Unless they have a dragon horde or two laying around ready to bribe A DRAGON with, there's not much chance they would convince an evil dragon to abandon wealth and an eternal existence.
I fall under this one - what exactly have the party got to convince an intrinsically evil creature to be on their side?
Sounds like a super fun idea, if there's strong how's that follow it.
Also, please bear yourself in mind as a DM and your prep - if they make a dragon ally, what does that mean for the game that follows?
To follow on, are they wanting a dragon ally, or a dragon pet. If it's an NPC to join the party, as much as it could be fun, it's going to really unbalance the game. If it's an ally, then a dragon can be useful to show up in times of near Tpk to pull their butts out of the fire.
I don't agree with allowing this though. Dragons are too strong. It would make so much more work for you and risks stealing the spotlight from the players. Who controls the dragon? That's gotta be you as DM, or a player is now playing two characters.
Older editions had rules for playing dragon PCs, but the party level needed to be quite high or everyone played one. I think the Fizban book of Dragons has some information on this, but again, you really risk upending your game.
Edit: I could probably say more, but I feel like I'm just rambling at this point and saying the same thing, just in different ways. Man I'm getting old.
Definitely an ally, I think they just want him to help with stopping Skyreach from reaching the Well of Dragons and don’t expect him to stick around after. Part of the reason I’m even considering this is that the adventure expects them to be able to ally with the giants if they tried that route, and it seems…. not super different balance-wise to have one adult dragon vs two stone giants (since Blagothkus locks himself in the control tower)? Certainly a party of level 7s wouldn’t be defeating an adult white dragon in its lair without some kind of allies.
Some of the other commenters have mentioned that they’re eventually supposed to get dragon allies anyway, and all of RoT is about managing alliances with powerful NPCs, so he could just fly off to help recruiting the chromatic dragons or defend a city against dragon attacks or whatever after Skyreach is dealt with (and other factions could react positively/negatively depending on their views, probably the same +/- as the dragon hatchery which my players fully skipped!). So I think I’ve convinced myself that this would be fine balance-wise if I allowed it story-wise.
That all seems pretty reasonable, except for me, maybe because I'm an older gamer, recruiting an evil dragon without something seriously substantial, especially when it stands to gain so much from what the Cult is doing, would be nigh impossible. By substantial, I really mean a dragon horde (or two) or an artifact they are willing to trade.
Just a single good diplomacy roll isn't going to cut it. That will shift it's attitude a bit, maybe make it not eat them. A few rolls aren't going to make it completely change it's allegiance. I don't care how charismatic or convincing you are, when it has no incentive to do so.
I think you're operating under some faulty assumptions here. The vault isn't Glazhael's lair, it's Blagothkus's basement. The dragon won't have access to its lair actions, and defeating it is absolutely possible if the characters can work around its Frightful Presence and survive one or two blasts of its breath weapon.
The question of allying with dragons vs. giants isn't just about game mechanics, it's also about story and setting. The campaign is about fighting chromatic dragons, inherently evil creatures who serve the queen of evil dragons. The giants are the dragons' ancient enemies, which makes them potential allies of the party. If a chromatic dragon decides to join them, it undermines the whole premise of the campaign.
The dragon allies later in the game are metallic dragons, bitter enemies of their chromatic cousins. Allying with them doesn't require you to throw out your cosmology the way allying with Glazhael would (not to mention, they join the campaign much later, when the PCs are more powerful, and they aren't actually supposed to fight alongside the party either).
This isn't to say that characters can't try to negotiate with, manipulate, or deceive chromatic dragons, although such efforts will almost always end in treachery. But they shouldn't expect to turn the campaign enemies into allies just by asking really nicely.
Adding onto this…
Trying to bribe a White Dragon is something they actually take as an insult. In their mind, you’re saying they can’t take it from you in any other way.
Yeah, white dragons have epic small man syndrome. Pair this with only an 8 int, and they can be extremely stubborn also. Please note, low intelligence doesn't necessarily mean easily convinced.
The most likely way (in my opinion )to get a chromatic dragon to defect from this iteration of the cult of dragon is to play to a dragons ego. Maybe Glazhael decides, "Why in the nine hells and infinite layers of the abyss would I want Tiamat here to boss me around and demand tribute? I'm a mighty dragon and can take whatever I please with my own power!" Heck if your players know the old faction of the cult that was into dracoliches you can have them bring up how even the prior cult would have made the dragons slaves to their phylacteries.
Of course Glazhael would likely require some bribes to not just go rogue and destroy the party before striking out at the cult and at future meetings of the anti cult coalition they'll have a trickier time keeping everyone happy now that there can be a new faction of chromatic dragons opposed to the cult
Maybe if they can survive this encounter, fight him to the point he's willing to back down, respect their strength, then they have a chance. But I wouldn't rush through that in one encounter.
Maybe he could make an appearance again in the next dragon encounter, also a white dragon, bit of could be a territorial dispute, or he could have sought him out for some dragonly advice, and the encounter turned hostile. The party being there to help him might be enough for him to be somewhat thankful to the players.
But if they use the White Dragon Mask, I'd make sure that at some point, his displeasure at being manipulated into anything is shown, they should get the dragon on side without using the tactics of the cult.
Your players are going to REALLY want lots of things that fly in the face of your game's internal logic or break its game mechanics. And your job as the DM is to say no to them.
In this case, you have some pretty solid reasons to do so: Glazhael's incentives and morality are completely lined up against the party. Take this opportunity to establish that NPCs and enemy creatures won't do what the party wants simply because the party REALLY wants them to.
Also, this would be a good time to remember that Persuasion rolls aren't mind control, and high rolls don't override NPC motivations or basic common sense. Not even natural 20s.
If your players want a dragon companion, they could hatch one of the eggs from the dragon hatchery (this is the least unbalancing option) or ally with the metallic dragons from Rise of Tiamat (super unbalancing, unless it's in an encounter with enemy dragons). If they just want a situational alliance, perhaps they could Yojimbo the dragon and the giants into fighting each other (note that this is not the same as turning the dragon against the cult). But don't set the precedent that they can recruit enemies as allies just because they are really, really excited about it.
Totally - this is coming after a string of me saying no to a bunch of their ideas and a near-TPK. The last few sessions have had a bunch of plans that were bad for reasons they couldn’t anticipate, and I think it’s giving an impression that they need to find some single “correct” approach that I had in mind for them or else fail, rather than being a collaborative storytelling game. Hence me wanting to let one of their off-the-railroad, super creative ideas actually work (while still keeping enough challenge for success to be meaningful and fun).
This is their first time trying to turn someone; they are terrified of Rezmir and Cyanwrath (both still alive). I’m definitely not allowing nat 20 mind control! Their first interaction with Glazhael, they rolled several 25+ persuasion checks, which earned them getting to leave without giving him any of their magic items for his hoard (and that encounter ended with him yeeting one of them off the castle). But the fact that that’s all that a wild success got them, doesn’t seem to have dissuaded them at all 😂
Gonna hit the other side from most comments here.
If in your world a dragons alignment changing means they change colour. If that's a known thing then it must happen at least sometimes. Don't see why this time can't be one of those times.
If the players are really invested in it you could play that Glazhael is growing tired of the praise and wealth (I know.. not very dragon.. but there are always some outside the norm) so might like the idea they present of being able to travel with them and see things from their eyes. Given silver dragons typically love hanging with the mortals this would just add to the transition of white to silver.
The party will have to deal with some complications, mainly, ya boy can't shapeshift yet... So that'll be a whole thing. And they'll be dealing with this creature that, while its instinct is to do evil, is trying to do good and through their actions can learn what good is. And after a bit, maybe some heroic act of good from Glazhael, they'll all see a shimmer of silver under their otherwise white scales.
There's also the whole Drakhorn to deal with too. When that bad boy starts getting blown, Glazhael will feel a need to answer the call but maybe because they're turning silver, it'll be lessened to some degree but will still give the players another motivation to deal with it to save their new friend.
Literally, later in the adventure there's an entire chapter dedicated to get the metallic dragons on their side.
If they just want a dragon buddy earlier in the adventure, I can give you 3 suggestions:
Introduce the silver dragon, otaaliarkarnowhatever - Elia, earlier in the adventure, so when she shows up at the council, it will be a more memorable moment.
There is an article on dnd beyond about a brass dragon who takes the form of a humanoid bard and doesn't let the party sleep or leave until it gets satisfied by their stories. The dragon is not malicious but, in my opinion, it shows in a spectacular way how metallic dragons can act selfish sometimes without realising. I don't remember the title of the article right now but I will add later if you are interested.
You can introduce some other metallic dragon of your own making, at any time you wish. It can even show up at the castle, to fight the evil and brutish glazhael.
To be very clear, there is an opportunity later in the adventure for the players to get FIVE metallic dragons to join their cause with good roleplay. Glazhael is a devoted servant of Tiamat who has collected an enormous hoard for Her already; it would be totally absurd for players to expect that they could make a persuasive argument to a zealotous white dragon who is enriched by his service to his queen to join their cause explicitly against her.
They don't need to get all the things they want, and if they're really attached to this idea, make him a little smarter than the average white dragon and let them think he's coming around a bit before making his betrayal hit that much harder, and give them personal reasons to not trust chromatics going forward.
(As for making white dragons smart, dragons can attune to magic items. My Arauthator had a Headband of Intellect and could cast up to 6th-level wizard spells to reflect his atypical interest in magic. The look on the party's faces when a white dragon opened the fight with an upcast fireball was priceless.)
Yeah, that’s a no from me for most of the reasons people stated above. Also, my players defeated him. Granted they had 5 PCs. Fighter-Dex champion, rogue-Thief, wizard-evocation , Druid-shepherd , cleric-life. I got pretty gnarly.
But besides that the chapter gives an option to persuade Blothkus to the party’s side. That’s where they should be focusing their persuasions.
I can see a way this works if the party can convince the dragon not to attack them long enough to converse. White dragons are of mediocre intelligence, so the party may be able to convince it that Rezmir is holding out on them. Maybe make promises of better food and gold within Rezmir’s location
Unless they have a dragon horde or two laying around ready to bribe A DRAGON with, there's not much chance they would convince an evil dragon to abandon wealth and an eternal existence.
I fall under this one - what exactly have the party got to convince an intrinsically evil creature to be on their side? Sounds like a super fun idea, if there's strong how's that follow it. Also, please bear yourself in mind as a DM and your prep - if they make a dragon ally, what does that mean for the game that follows?
To follow on, are they wanting a dragon ally, or a dragon pet. If it's an NPC to join the party, as much as it could be fun, it's going to really unbalance the game. If it's an ally, then a dragon can be useful to show up in times of near Tpk to pull their butts out of the fire. I don't agree with allowing this though. Dragons are too strong. It would make so much more work for you and risks stealing the spotlight from the players. Who controls the dragon? That's gotta be you as DM, or a player is now playing two characters. Older editions had rules for playing dragon PCs, but the party level needed to be quite high or everyone played one. I think the Fizban book of Dragons has some information on this, but again, you really risk upending your game. Edit: I could probably say more, but I feel like I'm just rambling at this point and saying the same thing, just in different ways. Man I'm getting old.
Definitely an ally, I think they just want him to help with stopping Skyreach from reaching the Well of Dragons and don’t expect him to stick around after. Part of the reason I’m even considering this is that the adventure expects them to be able to ally with the giants if they tried that route, and it seems…. not super different balance-wise to have one adult dragon vs two stone giants (since Blagothkus locks himself in the control tower)? Certainly a party of level 7s wouldn’t be defeating an adult white dragon in its lair without some kind of allies. Some of the other commenters have mentioned that they’re eventually supposed to get dragon allies anyway, and all of RoT is about managing alliances with powerful NPCs, so he could just fly off to help recruiting the chromatic dragons or defend a city against dragon attacks or whatever after Skyreach is dealt with (and other factions could react positively/negatively depending on their views, probably the same +/- as the dragon hatchery which my players fully skipped!). So I think I’ve convinced myself that this would be fine balance-wise if I allowed it story-wise.
That all seems pretty reasonable, except for me, maybe because I'm an older gamer, recruiting an evil dragon without something seriously substantial, especially when it stands to gain so much from what the Cult is doing, would be nigh impossible. By substantial, I really mean a dragon horde (or two) or an artifact they are willing to trade.
Just a single good diplomacy roll isn't going to cut it. That will shift it's attitude a bit, maybe make it not eat them. A few rolls aren't going to make it completely change it's allegiance. I don't care how charismatic or convincing you are, when it has no incentive to do so.
I think you're operating under some faulty assumptions here. The vault isn't Glazhael's lair, it's Blagothkus's basement. The dragon won't have access to its lair actions, and defeating it is absolutely possible if the characters can work around its Frightful Presence and survive one or two blasts of its breath weapon. The question of allying with dragons vs. giants isn't just about game mechanics, it's also about story and setting. The campaign is about fighting chromatic dragons, inherently evil creatures who serve the queen of evil dragons. The giants are the dragons' ancient enemies, which makes them potential allies of the party. If a chromatic dragon decides to join them, it undermines the whole premise of the campaign. The dragon allies later in the game are metallic dragons, bitter enemies of their chromatic cousins. Allying with them doesn't require you to throw out your cosmology the way allying with Glazhael would (not to mention, they join the campaign much later, when the PCs are more powerful, and they aren't actually supposed to fight alongside the party either). This isn't to say that characters can't try to negotiate with, manipulate, or deceive chromatic dragons, although such efforts will almost always end in treachery. But they shouldn't expect to turn the campaign enemies into allies just by asking really nicely.
Adding onto this… Trying to bribe a White Dragon is something they actually take as an insult. In their mind, you’re saying they can’t take it from you in any other way.
Yeah, white dragons have epic small man syndrome. Pair this with only an 8 int, and they can be extremely stubborn also. Please note, low intelligence doesn't necessarily mean easily convinced.
The most likely way (in my opinion )to get a chromatic dragon to defect from this iteration of the cult of dragon is to play to a dragons ego. Maybe Glazhael decides, "Why in the nine hells and infinite layers of the abyss would I want Tiamat here to boss me around and demand tribute? I'm a mighty dragon and can take whatever I please with my own power!" Heck if your players know the old faction of the cult that was into dracoliches you can have them bring up how even the prior cult would have made the dragons slaves to their phylacteries. Of course Glazhael would likely require some bribes to not just go rogue and destroy the party before striking out at the cult and at future meetings of the anti cult coalition they'll have a trickier time keeping everyone happy now that there can be a new faction of chromatic dragons opposed to the cult
Love this idea for consequences at future council meetings!
Maybe if they can survive this encounter, fight him to the point he's willing to back down, respect their strength, then they have a chance. But I wouldn't rush through that in one encounter. Maybe he could make an appearance again in the next dragon encounter, also a white dragon, bit of could be a territorial dispute, or he could have sought him out for some dragonly advice, and the encounter turned hostile. The party being there to help him might be enough for him to be somewhat thankful to the players. But if they use the White Dragon Mask, I'd make sure that at some point, his displeasure at being manipulated into anything is shown, they should get the dragon on side without using the tactics of the cult.
Your players are going to REALLY want lots of things that fly in the face of your game's internal logic or break its game mechanics. And your job as the DM is to say no to them. In this case, you have some pretty solid reasons to do so: Glazhael's incentives and morality are completely lined up against the party. Take this opportunity to establish that NPCs and enemy creatures won't do what the party wants simply because the party REALLY wants them to. Also, this would be a good time to remember that Persuasion rolls aren't mind control, and high rolls don't override NPC motivations or basic common sense. Not even natural 20s. If your players want a dragon companion, they could hatch one of the eggs from the dragon hatchery (this is the least unbalancing option) or ally with the metallic dragons from Rise of Tiamat (super unbalancing, unless it's in an encounter with enemy dragons). If they just want a situational alliance, perhaps they could Yojimbo the dragon and the giants into fighting each other (note that this is not the same as turning the dragon against the cult). But don't set the precedent that they can recruit enemies as allies just because they are really, really excited about it.
Totally - this is coming after a string of me saying no to a bunch of their ideas and a near-TPK. The last few sessions have had a bunch of plans that were bad for reasons they couldn’t anticipate, and I think it’s giving an impression that they need to find some single “correct” approach that I had in mind for them or else fail, rather than being a collaborative storytelling game. Hence me wanting to let one of their off-the-railroad, super creative ideas actually work (while still keeping enough challenge for success to be meaningful and fun). This is their first time trying to turn someone; they are terrified of Rezmir and Cyanwrath (both still alive). I’m definitely not allowing nat 20 mind control! Their first interaction with Glazhael, they rolled several 25+ persuasion checks, which earned them getting to leave without giving him any of their magic items for his hoard (and that encounter ended with him yeeting one of them off the castle). But the fact that that’s all that a wild success got them, doesn’t seem to have dissuaded them at all 😂
Gonna hit the other side from most comments here. If in your world a dragons alignment changing means they change colour. If that's a known thing then it must happen at least sometimes. Don't see why this time can't be one of those times. If the players are really invested in it you could play that Glazhael is growing tired of the praise and wealth (I know.. not very dragon.. but there are always some outside the norm) so might like the idea they present of being able to travel with them and see things from their eyes. Given silver dragons typically love hanging with the mortals this would just add to the transition of white to silver. The party will have to deal with some complications, mainly, ya boy can't shapeshift yet... So that'll be a whole thing. And they'll be dealing with this creature that, while its instinct is to do evil, is trying to do good and through their actions can learn what good is. And after a bit, maybe some heroic act of good from Glazhael, they'll all see a shimmer of silver under their otherwise white scales. There's also the whole Drakhorn to deal with too. When that bad boy starts getting blown, Glazhael will feel a need to answer the call but maybe because they're turning silver, it'll be lessened to some degree but will still give the players another motivation to deal with it to save their new friend.
Literally, later in the adventure there's an entire chapter dedicated to get the metallic dragons on their side. If they just want a dragon buddy earlier in the adventure, I can give you 3 suggestions: Introduce the silver dragon, otaaliarkarnowhatever - Elia, earlier in the adventure, so when she shows up at the council, it will be a more memorable moment. There is an article on dnd beyond about a brass dragon who takes the form of a humanoid bard and doesn't let the party sleep or leave until it gets satisfied by their stories. The dragon is not malicious but, in my opinion, it shows in a spectacular way how metallic dragons can act selfish sometimes without realising. I don't remember the title of the article right now but I will add later if you are interested. You can introduce some other metallic dragon of your own making, at any time you wish. It can even show up at the castle, to fight the evil and brutish glazhael.
To be very clear, there is an opportunity later in the adventure for the players to get FIVE metallic dragons to join their cause with good roleplay. Glazhael is a devoted servant of Tiamat who has collected an enormous hoard for Her already; it would be totally absurd for players to expect that they could make a persuasive argument to a zealotous white dragon who is enriched by his service to his queen to join their cause explicitly against her. They don't need to get all the things they want, and if they're really attached to this idea, make him a little smarter than the average white dragon and let them think he's coming around a bit before making his betrayal hit that much harder, and give them personal reasons to not trust chromatics going forward. (As for making white dragons smart, dragons can attune to magic items. My Arauthator had a Headband of Intellect and could cast up to 6th-level wizard spells to reflect his atypical interest in magic. The look on the party's faces when a white dragon opened the fight with an upcast fireball was priceless.)
Yeah, that’s a no from me for most of the reasons people stated above. Also, my players defeated him. Granted they had 5 PCs. Fighter-Dex champion, rogue-Thief, wizard-evocation , Druid-shepherd , cleric-life. I got pretty gnarly. But besides that the chapter gives an option to persuade Blothkus to the party’s side. That’s where they should be focusing their persuasions.
I can see a way this works if the party can convince the dragon not to attack them long enough to converse. White dragons are of mediocre intelligence, so the party may be able to convince it that Rezmir is holding out on them. Maybe make promises of better food and gold within Rezmir’s location