bit longer so as to not frighten the poor thing with any strange or sudden movements. Eventually though, I decided to call out to
it in a low and gentle voice, and I made sure to speak in draconic so that it could understand
me as well. “Hey there. It is good to see you.” In response, the dragon merely blinked at
me with its cold blood-red eyes. “Don’t be afraid. I am not going to hurt you,” I said, before
gently reaching out my hand to try and pet its head. As I soon discovered, trying to pet a black
dragon’s head was a very big ‘no-no’, the little creature quickly hissed at me before
scurrying back to a corner hissing at me again. I suppose this should not have surprised me
of course, but I figured my best option now was to roll for a diplomacy check and hope
for the best. Below average roll. Not a good sign. In a nutshell, I essentially told the dragon
my name and asked if it was hungry. It did not answer. Instead, the little creature just sniffed
the air and started wandering around the barn. Unsure of what to do next, I decided to stay
in the barn for the rest of the day, hoping that my little wyrmling might finally decide
to talk to me. No such luck I am afraid, and with nightfall
quickly approaching, I figured I might as well get comfortable and make a bed in the
hay. Oh, what a wonderful idea that was. After being asleep for about an hour, I was
abruptly woken up by the refreshing sensation of a little black dragon pouncing on my face,
as the damn thing apparently decided that now would be the perfect time to strike against
a ‘helpless’ and clearly stupid victim. It raked its claws against my eyes in a frantic
attempt to blind me, but as you might have guessed, little cat-sized dragons were not
exactly very strong. After rolling a quick strength check, I easily
managed to pull the psychotic reptile off of me, and after taking a moment to collect
myself, I immediately asked my DM if I could roll another diplomacy check to try and calm
it down. In response, the dragon ‘politely’ hissed
at me before using its breath weapon to spray acid in my face. Now, at this point, part of me was REALLY
considering killing the little monster right then and there. After all, this thing clearly had no issue
with trying to kill me, and it did not seem interested in listening to reason either. However, I knew that if I killed it I would
be taking the easy way out, and I was not about to let myself be bested so soon. Therefore, if diplomacy would not work, I
would try intimidating it instead. Now, keep in mind, I never intended my character
to act as the party face, and as such, I never bothered putting points into any of my social
skills. That being said, the only thing I had going
for me was a high amount of charisma, so there really was no guarantee that my intimidate
check would work. To my surprise though, when attempting to
intimidate a pint-sized dragon, a medium-sized half-elf with a good charisma score can be
a very scary thing even with just an average roll. “Cut this crap out or I swear I will skin
you alive and make a Goddamn belt out of you!” I yelled in draconic, which instantly caused
the dragon to squeak in alarm before skittering away in fear to the far side of the room. Needless to say, things weren not going well. Wanting to try and salvage the situation,
I grabbed some dried fish and approached the dragon again, as it continued to quiver meekly
in the corner, hissing and glaring at me the whole entire time. “You food,” it said suddenly, in a slightly
feminine voice although how anything can sound feminine in the draconic tongue is beyond
me. “I kill you. I eat you. You no scary to me.” I will admit, seeing this little dragon threaten
me while cowering in fear really did make me feel sorry for the thing. It was as if this creature could not comprehend
why I was so angry with it, and it also did not seem to realize that I had only been trying
to help it. In that moment, I knew that no matter what,
I needed to succeed. I needed to show this dragon how to live a
good and virtuous life, and I would be damned if I let anything stand in my way. I asked the DM for another diplomacy check. Now up until this point, the dice Gods had
not been very kind to me, and I knew that this next check could make or break everything. And so, with all that in mind, I steeled myself
as best I could and prepared to make my roll, although not before delivering one hell of
a speech. “I am not your food. I am your father,” I stated in a firm yet
gentle tone. “I am sorry for what I said earlier. I did not mean to lose my temper. However, you must understand that I will not
tolerate my child acting like a homicidal monster. You are better than that, even if you cannot
see it yet. I know that deep down you are destined for
great things, and it is my hope to help guide your steps with a loving and gentle heart.” Once I was finished, I tossed the dice from
my hand and waited for the result, praying that I would at least roll something above
a ten. As luck would have it… natural 20! The little dragon took a moment to consider
my words, cocking its head to the side while studying my face. Its eyes seemed to regard me with a great
degree of caution, but it no longer seemed to cower or view me as a threat. Then, after a long pause, the little wyrmling
spoke. “I not your pet,” it stated very firmly. “No, you are not my pet. You are my daughter.” “I not your slave!” the dragon declared
hotly. “Never my slave. Only my daughter,” I said in response. “What does this mean?” It asked in a curious voice. “It means that we are family, and it means
that I love you.” After a long pause, the dragon slowly crept
closer and eyed the fish in my hand, before carefully leaning in to take a cautionary
bite. I knelt there in silence as I watched my dragon
eat, feeling like I had just won a monumental victory. “You know, if you are going to be my daughter,
then you will definitely need a name,” I offered to her gently, as I took a moment
to gaze at her dark jet-black scales. Now, for those of you who do not know, you
can actually tell a lot about a dragon just by looking at their scales. On one hand, a good dragon’s scales are
bright and vibrant, while an evil dragon’s scales are dull and dark and when it comes
to a chromatic dragon, their scales are almost always universally dark. Therefore, if I had any hope of leading my
daughter on the good and righteous path, then I needed her scales to shine like obsidian…
or onyx. “Onyxia,” I said. “That will be your name.” Upon hearing this, the little dragon looked
up at me with its bright crimson eyes, before slowly nodding its head in obvious approval. “Onyxia,” she said. “It is good name. I like very much.” And so, with that said, Onyxia was born. I was feeling rather pleased with myself despite
my rocky start, and I was confident that things would go a lot smoother now that I had formed
a proper connection with my precious little dragon. Oh how wrong I was… After spending another day in the barn, I
finally decided to give Onyxia a tour of my lands, hoping to familiarize her with the
animals and staff. At first, everything seemed to be going just
fine, with Onyxia following closely at my heels and listening intently to everything
I said. She still refused to let me hold her of course
which did wound me a bit, but I figured that for now, I needed to take baby steps. In the meantime, I wanted to make her feel
as welcome as possible, and I knew that exposing her to other people would be the best way
to go. Sadly, as I guided her around the farm, I
noticed that Onyxia was acting very tense, and she would constantly hiss and growl at
almost everything that moved. Bringing her around my animals quickly proved
to be impossible, as most of them treated Onyxia with a mixture of fear and hostility. This did not seem to bother my dragon of course,
since despite the fact that she was only the size of a house-cat, she basically approached
everything with a rather fearless attitude or, in other words, a complete lack of common
sense. On one occasion, I literally had to use a
handle animal check to keep one of my owlbears from attacking Onyxia who was hissing at the
beast the entire time while hiding behind my leg quivering in fear. I knew this was just a by-product of a black
dragon’s psychotic nature, but even so, I decided to keep her away from my animals
for now. Things did not go much better when I finally
introduced Onyxia to my cohorts, she stared at them with her cold blood-red eyes, as if
silently debating if she could kill them now or not. Needless to say, none of my followers felt
very comfortable around her, but I urged them to do their best and treat my daughter with
respect. A suggestion that I also encouraged with Onyxia
as well. After finishing up with the tour, I calmly
walked Onyxia back to her barn and made sure to restock it with fresh water and supplies. I knew that once my downtime was over, I would
have to go out and start adventuring once again, which meant that I would be forced
to leave my dragon all by herself. Fearing that she might run away or worse,
go out and hurt someone, I briefly considered locking up the barn with Onyxia inside it. However, as soon as I suggested this idea
to my DM, I immediately caught myself mid-sentence and dismissed it entirely, remembering the
promise that I made to my daughter: she was not my pet, and she was not my slave. She was my precious little girl, and I would
treat her as such. I knew that if I broke my promise, or violated
her trust, I would lose any hope of leading Onyxia on the good and righteous path and
that was simply something that I could not afford. And so, when it came time to head off with
the party again, I left the barn unlocked and said my goodbyes, although not before
reassuring my daughter that I would be back in a couple of days. I will admit, leaving my little dragon alone
was perhaps one of the most stressful moments in the campaign thus far, but nevertheless,
I felt supremely confident that I was doing the right thing. I would only be gone for a few days after
all, and I was certain that when I returned, everything would be fine. Of course, as you might have guessed, this
would not be the case. Now, I suppose at this point I could bore
you all to death by recounting the exploits of my party’s adventure, but I think I will
just skip ahead and get back to Onyxia. To sum things up though, our excursion into
the wilderness proved profitable yet again, and as we continued to advance the plot of
the campaign, our DM eventually gave us another break along with two more weeks of downtime. Surprisingly enough, we were all very eager
to get back to our businesses, and I was especially excited about seeing my dragon again. However, as I arrived back on my farm, I was
instantly greeted by one of my cohorts who informed me that we were currently suffering
from a very serious problem. Apparently in my absence, my little Onyxia
had finally learned how to fly, and ever since doing so, she had basically been on an unstoppable
rampage. She had terrorized the staff and caused chaos
wherever she went, and this all eventually culminated in Onyxia torturing and killing
one of my owlbears by flying overhead and spraying acid at the beast until it inevitably
dropped dead, succumbing to its wounds. My cohort went on to explain that it took
Onyxia almost thirty minutes to kill the poor creature, and that she did not even bother
to eat it at the end. In other words, she had killed it just for
fun. I was furious and devastated all at the same
time, and to make matters worse, the owlbear that she killed had been one of my mated pairs. For those of you who do not know, when an
owlbear finds a partner, they essentially mate for life and they certainly do not take
the death of their partners lightly. Knowing this information, I immediately asked
my cohort to show me where the owlbear was, and as we approached the location where this
tragedy took place, I soon began to hear the distinct sound of another grown owlbear crying
out in grief. When we finally arrived, I saw that the fallen
owlbear’s body was covered with burn marks, and as it quietly laid still and lifeless
upon the ground, its mate slowly circled its body and howled toward the stars. Every now and then, the living owlbear desperately
tried tapping on its mate’s body to try and get it to move, and each time it remained
still, the owlbear simply wailed in pain before repeating the process again. “Where is my daughter?!” I asked. Fury raged in my voice, to which my cohort
promptly pointed me straight towards the barn. I wasted no time in heading in that direction,
and when I finally opened the doors and stepped inside, my eyes were instantly greeted by
another horrifying sight. The barn was in a sorry state from when I
had last left it, with numerous scratch marks lining the walls and several wooden beams
sporting freshly-made acid burns. In addition, the corpses of numerous half-eaten
animals, rabbits and other small vermin decorated the ground in a sickly display. Onyxia stood by the water trough completely
covered in blood and was currently in the process of making holes in the wood. “Onxyia, come here this instant!” I commanded. The dragon calmly glared at me with a rather
annoyed stare before moving away from the water trough and coming to stand beside me. “Why Onyxia? Why did you do it?” “Do what?” the dragon asked, obviously confused. “The owlbear. Why did you kill that owlbear? I know that you did not need it for food.” “I am dragon,” she explained, as if that
statement answered everything. “I do not need a reason to kill. I was just having fun.” In that moment, it suddenly dawned on me that
Onyxia had no idea what right and wrong truly meant. From her point of view, being a dragon basically
allowed her to do whatever she wanted, and her natural urges constantly drove her to
committing evil and violent acts. I knew that if this continued, there would
be no way for me to change her current state of mind, and as such, I resolved to try and
teach my daughter a lesson in humility. “Come with me,” I said, before leading
her out of the barn and heading back towards the dead owlbear. As we approached the scene again, its mate
was still wailing and howling out in grief, which did not seem to bother Onyxia in the
slightest. “Why we here?” my daughter asked impatiently. “I want you to see this,” I said. “I want you to witness the tragedy that
you caused.” “So what? I killed it. It made me feel strong,” Onyxia declared
proudly. “Do you still feel strong now?” I asked, giving my daughter an incredulous
look. She considered this for a moment but did not
answer right away, as the owlbear let out another long and anguished screech. “That one is very noisy. I go kill it now,” Onyxia said, as I noticed
that she purposely tried avoiding my question. “You will do no such thing,” I said in
response, which immediately caused my DM to ask for a diplomacy check. As luck would have it, I rolled a 16 and Onyxia
stayed put, listening to the horrid sounds of the broken-hearted owlbear grieving over
its mate. “This is not something to be proud of, my
daughter,” I calmly explained. “Causing pain to others is not a sign of
strength. You have acted dishonorably, and brought shame
upon us both, and it is because of your actions that you have wounded me as well.” For a long time, Onxyia said nothing as she
gazed at the owlbear, listening to its mate wail away in pain. She still seemed indifferent to the misery
that she had caused, but after waiting in silence for a little over a minute, I noticed
that her body was starting to shake and shiver with rage. “I… I do not like this,” she said suddenly,
as her tail began to twitch in obvious annoyance. “Make it stop. I do not like. Make the noises stop!” Again, the owlbear howled and pawed at its
dead mate. “Why… why you do this? Why you make me look at this?!” she asked,
before turning her head to gaze at me with dark accusing eyes. “I was proud! I felt good! But now I no feel good at all?! I hate you! You trick me! You take away my fun!” Her words cut deeply, but I did not let it
show, and before I could manage to give a response, Onyxia suddenly turned and ran back
towards the barn. I followed behind her slowly, wanting to give
her a little space, yet when I finally arrived back in the barn, the little dragon was in
the process of ‘rampaging’ once again. She was scratching at the walls and hissing
at the air, while scurrying about the room in obvious distress. “I hate you! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” she
screamed. I stood there waiting patiently and never
saying a word. When she finally calmed down, I told Onyxia
that tomorrow I would help her clean up the barn, for I would not tolerate my daughter
living in her ‘lair’ with a bunch of half-eaten corpses. She did not bother answering me, but she did
not refuse me either, yet when I offered to give her a bath to try and clean her up, Onyxia
purposely moved away and started shaking her head. “You’re covered in blood,” I pointed
out. “Let me give you a bath.” “I do not need one,” she started to say,
but when she noticed my disapproving stare, she finally relented. “I do it myself.” After that, I decided to devote the rest of
my downtime to teaching my little dragon about right and wrong. Although admittedly, we did not exactly make
very much progress. I could tell that the lessons did not really
interest her, but on the plus side, I no longer had any issues with Onyxia killing the animals
or harassing my staff. Instead, she basically treated everyone with
a cold indifference, sneering at my followers while avoiding the livestock. She still possessed a terrible temper and
treated everyone aside from me like ants, but at least she was not disrupting our work
or causing any more harm. In addition, after cleaning up and fixing
the barn, Onyxia actually began taking good care of her lair, as she purposely avoided
scratching it up while at the same time making sure to dispose of corpses and bones properly. However, this certainly did not stop her from
taking her anger out on trees, as she quickly made a habit of scratching and tearing up
a lot of the surrounding plant-life. Realizing that I needed to help her blow off
some steam, I decided to take my daughter out hunting with me, and as I soon discovered,
this probably the best idea that I had ever had thus far. Onyxia loved hunting, although admittedly
this was probably because it finally allowed her to kill things without consequence. Still, I figured this was a great way to strengthen
my connection with her, and it also provided the perfect outlet to properly channel her
anger. However, with the end of my downtime swiftly
approaching, I decided to do something special before I went off adventuring again. After picking a secluded spot somewhere in
the woods, I invited Onyxia to play a little game of ‘hide and seek’, explaining to
her that I had hidden about a hundred gold coins somewhere in the area, and told her
that if she could find them, she could keep them for her lair. Now, if any of you are wondering why I did
this, keep in mind that all dragons are drawn to treasure in one form or another, and as
such, they typically enjoy hoarding such treasure and keeping it in their homes. Up until this point, I knew that Onyxia did
not have a treasure-hoard of her own, and I felt that it was finally time to correct
that mistake. Needless to say, my little black dragon greatly
enjoyed the game, and as we made our way back to the barn with her hundred gold coins in
tow, I explained to her that from now on, those coins belonged to her. “I will never steal from you,” I reassured
her softly. “Whatever treasures you collect belong to
you alone. All I ask is that you do not go around stealing
or obtaining treasures through treachery, for I promise that wealth acquired in such
a way will only tarnish the value of both your collection and yourself.” Onyxia did not speak for the longest time,
yet when we finally reached the barn house and she prepared to step inside, my daughter
slowly turned to me and spoke two simple words. “Thank you,” she said, before turning
on her heels and disappearing into the barn. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the very
first time my daughter thanked me for anything. This was just part 1 of How to Tame a Dragon. Stay tuned for Part 2 and please let us know
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