Salutations, my curious congregation. There's a good chance this blog entry goes up a long while after the Dissecting the Dragon Creature Type article does on Nerdarchy, but in real life I just finished it and something I found while I was researching for it inspired me. So today we're going to do a little bit of world-building.
The concept is simple; a cabal of wizards lives in the woods near to a grove belonging to a group of Faerie Dragons, and the Faerie Dragons, as part of a pact with the wizards, symbiotically become their familiars.
Expect this to be a shorter one, I'm not actually sure how far I can carry this idea, but I felt like doing some brainstorming so let's find out.
TWs: They're cute faerie dragons, man, idk what to tell you. It shouldn't be a rough one unless you're personally offended by rainbows and/or swearing. And let's be honest, if you are you left a long time ago.
So while I was getting together my dragon examples for the article I came across this chart on D&D Beyond:
The very first thing my brain did was scroll down to see what color I would be if I were a Faerie Dragon. The answer is Blue, don't @ me. Anyway, my second thought was of a toddling little 5 year old running around with a red Faerie Dragon perched on their shoulder laughing about everything and stealing pies off of window sills and I loved that.
This isn't a wizard school. It's a wizard village. Everyone that's born in this little town is a caster, and occasionally they get outsiders that marry in, but for the most part everyone has magic, and all children born here or brought here for foster or adoption are paired with a Faerie Dragon Hatchling at birth.
For their whole childhoods, they're meant to be friends and companions, but as they grow older, the Faerie Dragon will become the human's familiar and the human, the Faerie Dragon's protector and guardian. It's a sacred bond sort of thing. And because the Faerie Dragon gets access to more magic as it gets older, the wizard and familiar are basically learning together.
So imagine gatherings of all these wizards that live in this grove, and all the little kids have red and orange faerie dragons perched on their shoulders while the elders have violet ones. Imagine town meetings where you aren't allowed in unless your dragon is blue or above, or even violets only. Imagine all of these Faerie Dragon familiars casting illusory terrain together to keep the town safe when a horde of barbarian invaders comes through the woods and at the end of the day they end up just fine.
What happens if your dragon dies? I mean I imagine that would be very sad and the rest of the village would pity you. It might be a good reason to go off on an adventure. Then again, there are probably dragons that outlive their wizards, too, and I imagine sometimes they re-bond with orphaned wizards so they don't have to be alone.
Not always, but sometimes.
The local tavern won't serve you mead unless your dragon's green or darker. No one has to card you because they can tell immediately that you're too young if you've got one of those fire colored dragons on your shoulder.
Faerie Dragons, as a general rule, are mischievous little fuckers even in their older age, so the pranks of the young ones are taken in good spirit most of the time. I imagine a lot of the people in this village still play pranks on each other into their old age. Most of the village elders are probably kept quite young in spirit by the dragon companions they've grown up with.
This is definitely one of those things I'm going to want to think of a plotline for and bring my PCs to one of these days. I'm really into it as a concept. I just need to figure out which table it's best for and how to introduce conflict.
Anyway, thanks very much for sitting with me through my brainstorm <3
Fortune Favors,
Robin the Red
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