first, are dragons appropriate to the setting at all? they're petrified in strahd's castle, azalin flies on one, but the 3.5 player's only gives a sentence fragment ("although rare,...") as to their existence in the campaign. any ideas or suggestions about their use would be appreciated. certainly, a creature as intelligent as a dragon could be played as a mostly behind-the-scenes villian, charming or replacing townsfolk for their own wicked ends. in some regards, dragons are similiar to natural lycanthropes that can change their shape at will. i think the pitfall i see is that dragons (rightly or wrongly) have a reputation as a hack & slash kind of monster, which probably would fit only sparingly or not at all in a non-hack & slash kind of world. but the problem is, they may not have to be: usually, an encounter with a dragon is more similiar to an encounter with a beast than a genius. dragons are usually played by dm's to have a very reptilian sense of morality -- evil by virtue of combining their natural selfishness and understanding of the ramifications of their actions. what about the intelligent, self-righteous, proactive draconic villian? is that unprecedented in ravenloft?
with that mouthful, my second question can be fielded with a 'yes' or 'no'. back in the day, the 2nd ed. monster manual (monstrous manual?) had two separate listings for vampires -- eastern european and western european. the vampire listing in the 3rd ed. monster manual seems to combine the powers of both into an overall vampire template. are nosferatu in ravenloft designed to pick up the slack and provide the flavor once reserved for eastern european vampires?
Any dragon that is proactively "being a dragon" isn't going to last too long. No darklord is going to let them survive because they're too much of a threat to their power and the realms stability. Strahd and Azalin have allied themselves with them, but they are both strong enough to really challenge the dragon and force their submission if necessary. No other darklord is going to be put up with them.
Also, the Nosferatu is a very different creature from the standard vampire. With all of the templates in DoD you'll defintely find one that has what you want.
The best possible candidate for a dragon in Ravenloft, and one that's been used in official Ravenloft material, is a shadow dragon, though I suppose you could use another type instead.
Soth killed Strahd's dragon during his escape from the Castle,
Soth killed one of Strahd's dragons while escaping the castle. Certainly as per I6 Strahd actually had four of them dotted around his courtyard, disguised as statues. Of course it's possible that the other three have been killed in the hundreds of years that have passed since that module.
with that mouthful, my second question can be fielded with a 'yes' or 'no'. back in the day, the 2nd ed. monster manual (monstrous manual?) had two separate listings for vampires -- eastern european and western european. the vampire listing in the 3rd ed. monster manual seems to combine the powers of both into an overall vampire template. are nosferatu in ravenloft designed to pick up the slack and provide the flavor once reserved for eastern european vampires?
I don't think the "Eastern" vampire in the MM was meant to be Eastern European, but truly Eastern, as in the Far East. If I'm right, that creature was fleshed out futher as the "Oriental Vampire" in RLMCIII. This became the Chiang Shi Vampire strain in Denizens of Darkness/Dread.
I never allowed Azalin or Strahd their dragons, but instead had them cast fly + a major image to show the image of a dragon bearing them on their way.
I don't think the "Eastern" vampire in the MM was meant to be Eastern European, but truly Eastern, as in the Far East. If I'm right, that creature was fleshed out futher as the "Oriental Vampire" in RLMCIII. This became the Chiang Shi Vampire strain in Denizens of Darkness/Dread.
you may well be correct. it's been years since i've cracked the 2nd ed monstrous manual. memory may not have served me correctly....
thanks for the help, though, everyone
Dragons in RL are not only rare, but they're generally seen in a subordinate role. Part of that might be a legacy of past editions' dragons typically being less powerful than the likes of Strahd or Azalin -- each revision of the D&D rules has upgraded dragons' abilities somewhat, but only now are they up to giving the big-league darklords a run for their money -- but mostly it's due to the Gothic tradition's preference for human(-like) villains. A human or once-human darklord is much more effective in the "there but for the grace of the gods go I" factor; dragons simply aren't human enough to generate that kind of reluctant empathy and understanding, which sets true Gothic villains apart from generic BBEGs.
So, dragons in Ravenloft generally work for somebody much more human than themselves. That doesn't mean they can't have ulterior motives -- a dragon forced to serve a darklord might plot against its master, catching PCs up in schemes to win its freedom -- but the center-stage stars of a Ravenloft adventure should generally be people, not dragons or other inhuman-mindset monsters.
An undead dragon capable of creating/summoning/controling undead could make for a very interesting darklord for some domain. This and the shadow dragons mentioned as already being in ravenloft are probably the only ones I would use in a RL campaign as the others are to closely associated with high fantasy.
I still need to improve the idea but i kinda like the backbone of it.