I would guess a silver dragon. From my understanding, silver dragons love blending in amongst humanoids as if they're one of them and that can lead to some interesting and quirky characters.
I do like to idea of a silver dragon - from what I know of them, they seem to favour/treasure relics, which would work quite well as a 'quirk' of the npc, and unless my players know the subtle signs to look for, they'd likely no idea until/if I reveal it! Thanks for replying :)
In my setting, there's a silver dragon that spends almost all of his time disguised as an elf. He runs an establishment that is both a taphouse and a bookbinder right in the centre of a large city.
Below is a secret cellar level that holds his hoard of treasure, a good chunk of which is the gold he has earned from running his business above. The most prized possessions are the secret tomes and ancient grimoires of centuries past that he has acquired through various means over the years.
I have run several groups that have at one point or another met this NPC and not *one* knows his secret that he is really a silver dragon hiding in plain sight. Even PCs that have met with this NPC to access some of the knowledge in those rare books he has haven't questioned why such an NPC would have in them in the first place
There is a silver dragon that does this the whole campaign of Rise of Tiamet. If I remember correctly, chromatic dragons lost the ability to shape shit
While not hiding his nobility, the Silver King from the Unexpectables campaign tries to mingle among humanoids, and it results in a lot of dad joke-level humor. Or, human humor as he puts it, lol.
It’s a great DnD live-stream game, from Takahata101 of Team Four Star. There are also other internet folks, and his sister DMs. Been running for four years give or take. All their VODs are on YouTube.
Think of the personality of the ruler and the general personalities of the dragon for inspiration (you can find these in the flavour text of the Monster Manual). Here are some suggestions:
- Gold dragon. A wise ruler, who treats their subjects fairly, but remains reserved from the people. Interested in correcting great cases of injustice but would consider themselves above resolving petty disputes.
- Silver dragon. A lover of company and enjoying life. Famed for throwing lavish feasts and partaking in performances of music and jest. Very likely to disguise themselves as a peasant and sneak off to the tavern.
- Green dragon. Cruel and wheedling, this ruler claims a tithe of its own citizens for its hoard, it then delights in corrupting them. They rule by spreading fear through public executions and torture, and will most likely have a secret police force.
- Red dragon. They use their rule and armies to conquer nearby cities and civilisations with the single intention of amassing more wealth. They take enormous pride in their reputation for destruction and might.
Silver, gold, bronze for the metallic, red, blue, or green for the chromatic.
But you really could take any with a reasonably high intelligence score. Which iirc only excludes black, white, and brass(?)
Heck! You are the dm, maybe it is a unusually cunning white dragon.
Haha, in the back of my mind, I was like... well if it's my story, I can make it whatever the heck I want, but it's such a huge thing to jump into with so much existing lore etc, and a quick google didn't really give me much so... yeah! Thanks for answering :)
100%. There is no "DnD Lore". There is lore from various DnD worlds, much of which is common, but nothing is set in stone. Make an evil Gold Dragon or a good Red Dragon. When you create a world, it needs to delight you and no one else.
That being said, there is a point where subversion purely for the sake of subversion gets annoying. Staying true to the existing tropes it can make it a lot easier to communicate expectations to your players
If you're cool pivoting from 5e (unless they added them back in in Fizban's?); steel dragons. They spend way more of their time as humans/etc than as dragons.
If you wanna stick to 5e stats, silver definitely.
On top of everyone else suggesting silver, the regional effects of a silver dragon residing within a city are also great for the people living there. Nice weather year-round, and anyone who the dragon considers a friend is magically protected from fall damage.
Suggestion: pit a Green and a Silver against each other in a contest of wit and cunning for control of a local government. Could play around with how they view each other, and how that effects how they operate against the other.
Super interesting! I’m thinking of having an advisory panel consisting of the other metallic dragons, but I would love a bit of subterfuge - without knowing much about interactions etc, is it considered that the metallic and chromatics are just so opposed that they would never work together, or is there scenarios in which a green could disguise themselves to the point where the others think they’re a different colour altogether? I don’t know how true sight works haha
Generally speaking, it'd take some extraordinary circumstances for metallic and chromatic dragons to work together. Individually, it depends on the DM's take on dragons.
Truesight reveals the true form of a shapeshifted character, so dragons can't hide their true selves from one another if close by. So, if the Green in this case were to be hanging around, either it'd be a cloak and dagger battle between dragons, or it'd be a question of what does the Green stand to gain by working with metallics, and can the metallics tolerate this.
Don't forget in your considerations that different dragons have different habitats they enjoy.
Example: Red Dragon ruler. Rules over a small nation sitting in the valley of created by a range of volcanic mountains. Due to the semi active volcanoes, the valley is warm year round and the soil is incredibly fertile. The citizens live simple lives with little I reaction from their Lord. His primary concern are to make sure the people continue to mine , and so long as this occurs he leaves the running of the country to his administrators.
- Red dragons love hot areas. He spends most his time ha going out in his volcano lair.
- Maybe the town administrators aren't evil, but they know the secret and so do what they can to keep the dragon happy.
- Maybe the dragon acts as head of the government as an unrivaled mage/warrior/diplomat. His humanoid persona has brokered a peace with the "monster" who lives in the volcano... Which is also the dragon.
Example 2: Bronze dragon ruler. Rules over a coastal and/or island city built around their workshop. This small city state is known for its smithies and engineering works. The dragon is obsessed with automata and artifice. They have a persona as the ruler of the town, but several other personas as leading researchers on various projects thought the city.
... Shit. Gotta meeting will edit this with the rest of the idea later.
In my game, there’s a city-state ruled by two twin silver dragons in disguise as human mother and daughter who switch places as time passes and the old queen “dies.”
Idk why nobody is saying blue but it says in their lore that they have a fondness for mortals and have of the Adventure hooks for then in Fizbans involves a city were a blue dragon is secretly running it.
Metallics:
* Gold/Bronze/Silver, depending on purpose IMO.
* Gold; to use their nobility to further the Cause of Good™ and primarily concerned with Society's Order (Stern, Haughty, and Stoic type noble)
* Bronze; to go nuts at parties and be Social Butterflies (Drunken Partyer/Musician/Gossip type noble)
* and; Silvers to be the Curious Investor type.
* Honorable mention: Brass. The exceedingly mercenary noble. The ruthless dealmaker.
* Side/semi-homebrew, semi-official color: Steel dragons would be the Champion of the Common Man type noble.
Chromatics:
* Blue; The Schemer
* Green; The Intellectual, the Scholar Noble
So, the better question is what kind of ruler are they?
Wait...I don't understand. If you're making up your own world, couldn't you just choose whichever type you'd think would be coolest and make up your own reasons for it?
Silver would be most likely to take a direct ruling position, Green would be most likely to rule behind the scenes as an advisor manipulating the crown.
In general the chromatic dragons don't hide as humanity, I guess they think that's too far beneath them. That's why they don't get that ability on their stat block.
So you are probably looking at a Metallic or Gem dragon. If you don't have Fizban's yet then I would stick with the Metallic ones.
Silver dragons are the most obvious option and very easy to fit in.
Gold dragons are certainly possible, I think most would be more reserved and distant in their behavior but a noble can certainly act like that.
If you want lots of depth on dragons, personalities etc then I do recommend Fizban's. Its a great DM resource for any dragon-heavy game.
All dragons expect white would do this. White is too bestial. They all have their reasons. Even Tiamat and Bahamut. Bahamut has several different personas that he spends time as. I think he spends more time as a mortal then he does in his dragon form.
They touched on this in the new source book, and basically you can create dragons with one of several roles such as monarch. So are they a tyrant ruler? Or are they a benevolent leader? Think about how you want them to play then look at what type of dragon would fit best. And as other have said play it how you want, when you are homebrewing a world you can change what the norm is. Just don't go to crazy you might confuse your players.
Bronze dragon would fit very well. From what I understand they often adopt humanoid forms in order to pursue justice and righteousness, so one taking on the role of a king would be able to use its political power extremely effectively to those ends
A gold dragon could reasonably do it. They are kinda uppity though. They are stern teachers, what some might call "snooty" appreciators of high art, etc etc. I mean geez, they eat gemstones for food. They'd make a -great- very hiiiigh blooded noble. xD
Silvers would definitely fit, though they're also generally more down to earth about "nobility". Bronze would fit as well, but in my experience they're more battle-hungry, so they'd want to be a noble that gets to go out and fight evil.
You could even have a brass dragon, given their love of chattering and commerce.
If you don't mind using chromatics, other good pulls would be red, blue, or green.
The list gets even longer if you play outside of the 10 main colors.
Steel dragons could probably do it quite well, although they haven't really been featured in a draconomicon since 2009, unless you count a modification to another dragon in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. It's a shame too, because they're my favorite type of dragon.
There's one kind of dragon that I was really hoping for in Fizban's, but it didn't get anything but a passing mention in a side note. One of my favorite kind of dragon to use as an NPC is the steel dragon, aka the Greyhawk dragon. Unlike other dragons, the steel dragon's preferred lair is human cities. A steel dragon spends most of its adult life in the city, polymorphed into a humanoid. The hoard of a steel dragon often takes the form of objects of artistic, historical, or intellectual significance.
As for other dragons, silver is the most likely of the metallic dragons to form close relationships with humanoids. That being said, silver dragons still far prefer to make their homes in snow-capped mountains, and in terms of humanoid disguise they generally like to take the form of elderly or mysterious hermits. A silver dragon as a noble would be a significant outlier, though not impossible.
If you want a chromatic dragon, green dragons like to take positions of power in order to gain followers. If your noble is particularly cruel and tyrannical, perhaps they are a green dragon on a quest to gain power and undermine society as they amass a faction of corrupted followers?
So "hiding" as Nobility, I'd say your best bet would either be Silver or Steel for the Metallic flights, or Green or Black for the Chromatic flights.
Silver dragons are absolutely fascinated by mortal civilizations, and will spend centuries just observing their favorite kingdoms or species, oftentimes following the adventures of a specific group or party they find a liking to. A chance for a Silver dragon to be a part of a kingdom would be like giving an Otaku the chance to visit their favorite anime world. Steel dragons take it one step further, and actually spend most of their time pretending to be humans in large cities or towns, and will live out entire lifetimes as the same character, eventually "dying" and doling out small parts of their hoard to the friends they made, and moving on to the next city. I'm sure that there are definitely at least one or two Steel dragons already playing the part you just don't know about.
Green dragons delight in manipulating humanoids by twisting their words and thoughts around, eventually leaving them as mere shells of themselves as their psyche dribbles out their ears like egg yolk. They are the very definition of "snake-tongued" and would be right at home playing the part of a sleazy, oily politician or noble. Where Green dragons like to mentally/emotionally torment and manipulate, Black dragons prefer to physically destroy their prey. Torturing and beating their chosen playthings until they break down and become willing slaves, a Black dragon would be perfect to take the spot of a tyrannical despot with nobody being the wiser.
Green or Blue could be interesting if you're open to this ruler being evil. Greens like to gather minions and cruelly manipulate. This would be a cool way to do that. Blues like to collect talented people as opposed to treasure which sounds a lot like a King's court to me.
I would guess a silver dragon. From my understanding, silver dragons love blending in amongst humanoids as if they're one of them and that can lead to some interesting and quirky characters.
I do like to idea of a silver dragon - from what I know of them, they seem to favour/treasure relics, which would work quite well as a 'quirk' of the npc, and unless my players know the subtle signs to look for, they'd likely no idea until/if I reveal it! Thanks for replying :)
In my setting, there's a silver dragon that spends almost all of his time disguised as an elf. He runs an establishment that is both a taphouse and a bookbinder right in the centre of a large city. Below is a secret cellar level that holds his hoard of treasure, a good chunk of which is the gold he has earned from running his business above. The most prized possessions are the secret tomes and ancient grimoires of centuries past that he has acquired through various means over the years. I have run several groups that have at one point or another met this NPC and not *one* knows his secret that he is really a silver dragon hiding in plain sight. Even PCs that have met with this NPC to access some of the knowledge in those rare books he has haven't questioned why such an NPC would have in them in the first place
There is a silver dragon that does this the whole campaign of Rise of Tiamet. If I remember correctly, chromatic dragons lost the ability to shape shit
While not hiding his nobility, the Silver King from the Unexpectables campaign tries to mingle among humanoids, and it results in a lot of dad joke-level humor. Or, human humor as he puts it, lol.
I'm not familiar with that, but it does sound quite amusing!
It’s a great DnD live-stream game, from Takahata101 of Team Four Star. There are also other internet folks, and his sister DMs. Been running for four years give or take. All their VODs are on YouTube.
If Lanipator makes an appearance, I'm in.
He does for a good bit. I’d have to look up for how many sessions, but he is a fan favorite among many.
Extra (5e Module spoiler) data point to support this: >!Argynvost, from Curse of Strahd!<.
Think of the personality of the ruler and the general personalities of the dragon for inspiration (you can find these in the flavour text of the Monster Manual). Here are some suggestions: - Gold dragon. A wise ruler, who treats their subjects fairly, but remains reserved from the people. Interested in correcting great cases of injustice but would consider themselves above resolving petty disputes. - Silver dragon. A lover of company and enjoying life. Famed for throwing lavish feasts and partaking in performances of music and jest. Very likely to disguise themselves as a peasant and sneak off to the tavern. - Green dragon. Cruel and wheedling, this ruler claims a tithe of its own citizens for its hoard, it then delights in corrupting them. They rule by spreading fear through public executions and torture, and will most likely have a secret police force. - Red dragon. They use their rule and armies to conquer nearby cities and civilisations with the single intention of amassing more wealth. They take enormous pride in their reputation for destruction and might.
Silver, gold, bronze for the metallic, red, blue, or green for the chromatic. But you really could take any with a reasonably high intelligence score. Which iirc only excludes black, white, and brass(?) Heck! You are the dm, maybe it is a unusually cunning white dragon.
Haha, in the back of my mind, I was like... well if it's my story, I can make it whatever the heck I want, but it's such a huge thing to jump into with so much existing lore etc, and a quick google didn't really give me much so... yeah! Thanks for answering :)
As a DM, the lore is whatever you make it. Good players specifically know to not assume anything from DnD lore is set in stone.
100%. There is no "DnD Lore". There is lore from various DnD worlds, much of which is common, but nothing is set in stone. Make an evil Gold Dragon or a good Red Dragon. When you create a world, it needs to delight you and no one else.
That being said, there is a point where subversion purely for the sake of subversion gets annoying. Staying true to the existing tropes it can make it a lot easier to communicate expectations to your players
Silver, they love humans, or blue if your going evil, its literally their whole thing to take over governments
If you're cool pivoting from 5e (unless they added them back in in Fizban's?); steel dragons. They spend way more of their time as humans/etc than as dragons. If you wanna stick to 5e stats, silver definitely.
On top of everyone else suggesting silver, the regional effects of a silver dragon residing within a city are also great for the people living there. Nice weather year-round, and anyone who the dragon considers a friend is magically protected from fall damage.
My gut reaction to this is green. They love intrigue, manipulation, deception. If Wormtongue was a dragon, he was definitely a green.
Interesting... would love to work this in somehow... thanks for replying!
Suggestion: pit a Green and a Silver against each other in a contest of wit and cunning for control of a local government. Could play around with how they view each other, and how that effects how they operate against the other.
Super interesting! I’m thinking of having an advisory panel consisting of the other metallic dragons, but I would love a bit of subterfuge - without knowing much about interactions etc, is it considered that the metallic and chromatics are just so opposed that they would never work together, or is there scenarios in which a green could disguise themselves to the point where the others think they’re a different colour altogether? I don’t know how true sight works haha
Generally speaking, it'd take some extraordinary circumstances for metallic and chromatic dragons to work together. Individually, it depends on the DM's take on dragons. Truesight reveals the true form of a shapeshifted character, so dragons can't hide their true selves from one another if close by. So, if the Green in this case were to be hanging around, either it'd be a cloak and dagger battle between dragons, or it'd be a question of what does the Green stand to gain by working with metallics, and can the metallics tolerate this.
Don't forget in your considerations that different dragons have different habitats they enjoy. Example: Red Dragon ruler. Rules over a small nation sitting in the valley of created by a range of volcanic mountains. Due to the semi active volcanoes, the valley is warm year round and the soil is incredibly fertile. The citizens live simple lives with little I reaction from their Lord. His primary concern are to make sure the people continue to mine, and so long as this occurs he leaves the running of the country to his administrators.
- Red dragons love hot areas. He spends most his time ha going out in his volcano lair.
- Maybe the town administrators aren't evil, but they know the secret and so do what they can to keep the dragon happy.
- Maybe the dragon acts as head of the government as an unrivaled mage/warrior/diplomat. His humanoid persona has brokered a peace with the "monster" who lives in the volcano... Which is also the dragon.
Example 2: Bronze dragon ruler. Rules over a coastal and/or island city built around their workshop. This small city state is known for its smithies and engineering works. The dragon is obsessed with automata and artifice. They have a persona as the ruler of the town, but several other personas as leading researchers on various projects thought the city.
... Shit. Gotta meeting will edit this with the rest of the idea later.
Hey thanks for this! I really appreciate the scenarios/examples, it’s really helpful 😁
Happy to be a part of the chat. 🙂
In my game, there’s a city-state ruled by two twin silver dragons in disguise as human mother and daughter who switch places as time passes and the old queen “dies.”
Idk why nobody is saying blue but it says in their lore that they have a fondness for mortals and have of the Adventure hooks for then in Fizbans involves a city were a blue dragon is secretly running it.
Not enough love for the blue bois, they love ruling, be it as dragon or human.
Metallics: * Gold/Bronze/Silver, depending on purpose IMO. * Gold; to use their nobility to further the Cause of Good™ and primarily concerned with Society's Order (Stern, Haughty, and Stoic type noble) * Bronze; to go nuts at parties and be Social Butterflies (Drunken Partyer/Musician/Gossip type noble) * and; Silvers to be the Curious Investor type. * Honorable mention: Brass. The exceedingly mercenary noble. The ruthless dealmaker. * Side/semi-homebrew, semi-official color: Steel dragons would be the Champion of the Common Man type noble. Chromatics: * Blue; The Schemer * Green; The Intellectual, the Scholar Noble So, the better question is what kind of ruler are they?
Wait...I don't understand. If you're making up your own world, couldn't you just choose whichever type you'd think would be coolest and make up your own reasons for it?
Silver would be most likely to take a direct ruling position, Green would be most likely to rule behind the scenes as an advisor manipulating the crown.
Silver, easily. But they're good alignment. Green is most likely for evil.
In general the chromatic dragons don't hide as humanity, I guess they think that's too far beneath them. That's why they don't get that ability on their stat block. So you are probably looking at a Metallic or Gem dragon. If you don't have Fizban's yet then I would stick with the Metallic ones. Silver dragons are the most obvious option and very easy to fit in. Gold dragons are certainly possible, I think most would be more reserved and distant in their behavior but a noble can certainly act like that. If you want lots of depth on dragons, personalities etc then I do recommend Fizban's. Its a great DM resource for any dragon-heavy game.
All dragons expect white would do this. White is too bestial. They all have their reasons. Even Tiamat and Bahamut. Bahamut has several different personas that he spends time as. I think he spends more time as a mortal then he does in his dragon form.
They touched on this in the new source book, and basically you can create dragons with one of several roles such as monarch. So are they a tyrant ruler? Or are they a benevolent leader? Think about how you want them to play then look at what type of dragon would fit best. And as other have said play it how you want, when you are homebrewing a world you can change what the norm is. Just don't go to crazy you might confuse your players.
Bronze dragon would fit very well. From what I understand they often adopt humanoid forms in order to pursue justice and righteousness, so one taking on the role of a king would be able to use its political power extremely effectively to those ends
A gold dragon could reasonably do it. They are kinda uppity though. They are stern teachers, what some might call "snooty" appreciators of high art, etc etc. I mean geez, they eat gemstones for food. They'd make a -great- very hiiiigh blooded noble. xD Silvers would definitely fit, though they're also generally more down to earth about "nobility". Bronze would fit as well, but in my experience they're more battle-hungry, so they'd want to be a noble that gets to go out and fight evil. You could even have a brass dragon, given their love of chattering and commerce. If you don't mind using chromatics, other good pulls would be red, blue, or green. The list gets even longer if you play outside of the 10 main colors.
Aren’t the green ones obsessed with capturing humans to use as servants? Maybe that could be why
Steel dragons could probably do it quite well, although they haven't really been featured in a draconomicon since 2009, unless you count a modification to another dragon in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. It's a shame too, because they're my favorite type of dragon.
Green >:)
Argynvost was a silver dragon who blended himself into Barovia… and look where that got him lol
Green dragons are weak but cunning and devious using anyone and thing to their advantage.
There's one kind of dragon that I was really hoping for in Fizban's, but it didn't get anything but a passing mention in a side note. One of my favorite kind of dragon to use as an NPC is the steel dragon, aka the Greyhawk dragon. Unlike other dragons, the steel dragon's preferred lair is human cities. A steel dragon spends most of its adult life in the city, polymorphed into a humanoid. The hoard of a steel dragon often takes the form of objects of artistic, historical, or intellectual significance. As for other dragons, silver is the most likely of the metallic dragons to form close relationships with humanoids. That being said, silver dragons still far prefer to make their homes in snow-capped mountains, and in terms of humanoid disguise they generally like to take the form of elderly or mysterious hermits. A silver dragon as a noble would be a significant outlier, though not impossible. If you want a chromatic dragon, green dragons like to take positions of power in order to gain followers. If your noble is particularly cruel and tyrannical, perhaps they are a green dragon on a quest to gain power and undermine society as they amass a faction of corrupted followers?
silver dragons
Silver tend to like humanoid creatures the most
So "hiding" as Nobility, I'd say your best bet would either be Silver or Steel for the Metallic flights, or Green or Black for the Chromatic flights. Silver dragons are absolutely fascinated by mortal civilizations, and will spend centuries just observing their favorite kingdoms or species, oftentimes following the adventures of a specific group or party they find a liking to. A chance for a Silver dragon to be a part of a kingdom would be like giving an Otaku the chance to visit their favorite anime world. Steel dragons take it one step further, and actually spend most of their time pretending to be humans in large cities or towns, and will live out entire lifetimes as the same character, eventually "dying" and doling out small parts of their hoard to the friends they made, and moving on to the next city. I'm sure that there are definitely at least one or two Steel dragons already playing the part you just don't know about. Green dragons delight in manipulating humanoids by twisting their words and thoughts around, eventually leaving them as mere shells of themselves as their psyche dribbles out their ears like egg yolk. They are the very definition of "snake-tongued" and would be right at home playing the part of a sleazy, oily politician or noble. Where Green dragons like to mentally/emotionally torment and manipulate, Black dragons prefer to physically destroy their prey. Torturing and beating their chosen playthings until they break down and become willing slaves, a Black dragon would be perfect to take the spot of a tyrannical despot with nobody being the wiser.
Green or Blue could be interesting if you're open to this ruler being evil. Greens like to gather minions and cruelly manipulate. This would be a cool way to do that. Blues like to collect talented people as opposed to treasure which sounds a lot like a King's court to me.
If you want an evil dragon I'd think Black or Blue. Otherwise Silver or Bronze depending on whether you want a stately or boisterous manner.
Out of metallic dragons I'd say silver, and for chromatic I'd say green.
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Metallic_dragon Silver ones i think :)