I love that she’s so ride or die for her old friend that when someone talked smack about him she went down to settle the score…and not to kill the guy but “correct the record” and she got a new book printed out of it xD
She's always been one of my favorite dragons to run, and has become a re-occuring freenemie for multiple groups, Had her kidnap a player once because they were going to be gone for three months, the party made a epic rescue attempt only for them to get to her lair the day he came back for him to be all "Oh hey yeah so these are my friends i was talking about"
I really like Arveiaturace, since she breaks the mold from the stereotypical White Dragon while still keeping enough of their traits, and her bold and lonely nature makes her both fearsome and sympathetic.
I believe all dragons that get withing their final two or three age categories should break the mold from their stereotypical draconic personality... they are intelligent beings capable of learning, after all. And, they probably did a stereotype-breaking or two (I am using an understatement) to live as long as they did. Old dragon oddballs I created through my decades of gaming, a few of them. Many are too complicated for the comments section. My campaigns were very dragon-centric in my Dungeons & *DRAGONS* campaigns. A Copper Dragon that only had a very small group of friends, doing his Copper Dragon stuff through virtual isolation via them, and only super-social with them. A Green Dragon that had a very amicable alliance with local Druids and their forest allies. A Red Dragon and a Gold Dragon with a centuries-long non-aggression pact that was good for local Fire Giants, local Dwarf Kingdom, and kept the Human tyrannical monarchy at bay. A Black Dragon that ruled a local swamp who dialed back his behavior because of his friendship with an alchemist, later on becoming the family friend of his descendants who pursued alchemy... teaching them what his dearly departed friend taught him of the art. A Bronze Dragon that mainly kept in human form, making his lair a city, always assuming the identity of a man of importance.... usually a mayor, constable, sage, or commissioner. His human form ages at a human rate, he made sure of that. When the party met him, he was the mayor. The city's treasury (and gain) was what he considered his dragon hoard. A perverse group of dragons that formed a bit of a social club, now too old to reproduce but still command it, who are almost always shapechanged into a human/humanoid/demihuman form...they are the founding bloodline of that campaign's half-dragons. Other dragons in that campaign world saw them the same way we would see people who are into "loving" animals in the physical way. A Silver Dragon who, through one compromise after another, became his own worst enemy. A large portion of his body was living Clockwork. The heroes were born into a world similar to the Forgotten Realms, but magic and technology corrupted everyone, pollution of both what we know and of the magical nature saturated the planet, same with various diseases. That Silver Dragon introduced everything that caused all that by saving the whole planet as fast as possible from the Abyssal invasion he accidentally caused by making deals with Diabolic forces and creative madmen using arts and studies he himself learned to love. An Emerald Dragon who was the actual BBE behind the Knight Wings, airship-using pirates using Clockwork and Technomancy. Also, the same BBE behind a lot of the nobility and guilds. Taking that dragon by surprise was pretty much impossible.
She gives me Mr. Freeze vibes from Batman, she has her own agenda, longs for the return of her loved one, and is willing to converse with or aid someone should it potentially benefit her in the long run. Also like Mr. Freeze to earn a grudge from her you would have had to monumentally fucked up and negatively effected her in someway at some point.
@@Nox-eg3rqDragons live a long, long time. They have time to experiment with such things, and grow the subject in ways humans can only imagine. Now I am wondering about a dragon who makes studying sex among dragons their obsession, and may even share their findings with humans, maybe whether the humans care or not.
Huh, I really like this dragon. It goes to show you that just because someone is "evil" doesn't mean they can't feel love, friendship, or loyalty. This is probably by far the best chromatic dragon I've heard of so far, as a fan of dragons who are kind, expressive, and "good". Well, in her case she isn't good in alignment, but the fact that she's cool with just keeping you as a guest for a few days just to talk is unusual for an evil creature. That quite frankly warms my heart, despite her icy cold nature.
unless you de-age the body, it's going to get expensive very quickly as your chance of dying of old age increases with age. And if you can de-age there is no point in using raise dead to cheat death. If I'm not mistaken it is better to use Clone instead. It's a bit more expensive and higher level but you can create a younger version of the same body if desired. Boom, you have cheated death and angered a Marut inevitable somewhere
In earlier editions they were smart enough to put it in the core rules... Lol. At least they didn't 3rd edition it. It's not my beloved 2nd but this dumbed down version really works for getting it more popular.
@@bayoubilly5176 see but raise dead being able to bring back people who died of old age has some interesting story implications. You can totally use it for a bbeg, bringing him back from the dead, and he has to make constant Con saves to not die from old age again, and then his Minions bring him back every 10 days. They could spend the whole campaign either trying to become lich, vampire, take over someone's body, find a fountain of youth, steal the youth from others, etc. Or you could also have a boss fight with the party and just have the boss drop dead all of the sudden, just to see the look of disappointment on your players faces, and then he gets brought back again later.
In the Tyranny of Dragons campaign, you supposedly kill her mate Arauthator (which I changed to their kid Aurbangras because no way should they be able to kill Arauthator that easily). Regardless, I had Arveiaturace show up several chapters later looking for revenge. Just the description I gave of her, from her size to the spooky cowled figure hunched on her back, convinced them not to fight her at all costs, and they managed to talk their way out of a confrontation, and fled from her as she appeared several more times over the campaign. I built this great stat block for her, with the abilities mentioned in this video, complete with dead Meltharond holding a Staff of Power for her to activate as a Legendary Action, and I never even got to use it. These players ended the campaign by killing Tiamat and yet Arveiaturace spooked them so much they went out of their way to never fight her.
My players are currently about to go down into Arauthator's lair. They are two levels above where the campaign says they should be for this chapter and they are a party of 6. Needless to say I've been theory crafting a way to make the fight not seem like a total easy knockout since just like you I thought the fight would be underwhelming. I hit them with a lot at the ice castle (And I mean A LOT, it was many more enemies than is originally at the ice castle), and they killed the white dragon there in only a few rounds. As of right now, there is going to be an animated breath hanging around already. He can cast Draconic Spirit, which he likely will do immediately to add another creature to the field, as well as Rime's Binding Ice which isn't as large of an area as a breath weapon but has the ability to make a characters movement fall to 0, which I thought had good potential for something devious. Not sure if I can make it work but better to give myself options. I originally thought to have Arveiturace there as well in order to add difficultly but decided against it. After watching this video I'm really glad I didn't have here there. I didn't know any of this stuff about her so it would have been a really watered down version of her and that's not fair when she's this cool. (No pun intended but now I'm stupidly laughing at it.)
@@shadowfoxgirl For the dragon fight itself, I recommend not waiting for the troll reinforcements to show up, just have them start there (it says to wait a few rounds, but the dragon didn't last that long when he's alone.) Or change the adult dragon to an ancient white, to be harder/more lore accurate for Arauthator himself. If someone is wielding Hazirawn they'll make mincemeat out of most things.
@@drewforchic9083 The party is already fighting the trolls right now, so I wasn't going to pull them in. And I already added some extra health to the dragon since I knew there was no way he would last that many rounds. Not against my party! haha. What I have instead is a party who let two kobolds go and one alerted the trolls and one went to a room of 8 kobolds who hadn't been discovered. The 8 kobolds are going to follow the party and the one is going to go alert the dragon down the other hole near Maccath's tent. This means the dragon will already be well aware of the party, so he will have his Animated Breath up and he will have a Draconic Spirit up. The draconic spirit will look like a white dragon and I suspect the party will go after it hard. Meanwhile the animated breath will hopefully get at least one good turn. The characters will be hopefully clumped together near one of the traps in either hallway, so that the real dragon can swoop down and freeze a bunch of them. The 8 kobolds will box them in from behind and lob ice balls at them with their crappy sling attacks. I doubt they will do much but it's a lot of fun to have them there. The dragon will probably Wall of Ice them at some point to split the party, have the dragon go behind it so that he can focus on one or two people at a time. Or it could all fall apart. lol I'm considering who in the party he would want to take down the most. I feel like he would be offended to have a Gold Dragon Bloodline Sorcerer in front of him, the monk is a Way of the Ascendant Dragon and has silver scales sometimes, and the paladin is a blue dragon born who is currently transitioning into a white half dragon due to eating the heart of the white dragon from the ice castle in Hoard of the Dragon Queen. They all have multiple features that show off the fact that they have killed dragons, so I feel like he will really hate them for that.
Ah yes! Some of the most satisfying DM experiences is writing such good lore that it legit scares the party. Not a second of that prep was wasted, friend.
Her ability to activate magic items from a distance is horrifying. White dragons freeze their treasures below ice to protect them. She could literally wallpaper her lair with magic items behind 6 inches of ice. She's still be able to see them, but they'd be totally inaccessible to the players.
I really love this Dragon and her lore, mostly because my own elven wizard brought her to heel due to a misunderstanding and after discovering the loneliness of her existence retired from adventuring to become a full time companion of hers. The two conduct raids for magic items and ancient libraries, solve mysteries and just enjoy each others company. A beautiful story of love, loss and less than good people coming together to make the world a lil better than it began.
Correction: Arauthator MAY die in Rise of Tiamat. Unless the DM miss-plays his part or the characters are extremely powerful and kill him in one turn, he is supposed to flee the fight when reduced to 100hp or bellow and is fighting 3 or more characters. Canonically he shows up alive 4 years later which tells us that he's NOT supposed to die in that battle.
I would go further and make an adventure based around recovering his Soul from one of the lower planes, so it could then be bound to his remains and make him either a Lich or Death Knight, perhaps with Cult of the Dragon help, with them subverting the process to attempt, or succeed, at controlling Arveiturace. Then the newly raised Undead Mage, outraged that his companion gave up her autonomy, could perhaps be convinced to help the adventurers fight the Cult and free her, ultimately sacrificing himself to do so, leaving her free, but distraught at his now permanent loss, but maybe becoming a potential ally for future adventures fighting the growing power of the Cult and turning her into actively hating Tiamat.
@@mikesemus9773 He's very likely in the Wall of the Faithless, if you really do intend on making the adventure. Would be interesting to see her turn into some kind of vengeance, hate-filled dragon, that works with others that also hate the Cult solely for the reason of destroying them, and makes an active effort not to kill someone if they prove that they hate the Cult or that they have been wronged by them as well, or, on a parallel, she goes around destroying things in the name of the Cult of Dragons so that more people will hate them and seek their destruction. Just some ideas, feel free to use them.
I named my dog Rhexx about 6 years ago, he died last night and I just want you to know you’ve made a huge impact on my life so much that I named my dog after you down to the spelling. Keep influencing people with your videos just as you influenced me (despite how oddly i took it in)
You know there's a lot more stories about Borys than any other dragon in D&D (deities like Bahamut and Tiamat excluded). Would love to see you cover him.
As much as I love athas based novels I take it you don't read Faerun or krynn novels... Borys is covered fairly well but there is an entire series based on dragons in both of the latter.
@@kylenieman3444 yep , considering I've read every one... That's an extremely generous number to say it's "about" him. But even given that... Yep still not the most prolific...(not to mention if we're going to be that lenient , than the dark sun version of "dragon" isn't even a dragon... It's just a Kaiju ripoff when they mixed the Godzilla franchise with DnD and Conan's world...). Preservers becoming Mothra...
Oathbreaker paladin: "So how much you want to bet this lich is less useful than the Creeping Basement Dweller?" Necromancer: "SILENCE! This one I am certain will be willing to teach us powerful magics and share her riches!" Priestess of Luthic: *Whispers* "Five silver." Arveiturace: *Gets up and stares menacingly at the necromancer.* Necromancer: "OH DREAD MELTHAROND, HEAR MY PLEA! We come to offer our fealty to thee! As tribute we offer a genie, enslaved to this la-" *Chunk of ice falls loose and falls on his head, knocking him out.* Arveiturace: "Ah shit I need to get that fixed." Oathbreaker paladin: "Why does the dragon need to fix it? Just use your magic to make it fixed." Arveiturace: *Sighs.* "He's dead. And for reminding me why shouldn't I have you four idiots killed?" Assasain: "Uh..." *Reaches into bag of holding and puts down cats.* "We offer cats?"
I played as a half orc paladin in a party that encountered and escaped her twice. We heard about her and how dangerous she was so any time we saw her we just did whatever we could to leave as fast as we could, first time we found her was when we accidentally found one of her hordes and well… yeah
Thank you for this, awesome timing. I'm running Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden for my friends and Arveiturace is in it. In one of the chapters there's a chance for players to cross her, and the book explicitly says the players have no hope of besting her in combat. But my players are super curious and inquisitive and likely to try and befriend all sorts of terrible monstrosities and things, so knowing more about her will be great to have in my tool kit. Also for other readers- the module says that her hoard is spread out in a variety of hiding places! Which I thought was an interesting behavioral note. It makes me think of a squirrel hiding nuts. She's such an interesting dragon!
I'm currently running Rise of Tiamat in my table, and I was planning to make Arveiturace pop up in the last battle with White Old Death (he got away in the sea of moving ice chapter), so its great to see some info on her
I love this. As weirdly and unconventionally powerful as Arveiturace is, her entire being revolves around companionship in some way. She abducts people to have a 5 o'clock tea with them, her non-dragon related abilities all come from an old friend who apparently still watches over her despite having died long ago, she found a friend with benefits who, in theory, shares her infinite lifespan and they even share a hobby. I also like how she is a sort of artificer dragon.
I do miss the original DnD rules that even the white dragon had a bit of wizardly magic and even two levels in cleric once they were big enough. Sorcerer style.
A "what they don't tell you about..." topic I really want is Feydark. I bet that would be incredible. I don't knowing many people who even know the Feywild has its own Underdark
I love your usual lore videos and stuff, but your series on the ancient dragons of faerun are incredible. They are just so interesting to listen too and the manner in which you present it leaves nothing to be desired. Great videos thank you for your effort
I've had two different characters interact with her, both of which were awesome, but the DMs played her so differently from this description! Blew my mind!
YES! YEES! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEESH Arveiaturace is the first Dragon I got to learn about as I was prepping my first DnD campaign. I have eagerly awaited in anticipation that you might make a video for her.
Ive been busy lately and hadn't seen your last few videos, absolutely loving this series on famous dragons though. A pleasant surprise to have them waiting for me to binge 😉👍
I don't care how evil he is and how terrible they might become, but I want to find a way (without wish spells, that's just meh) to bring her friend back. I mean... She is sad and lonely. Like... Come on ;-;
With the chromatic dragons this is where much of the older "evil nature" lore of D&D seems to have to be in place for there to be a better story. Any highly intelligent, long lived, being such as a dragon of rational thought would probably be far better off making peace with the powerful cultures around them, especially if they were to become part of the protecting force, something that could be not only profitable for them because of tribute, but also help protect them as well and make their own existence safer in many ways as people who venerate something would also help protect that thing when it might find the need. Fear only gets you so far and tends to make groups want to destroy that thing, whereas love makes them want to protect and take care of it. This being the case it would seem that dragons such as Arveiturace, and other intelligent dragons would seek out, or at the very least be open to such roles as protectors in stead of destroyers, UNLESS of course they were simply evil by nature and as such prone to destruction even if it wasn't in their best interest.
There also needs to be taken into consideration another trait that all dragons posses, pride. Not only pride in what they are but pride in their ways, this creatures are older than civilizations, they are older than pretty much any other mortal and they believe to a fault in their ways and how they see the world because after all their ways made them live for so long. Why would someone like Arveiturace become a protector when for centuries she's been on a semi neutral standing with the locals? Nobody can beat her, she has the belief that nobody can beat her and from experience this remains true. She has no reason to change her ways. This can apply to most dragons, old age combined with living among extremely territorial creatures and a disease like thirst for valuable items keeps them enemies. Their pride makes them thing of themselves as vengeful gods. Also there are some dragons who became rulers like Tchazzar.
We have been talking about this PDF. I'm all for it. I'm sure I will still get that one player that wants something wild, but the Magic Item PDF saves so much of time.
Thank you! This is super useful. Arveiaturace features very prominently in my latest campaign and I've been searching all over the internet for more lore on her and this video had some really cool stuff I didn't know yet! Absolutely my favorite dragon, such a character, so much room for roleplay and areas of grey despite the innate evil alignment.
Wait, how is she nerfed? I'm running that module right now and reading the book it says she's an ancient white dragon and the players have no hope of killing her. It doesn't provide a stat block either so you could honestly use your own that includes her special enchantments..
@@Sellesion she is near sighted and Meltharond can get knocked off her back easily to get her distracted. You can find the stat block of an ancient white dragon in the Monster Manual. You are obviously not supposed to go all out on the players with her as they might encounter her when they're as low as level 5. My group managed to best her by using suggestion after she expanded her 3 legendary resistances, and sent her off far away. I didn't know about Meltharond's body enhancements, so after he fell the second time (the first time my monk helped her and mounted him back by her request in the hopes that she'll let them go, but she obviously didn't so they knocked him again) the monk just crashed the skeletal remains. So she had to leave the them on the ship and fly away for 8 hours. You can always decide to bring her back after the spell ends to get revenge on the group, but seeing as she is more of a foot note in the campaign and over leveled, I decided she won't return. In a different setting or if my group had any plans on keep playing with these characters by the end of the campaign, bringing her back could be a great option (she would still be over their level though).
@@orandor6249 That's mildly disappointing. But I suppose it makes sense for an early level encounter. If I ever use use her, I might disregard the nearsightedness and give the players the option to talk their way out.
I'm so glad you did this video. I'm a few sessions into DMing a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign set on the edge of the mere of dead men, and I never even considered Arveiaturace as a threat on the sea
Our party ran in to her as a friggen *random encounter* in Rime of the Frost Maiden. Thankfully she got bored of us and left before we had to resort to bribing her with roasted axebeak.
Running Icewind Dale, happy to find this video. My party is level 5 and they just got to the event involving her. Now I know how to play her. She's lonely. She will let them live if they give her company.
I've heard of this dragon due to watching/listening to VODs of Geeks + Gamers Tabletop's Secrets of the Frostmaiden campaign. It's an interesting campaign to tune in to.
This was soooo helpful! I’m running Icewind Dale right now and wanted something more to do with Arveturaice for the campaign and this has provided some great inspiration.
Really enjoyed this video--the storytelling was awesome and got me invested in Arveiturace when I previously didn't know anything about her. Also wound up with two general dragon questions while listening, dunno if anyone might want to speculate or not. 1) Stealing from dragon hordes is a terrible idea generally, but how might an encounter play out where you get someone openly interacting with a dragon and appreciating/complimenting the horde with zero actual desire to steal? Was thinking on Aveiturace's diamond wall--even beyond the whole 'stealing from dragons is a good way to get murdered' bit, like... the arrangement of those diamonds is part of what makes them beautiful. Even if someone wanted to steal them, you'd lose that arrangement in transport. Could a person theoretically get away with seeing the horde and admiring it as something belonging to the dragon? Feels like that could be like gushing over someone's interior decoration. 2) Can chromatic and metallic dragons technically mate and produce offspring? What would even result from that?
I don't know if your looking for in actual D&D lore answers but the way I treat it is dependent on the dragon. My players have interacted with 2 dragons that have let them see their horde. The reason being these dragons have had prior experience with the players and trust them enough that they won't take anything without permission. One in question was letting them stay there as they were traveling and she invited them to stay. As for your 2nd question I do let them as well. It is very rare and it does result in styrle/infertility like a mule or liger. One of the previous mentioned dragons is the father to a blue/bronze him being the blue.
@@thundergod9696 Thanks for the answers, definitely interesting! I'm sort of flexible when it comes to the lore here--I like learning about what's established, but I don't mind artistic license in the name of a good story either. Situation being dependent on the dragon makes sense too since each one is their own character as per Mr. Rhexx's series lol. That is really cool on how you set the experiences up for your players also! Sounds like your draconic characters are fleshed out in exciting ways just off of what you mentioned--was gonna ask if the dragons who showed their hordes were chromatic or metallic, then realized you answered that one was blue later. Also makes sense with the offspring being infertile.
@@janedoe885 both are Chromatic. The other is a Green. She has her reasons for many things but she genuinely loves one of the PCs so by extension she offers shelter to his friends. She is also involved with the party in finding a way to take down one of the big bads in my setting but her methods and philosophies don't match up with the PCs.
@@thundergod9696 Nice! :D Sounds like you're running a kickass campaign, for real. Love when characters have complexity like that, alignment isn't cut and dry, + varied perspectives/approaches across casts. Really appreciate your sharing! ^^
going to be getting some things from the store. thx for the perfect Christmas gifts for my parents!!!! please keep up the great content that helps me further my own world i create!!!!!
I wonder if maybe someone could use Meltheron's skeleton too cast the Clone Spell and either his soul will be pulled into the clone or can be have a resurrection spell revive him through the clone. A clone body can be "programmed" to develop up to any age so this would be a way too give him a younger body. The only caveat I could think of is the requirement of at least a cubic inch worth of flesh from the original creature. If the skeleton still has some skin or flesh on it then as long as Meltheron's soul is willing he'll revive, but if not then maybe a bone would suffice? Or the marrow in it?
I was running Rime of the Frostmaiden and decided to do a little twist (partially due to how little info was given). I generally ran her as a senile dragon who wasn't really aware of Meltharond's fate. When the party encountered her, she was resting on the ground in a blizzard, covered in snow. A side character (who tried to get them killed), suggested going on top of this snow hill with a throne to take some magic items. This resulted in Arveiturace going berserk the moment they tried to touch Meltharond. I also decided to tie her in with one of the characters who resembles a tiefling and has white dragon blood within. Story is their single mother fled from the Dale after becoming pregnant with PC. I decided the frost maiden forced her to carry a child with Arveiturace and what little of Meltharond there was using magic or whatever. Arveiturace, being too senile to tell, is incapable of recognizing said PC as child, especially after the incident with trying to steal from Meltharond. Honestly I really wish I had seen this info sooner, there's so much more I could have done with her.
i suddenly want to make a sailor that has at one point been abducted once by Arveiturace but talking with her has now set himself on a quest to try help her by ether becoming a strong enough mage to ether resurrect her friend or become strong enough and enough of a friend to take his place im seeing a Goliath with one of the sailor backgrounds, a wizard but what subclass...
If you can activate something, could you also DE-activate it? That might be even more useful against others and the things they aren't "holding", such as mentioned clothing. Though I'm guessing this "holding" would be more of an "actively being used" and you could consider protections given by clothing as "held", whereas a wand not being used (or held) currently would not be "active". It would be an interesting thought though to discuss in the setting.
I love these stories about these legendary dragons, they make them more like characters instead of just another big monster to slay. It makes me not want to use them in combat situations but have other conversationalist encounters or even have them as quest givers
I’m playing in an Ice Wind Dale campaign (all our first times playing a long term module) and one of our party members got teleported to the spine of the world and I’m 99% certain he ran into this dragon. Really interesting to learn more about this ancient dragon.
She is a bit like Fate's Gilgamesh then, uses multiple magic items to attacks her foes, since its staves and wands she relies on thats more like Caster Gilgamesh
Party I DM for met her the other day, though I had changed her to be a Crystal Dragon, as I'm introducing a few more gem dragons into the world. When they meet her she was upset that Arauthator, her mate, had left with Talis the White (the new White Wyrmspeaker), dropped some info on the cult, and the Draakhorn, then the party left, though not after trying to convince her to come along with them on Skyreach Castle in case they run across Arauthator. She declined, saying she might go and find herself a nice Silver Dragon, as Arauthator clearly didn't care for her enough.
@@MrRhexx I'm not sure if you have read this already, but any how. I have an idea for a hag Class. Instead of spell slots it uses a modified spell point system (found in DMG page 288-289) that works a bit like The Deva class's Holy Energy. instead of getting all the points back on a long rest, it gets very few points back again once a day. in return, it can get points back every time it ruins someone else's day, and either have a very high point cap or have none. if you have plans to improve the Familiar class I have some suggestions for some sub-classes. 1. and 2. there should be a Fiend subclass that focuses on debuffs, and a Celestial subclass that focuses on healing and protection. 3. and 4. there should also be an Aberration subclass that focuses on Lovecraftian horror and Mindfuckery (effects such as charmed, frightened, Madness, Compulsion, Confusion, and other things that are playing with people's psyche), and an Undead subclass that focuses on lifesteal and a bit on debuffs. 5. and 6. there should also be an Elemental subclass that focuses on Elemental protection and improving their ally's Elemental damage, and a Fey/Plant subclass (other than the Pixie) that focuses on Druidic magic. 7. an Ooze and/or Construct subclass would be nice but I can't think of anything that those subclasses would focus on specifically.
@@marcogenovesi8570 We need to stay polite and friendly to anyone and respect anyone else wishes he made it to sell it, yes but this can lead to piracy. I am the kind of people who doesnt hack their consoles for free games or something like that... also i am a Mexican so the piracy here is our daily basis still i have integrity... So that is why i ask for this now he grant me permission i will go to print it and make a cover for it to add it to my collection and play with it the Wednesday and have fun also i am reading it... while writing this on my phone and bro... some stuff here is really broken as a DM i won't allow certains things in here
@@KDImaginingAU if it makes you feel better. Piracy has been shown to actually add to the bottom line of every product that is worth buying and is the death knell of something that doesn't have value. Tldr piracy leads to bigger payouts due to most ppl will pay after using it. Been studied quite extensively.
This dragon would be an awesome quest ending for a player that has to stop playing but also allow them to make appearances on occasions (under the DM's control as a non player npc with a dragon or am occasion the play may stop in and do a one shot with their old party). The player's character is always out there having their own adventures.
Is Arauthator really meant to have died in Rise of Tiamat? He’s a CR 13 adult dragon fighting a part of 4 8th level characters in his own lair. I’m about to run the sea of moving ice chapter with my players soon, and as far as I can tell it doesn’t seem like the players stand much of a chance, especially if you make good use of his lair actions. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong when the fight actually happens though.
"Dead wizard stays on during sex"
Worth.
Fuck I almost spit out my soup
Ha ha ha.
*Oh* *God*
She has totally had that conversation with another white dragon at some point
I love that she’s so ride or die for her old friend that when someone talked smack about him she went down to settle the score…and not to kill the guy but “correct the record” and she got a new book printed out of it xD
She's always been one of my favorite dragons to run, and has become a re-occuring freenemie for multiple groups, Had her kidnap a player once because they were going to be gone for three months, the party made a epic rescue attempt only for them to get to her lair the day he came back for him to be all "Oh hey yeah so these are my friends i was talking about"
> Lonely but rude;
> a strong bond with someone that she hated;
Okay, she is a tsundere.
“Baka! Baka baka baka!”
The mage that speaks draconian shrugs confused
I really like Arveiaturace, since she breaks the mold from the stereotypical White Dragon while still keeping enough of their traits, and her bold and lonely nature makes her both fearsome and sympathetic.
I believe all dragons that get withing their final two or three age categories should break the mold from their stereotypical draconic personality... they are intelligent beings capable of learning, after all. And, they probably did a stereotype-breaking or two (I am using an understatement) to live as long as they did.
Old dragon oddballs I created through my decades of gaming, a few of them. Many are too complicated for the comments section. My campaigns were very dragon-centric in my Dungeons & *DRAGONS* campaigns.
A Copper Dragon that only had a very small group of friends, doing his Copper Dragon stuff through virtual isolation via them, and only super-social with them.
A Green Dragon that had a very amicable alliance with local Druids and their forest allies.
A Red Dragon and a Gold Dragon with a centuries-long non-aggression pact that was good for local Fire Giants, local Dwarf Kingdom, and kept the Human tyrannical monarchy at bay.
A Black Dragon that ruled a local swamp who dialed back his behavior because of his friendship with an alchemist, later on becoming the family friend of his descendants who pursued alchemy... teaching them what his dearly departed friend taught him of the art.
A Bronze Dragon that mainly kept in human form, making his lair a city, always assuming the identity of a man of importance.... usually a mayor, constable, sage, or commissioner. His human form ages at a human rate, he made sure of that. When the party met him, he was the mayor. The city's treasury (and gain) was what he considered his dragon hoard.
A perverse group of dragons that formed a bit of a social club, now too old to reproduce but still command it, who are almost always shapechanged into a human/humanoid/demihuman form...they are the founding bloodline of that campaign's half-dragons. Other dragons in that campaign world saw them the same way we would see people who are into "loving" animals in the physical way.
A Silver Dragon who, through one compromise after another, became his own worst enemy. A large portion of his body was living Clockwork. The heroes were born into a world similar to the Forgotten Realms, but magic and technology corrupted everyone, pollution of both what we know and of the magical nature saturated the planet, same with various diseases. That Silver Dragon introduced everything that caused all that by saving the whole planet as fast as possible from the Abyssal invasion he accidentally caused by making deals with Diabolic forces and creative madmen using arts and studies he himself learned to love.
An Emerald Dragon who was the actual BBE behind the Knight Wings, airship-using pirates using Clockwork and Technomancy. Also, the same BBE behind a lot of the nobility and guilds. Taking that dragon by surprise was pretty much impossible.
She gives me Mr. Freeze vibes from Batman, she has her own agenda, longs for the return of her loved one, and is willing to converse with or aid someone should it potentially benefit her in the long run. Also like Mr. Freeze to earn a grudge from her you would have had to monumentally fucked up and negatively effected her in someway at some point.
@@SessionSakic I didn't see that until you mentioned the analogy, now I can't UN-SEE the Mr. Freeze/Nora relationship. Sharp mind, my friend.
Man, the mating must be pretty awkward with the dead mage skeleton still strapped to her back.
Arveiturace: "the saddle stays on"
He probably uses the reins like a leash.
@@sunbreakerqueenofbronze621 ok , you just made me think of dragons doing some kinky bdsm shit , the hell bro 😂😂😂😂
@@Nox-eg3rq you should watch the porn that I watch. Something tells me you would be traumatized.
Her moaning the mage's name must be weird, but hey, that dragussy be good tho.
@@Nox-eg3rqDragons live a long, long time. They have time to experiment with such things, and grow the subject in ways humans can only imagine.
Now I am wondering about a dragon who makes studying sex among dragons their obsession, and may even share their findings with humans, maybe whether the humans care or not.
The story about her dealing with the flying ship, mages, and 12 adult black dragons is nuts. That's a big ol' 'Stop Sign' right there.
Huh, I really like this dragon. It goes to show you that just because someone is "evil" doesn't mean they can't feel love, friendship, or loyalty. This is probably by far the best chromatic dragon I've heard of so far, as a fan of dragons who are kind, expressive, and "good". Well, in her case she isn't good in alignment, but the fact that she's cool with just keeping you as a guest for a few days just to talk is unusual for an evil creature. That quite frankly warms my heart, despite her icy cold nature.
Loneliness can do that to you.
Evil isn’t alien.
Ararauthator: “Join me & worship Tiamat!”
Arveiaturace; “No.”
Ararauthator: “Ok. Smash, tho?”
Arveiaturace: “Sure.”
White dragon relationships in a nutshell
“The wizard stays ON during sex”
Fun fact: raise dead is the only resurrection spell that does not have the stipulation that it can’t bring back someone who died of old age.
unless you de-age the body, it's going to get expensive very quickly as your chance of dying of old age increases with age. And if you can de-age there is no point in using raise dead to cheat death.
If I'm not mistaken it is better to use Clone instead. It's a bit more expensive and higher level but you can create a younger version of the same body if desired. Boom, you have cheated death and angered a Marut inevitable somewhere
In earlier editions they were smart enough to put it in the core rules... Lol. At least they didn't 3rd edition it. It's not my beloved 2nd but this dumbed down version really works for getting it more popular.
False there is reincarnate!
@@eliotoole4534 Reincarnate is kind of its own thing though. It could be argued that it isn't in the same category as other resurrection spells.
@@bayoubilly5176 see but raise dead being able to bring back people who died of old age has some interesting story implications.
You can totally use it for a bbeg, bringing him back from the dead, and he has to make constant Con saves to not die from old age again, and then his Minions bring him back every 10 days.
They could spend the whole campaign either trying to become lich, vampire, take over someone's body, find a fountain of youth, steal the youth from others, etc.
Or you could also have a boss fight with the party and just have the boss drop dead all of the sudden, just to see the look of disappointment on your players faces, and then he gets brought back again later.
In the Tyranny of Dragons campaign, you supposedly kill her mate Arauthator (which I changed to their kid Aurbangras because no way should they be able to kill Arauthator that easily). Regardless, I had Arveiaturace show up several chapters later looking for revenge. Just the description I gave of her, from her size to the spooky cowled figure hunched on her back, convinced them not to fight her at all costs, and they managed to talk their way out of a confrontation, and fled from her as she appeared several more times over the campaign. I built this great stat block for her, with the abilities mentioned in this video, complete with dead Meltharond holding a Staff of Power for her to activate as a Legendary Action, and I never even got to use it.
These players ended the campaign by killing Tiamat and yet Arveiaturace spooked them so much they went out of their way to never fight her.
awesome, the way it should be
My players are currently about to go down into Arauthator's lair. They are two levels above where the campaign says they should be for this chapter and they are a party of 6. Needless to say I've been theory crafting a way to make the fight not seem like a total easy knockout since just like you I thought the fight would be underwhelming. I hit them with a lot at the ice castle (And I mean A LOT, it was many more enemies than is originally at the ice castle), and they killed the white dragon there in only a few rounds. As of right now, there is going to be an animated breath hanging around already. He can cast Draconic Spirit, which he likely will do immediately to add another creature to the field, as well as Rime's Binding Ice which isn't as large of an area as a breath weapon but has the ability to make a characters movement fall to 0, which I thought had good potential for something devious. Not sure if I can make it work but better to give myself options. I originally thought to have Arveiturace there as well in order to add difficultly but decided against it. After watching this video I'm really glad I didn't have here there. I didn't know any of this stuff about her so it would have been a really watered down version of her and that's not fair when she's this cool. (No pun intended but now I'm stupidly laughing at it.)
@@shadowfoxgirl For the dragon fight itself, I recommend not waiting for the troll reinforcements to show up, just have them start there (it says to wait a few rounds, but the dragon didn't last that long when he's alone.) Or change the adult dragon to an ancient white, to be harder/more lore accurate for Arauthator himself. If someone is wielding Hazirawn they'll make mincemeat out of most things.
@@drewforchic9083 The party is already fighting the trolls right now, so I wasn't going to pull them in. And I already added some extra health to the dragon since I knew there was no way he would last that many rounds. Not against my party! haha. What I have instead is a party who let two kobolds go and one alerted the trolls and one went to a room of 8 kobolds who hadn't been discovered. The 8 kobolds are going to follow the party and the one is going to go alert the dragon down the other hole near Maccath's tent. This means the dragon will already be well aware of the party, so he will have his Animated Breath up and he will have a Draconic Spirit up. The draconic spirit will look like a white dragon and I suspect the party will go after it hard. Meanwhile the animated breath will hopefully get at least one good turn. The characters will be hopefully clumped together near one of the traps in either hallway, so that the real dragon can swoop down and freeze a bunch of them. The 8 kobolds will box them in from behind and lob ice balls at them with their crappy sling attacks. I doubt they will do much but it's a lot of fun to have them there. The dragon will probably Wall of Ice them at some point to split the party, have the dragon go behind it so that he can focus on one or two people at a time.
Or it could all fall apart. lol
I'm considering who in the party he would want to take down the most. I feel like he would be offended to have a Gold Dragon Bloodline Sorcerer in front of him, the monk is a Way of the Ascendant Dragon and has silver scales sometimes, and the paladin is a blue dragon born who is currently transitioning into a white half dragon due to eating the heart of the white dragon from the ice castle in Hoard of the Dragon Queen. They all have multiple features that show off the fact that they have killed dragons, so I feel like he will really hate them for that.
Ah yes! Some of the most satisfying DM experiences is writing such good lore that it legit scares the party. Not a second of that prep was wasted, friend.
Her ability to activate magic items from a distance is horrifying. White dragons freeze their treasures below ice to protect them. She could literally wallpaper her lair with magic items behind 6 inches of ice. She's still be able to see them, but they'd be totally inaccessible to the players.
Strangely wholesome and sad. And she is a badass too. I like this dragon.
I really love this Dragon and her lore, mostly because my own elven wizard brought her to heel due to a misunderstanding and after discovering the loneliness of her existence retired from adventuring to become a full time companion of hers. The two conduct raids for magic items and ancient libraries, solve mysteries and just enjoy each others company. A beautiful story of love, loss and less than good people coming together to make the world a lil better than it began.
Correction: Arauthator MAY die in Rise of Tiamat. Unless the DM miss-plays his part or the characters are extremely powerful and kill him in one turn, he is supposed to flee the fight when reduced to 100hp or bellow and is fighting 3 or more characters. Canonically he shows up alive 4 years later which tells us that he's NOT supposed to die in that battle.
In which event does he canonically show up?
My new mission? Get a wish spell and bring back her friend.
I would go further and make an adventure based around recovering his Soul from one of the lower planes, so it could then be bound to his remains and make him either a Lich or Death Knight, perhaps with Cult of the Dragon help, with them subverting the process to attempt, or succeed, at controlling Arveiturace. Then the newly raised Undead Mage, outraged that his companion gave up her autonomy, could perhaps be convinced to help the adventurers fight the Cult and free her, ultimately sacrificing himself to do so, leaving her free, but distraught at his now permanent loss, but maybe becoming a potential ally for future adventures fighting the growing power of the Cult and turning her into actively hating Tiamat.
@@mikesemus9773 He's very likely in the Wall of the Faithless, if you really do intend on making the adventure. Would be interesting to see her turn into some kind of vengeance, hate-filled dragon, that works with others that also hate the Cult solely for the reason of destroying them, and makes an active effort not to kill someone if they prove that they hate the Cult or that they have been wronged by them as well, or, on a parallel, she goes around destroying things in the name of the Cult of Dragons so that more people will hate them and seek their destruction. Just some ideas, feel free to use them.
@@ic3hell520 Honestly, I could see that working quite well
ı dont know ıf a wish would work
but maybe an artifac? or thos weird wish ultipotence from dragon magazine in ad&d
I named my dog Rhexx about 6 years ago, he died last night and I just want you to know you’ve made a huge impact on my life so much that I named my dog after you down to the spelling. Keep influencing people with your videos just as you influenced me (despite how oddly i took it in)
You know there's a lot more stories about Borys than any other dragon in D&D (deities like Bahamut and Tiamat excluded). Would love to see you cover him.
As much as I love athas based novels I take it you don't read Faerun or krynn novels... Borys is covered fairly well but there is an entire series based on dragons in both of the latter.
@@bayoubilly5176 ¹¹
Ahh, Borys Johnson
@@kylenieman3444 yep , considering I've read every one... That's an extremely generous number to say it's "about" him. But even given that... Yep still not the most prolific...(not to mention if we're going to be that lenient , than the dark sun version of "dragon" isn't even a dragon... It's just a Kaiju ripoff when they mixed the Godzilla franchise with DnD and Conan's world...). Preservers becoming Mothra...
I couldn't help but smile at Palarandusk's tiny dot of Ierithymbul on the map at 14:46 :)
"It ain't much but it's honest work"
Oathbreaker paladin: "So how much you want to bet this lich is less useful than the Creeping Basement Dweller?"
Necromancer: "SILENCE! This one I am certain will be willing to teach us powerful magics and share her riches!"
Priestess of Luthic: *Whispers* "Five silver."
Arveiturace: *Gets up and stares menacingly at the necromancer.*
Necromancer: "OH DREAD MELTHAROND, HEAR MY PLEA! We come to offer our fealty to thee! As tribute we offer a genie, enslaved to this la-" *Chunk of ice falls loose and falls on his head, knocking him out.*
Arveiturace: "Ah shit I need to get that fixed."
Oathbreaker paladin: "Why does the dragon need to fix it? Just use your magic to make it fixed."
Arveiturace: *Sighs.* "He's dead. And for reminding me why shouldn't I have you four idiots killed?"
Assasain: "Uh..." *Reaches into bag of holding and puts down cats.* "We offer cats?"
you know what? Cats might actually awaken something in this old lady.
@@zyztem8775 cue crazy cat dragon lady
Ahhahahahhahahs "we offer cats" that's great
"Crazy cat dragon lady"
That is simultaneously the cutest and the scariest thing I've read...
oh no another Xanathar situation about to be made
I played as a half orc paladin in a party that encountered and escaped her twice. We heard about her and how dangerous she was so any time we saw her we just did whatever we could to leave as fast as we could, first time we found her was when we accidentally found one of her hordes and well… yeah
I love her. Also I’m RotFM it’s noted that she’s so old she can’t really see that well anymore, I believe. Her appearance in that module is so iconic.
I really like this dragon, it's really sad and sweet she found someone she cares about a lot.
She was my first “mini” so it’s really nice seeing her take center stage.
I suggest the Gilded Fire for the gold dragons. Just for the case that he is not so basic and generic "Good Holy Dragon Does Good"
Thank you for this, awesome timing. I'm running Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden for my friends and Arveiturace is in it. In one of the chapters there's a chance for players to cross her, and the book explicitly says the players have no hope of besting her in combat. But my players are super curious and inquisitive and likely to try and befriend all sorts of terrible monstrosities and things, so knowing more about her will be great to have in my tool kit. Also for other readers- the module says that her hoard is spread out in a variety of hiding places! Which I thought was an interesting behavioral note. It makes me think of a squirrel hiding nuts. She's such an interesting dragon!
I'm currently running Rise of Tiamat in my table, and I was planning to make Arveiturace pop up in the last battle with White Old Death (he got away in the sea of moving ice chapter), so its great to see some info on her
I really liked the old white death in the Drizzt novels. Such a ruthless mercenary. Loved him.
Looking at that image of her nuzzling the skeleton of her long dead best friend with her nose actually made me cry...
11:40 is this the one
I love this.
As weirdly and unconventionally powerful as Arveiturace is, her entire being revolves around companionship in some way.
She abducts people to have a 5 o'clock tea with them, her non-dragon related abilities all come from an old friend who apparently still watches over her despite having died long ago, she found a friend with benefits who, in theory, shares her infinite lifespan and they even share a hobby.
I also like how she is a sort of artificer dragon.
I do miss the original DnD rules that even the white dragon had a bit of wizardly magic and even two levels in cleric once they were big enough. Sorcerer style.
I love her since I read about her. Got the miniature as soon as it came out. Awesome work on these series. Im hooked and hyped.
A "what they don't tell you about..." topic I really want is Feydark. I bet that would be incredible. I don't knowing many people who even know the Feywild has its own Underdark
"Doom of the desert"
"Creeping doom"
so what mrrhex is saying is that all powerfull dragons all have nicknames that have doom in them
They like how "doom" sounds, that's all
Most were named when the writers were rather "young" and amateurish to be fair. Think us when we were teens.
well so far its only the chromatic, traditionally evil aligned, dragons. metallic might be similar or vastly different.
"Death". Don't forget Death. I mean there are so many dragons that has nicknames with the word "Death".
@@rapharloaquino4310 *The Doom of Death, Reaper of Souls and Overlord of Demise*
I love your usual lore videos and stuff, but your series on the ancient dragons of faerun are incredible. They are just so interesting to listen too and the manner in which you present it leaves nothing to be desired. Great videos thank you for your effort
Yay. You finally did a dedicated video on her
She is one of my favorite dragons and I love Rolleplaying her in Rime Of The Frostmaiden
I've had two different characters interact with her, both of which were awesome, but the DMs played her so differently from this description! Blew my mind!
Wtf, I'm nearly crying here? Poor lonely dragon, I want to be her friend. I did not have a favourite DnD character before this point.
My player that is a necromancer wizard is gonna love this
This is perfect timing, I've been looking more into the lore myself for my Icewind Dale campaign! Thank you for the video!
Arveiturace: I feeling hungry, gonna hit the drive-through for a snack *yoink
PC: You think I am a snack ☺
*Sage speaks badly of Meltharond
Arveiturace: And I took that personally
Damn. That's got to be the least greedy Ancient Dragon that has ever existed.
YES! YEES! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEESH
Arveiaturace is the first Dragon I got to learn about as I was prepping my first DnD campaign.
I have eagerly awaited in anticipation that you might make a video for her.
I would love to see a story of her and the wizards life together
So happy yu teach us about all types of charachters in the wonderful universe of DND :D keep on going :D
Ive been busy lately and hadn't seen your last few videos, absolutely loving this series on famous dragons though.
A pleasant surprise to have them waiting for me to binge 😉👍
Amazing video - love it! Thanks for fleshing out Arveiturace - definitely a tale worth telling!
I swear Rhexx knows what my party is talking about at any specific time. You always release oddly relevant content 😆
I don't care how evil he is and how terrible they might become, but I want to find a way (without wish spells, that's just meh) to bring her friend back. I mean... She is sad and lonely. Like... Come on ;-;
With the chromatic dragons this is where much of the older "evil nature" lore of D&D seems to have to be in place for there to be a better story. Any highly intelligent, long lived, being such as a dragon of rational thought would probably be far better off making peace with the powerful cultures around them, especially if they were to become part of the protecting force, something that could be not only profitable for them because of tribute, but also help protect them as well and make their own existence safer in many ways as people who venerate something would also help protect that thing when it might find the need. Fear only gets you so far and tends to make groups want to destroy that thing, whereas love makes them want to protect and take care of it. This being the case it would seem that dragons such as Arveiturace, and other intelligent dragons would seek out, or at the very least be open to such roles as protectors in stead of destroyers, UNLESS of course they were simply evil by nature and as such prone to destruction even if it wasn't in their best interest.
“What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?”
There also needs to be taken into consideration another trait that all dragons posses, pride.
Not only pride in what they are but pride in their ways, this creatures are older than civilizations, they are older than pretty much any other mortal and they believe to a fault in their ways and how they see the world because after all their ways made them live for so long.
Why would someone like Arveiturace become a protector when for centuries she's been on a semi neutral standing with the locals? Nobody can beat her, she has the belief that nobody can beat her and from experience this remains true. She has no reason to change her ways.
This can apply to most dragons, old age combined with living among extremely territorial creatures and a disease like thirst for valuable items keeps them enemies. Their pride makes them thing of themselves as vengeful gods.
Also there are some dragons who became rulers like Tchazzar.
We have been talking about this PDF.
I'm all for it. I'm sure I will still get that one player that wants something wild, but the Magic Item PDF saves so much of time.
Love these lore videos on the more powerful dragons. Would love to see one about Old Gnawbone or Klauth!
This has to be one of the coolest stories and characters in DnD!
Cool story, it warms my Heart. A dragon in friendship ad love for a true Friend
These videos are great! I’m playing an Artificer who loves dragons and these videos provide plenty of information for him to throw into conversations.
Thank you! This is super useful. Arveiaturace features very prominently in my latest campaign and I've been searching all over the internet for more lore on her and this video had some really cool stuff I didn't know yet! Absolutely my favorite dragon, such a character, so much room for roleplay and areas of grey despite the innate evil alignment.
I love that the art work of the White dragon chomping on a dome is the Mighty Nein trying to escape.
Can't have cooler dragons than white ones!
Such a sad story, poor dragoness ._.
I wish I knew about this when I ran the encounter with her for my group a year ago in RotfM (Although, she has been nerfed in that campaign).
Extremely nerfed. Though the video gives me some good ideas for when she would show up in random encounters!
Wait, how is she nerfed? I'm running that module right now and reading the book it says she's an ancient white dragon and the players have no hope of killing her. It doesn't provide a stat block either so you could honestly use your own that includes her special enchantments..
@@Sellesion she is near sighted and Meltharond can get knocked off her back easily to get her distracted.
You can find the stat block of an ancient white dragon in the Monster Manual.
You are obviously not supposed to go all out on the players with her as they might encounter her when they're as low as level 5. My group managed to best her by using suggestion after she expanded her 3 legendary resistances, and sent her off far away.
I didn't know about Meltharond's body enhancements, so after he fell the second time (the first time my monk helped her and mounted him back by her request in the hopes that she'll let them go, but she obviously didn't so they knocked him again) the monk just crashed the skeletal remains.
So she had to leave the them on the ship and fly away for 8 hours.
You can always decide to bring her back after the spell ends to get revenge on the group, but seeing as she is more of a foot note in the campaign and over leveled, I decided she won't return. In a different setting or if my group had any plans on keep playing with these characters by the end of the campaign, bringing her back could be a great option (she would still be over their level though).
@@orandor6249 That's mildly disappointing.
But I suppose it makes sense for an early level encounter.
If I ever use use her, I might disregard the nearsightedness and give the players the option to talk their way out.
She's the cutest little grandma and I am NOT spawning her in my Icewind Dale campaign because my players would just murder her.
They can try
I'm so glad you did this video. I'm a few sessions into DMing a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign set on the edge of the mere of dead men, and I never even considered Arveiaturace as a threat on the sea
I can't stop hearing that Arveiturace pegs arauthator
She is the top in the relationship
I am running Tyranny of Dragons for a group and am almost up to the chapter with this dragon - this is awesome stuff for background!
Our party ran in to her as a friggen *random encounter* in Rime of the Frost Maiden. Thankfully she got bored of us and left before we had to resort to bribing her with roasted axebeak.
Love the (in)famous dragons series, keep it up.
Running Icewind Dale, happy to find this video. My party is level 5 and they just got to the event involving her. Now I know how to play her. She's lonely. She will let them live if they give her company.
MrRhexx, I love your PDFs! Is there anyway I can get them in Hardcover book format?!
Print them out and place them between 2 flat rocks.
I've heard of this dragon due to watching/listening to VODs of Geeks + Gamers Tabletop's Secrets of the Frostmaiden campaign. It's an interesting campaign to tune in to.
This was soooo helpful! I’m running Icewind Dale right now and wanted something more to do with Arveturaice for the campaign and this has provided some great inspiration.
Great content MrRhexx, You got me to replay games like BG 1,2 and NWN 1 just to experience the Forgotten Realms again ;)
Thank you Soo much. I'm running Tyranny of Dragons ATM and I've been eating up your lore vids on the dragons
Litterally my favorite creature you’ve covered, so cool.
Really enjoyed this video--the storytelling was awesome and got me invested in Arveiturace when I previously didn't know anything about her.
Also wound up with two general dragon questions while listening, dunno if anyone might want to speculate or not.
1) Stealing from dragon hordes is a terrible idea generally, but how might an encounter play out where you get someone openly interacting with a dragon and appreciating/complimenting the horde with zero actual desire to steal? Was thinking on Aveiturace's diamond wall--even beyond the whole 'stealing from dragons is a good way to get murdered' bit, like... the arrangement of those diamonds is part of what makes them beautiful. Even if someone wanted to steal them, you'd lose that arrangement in transport. Could a person theoretically get away with seeing the horde and admiring it as something belonging to the dragon? Feels like that could be like gushing over someone's interior decoration.
2) Can chromatic and metallic dragons technically mate and produce offspring? What would even result from that?
I don't know if your looking for in actual D&D lore answers but the way I treat it is dependent on the dragon.
My players have interacted with 2 dragons that have let them see their horde. The reason being these dragons have had prior experience with the players and trust them enough that they won't take anything without permission.
One in question was letting them stay there as they were traveling and she invited them to stay.
As for your 2nd question I do let them as well. It is very rare and it does result in styrle/infertility like a mule or liger. One of the previous mentioned dragons is the father to a blue/bronze him being the blue.
@@thundergod9696 Thanks for the answers, definitely interesting! I'm sort of flexible when it comes to the lore here--I like learning about what's established, but I don't mind artistic license in the name of a good story either. Situation being dependent on the dragon makes sense too since each one is their own character as per Mr. Rhexx's series lol.
That is really cool on how you set the experiences up for your players also! Sounds like your draconic characters are fleshed out in exciting ways just off of what you mentioned--was gonna ask if the dragons who showed their hordes were chromatic or metallic, then realized you answered that one was blue later. Also makes sense with the offspring being infertile.
@@janedoe885 both are Chromatic.
The other is a Green.
She has her reasons for many things but she genuinely loves one of the PCs so by extension she offers shelter to his friends. She is also involved with the party in finding a way to take down one of the big bads in my setting but her methods and philosophies don't match up with the PCs.
@@thundergod9696 Nice! :D Sounds like you're running a kickass campaign, for real. Love when characters have complexity like that, alignment isn't cut and dry, + varied perspectives/approaches across casts. Really appreciate your sharing! ^^
@@janedoe885 no problem glad I could help!
going to be getting some things from the store. thx for the perfect Christmas gifts for my parents!!!! please keep up the great content that helps me further my own world i create!!!!!
I don't want to die, but I also want to give her a hug.
I like to think of Rhexx as a knowledgeable mage who researches everything from his home in Waterdeep
Or a scholar of Candlekeep
I think she would like to meet a certain Lich loved Necromancer. Astoshan
Great work on this video, very informative and helpful! Just picked up your .pdf, thank you for creating this!
I wonder if maybe someone could use Meltheron's skeleton too cast the Clone Spell and either his soul will be pulled into the clone or can be have a resurrection spell revive him through the clone. A clone body can be "programmed" to develop up to any age so this would be a way too give him a younger body.
The only caveat I could think of is the requirement of at least a cubic inch worth of flesh from the original creature. If the skeleton still has some skin or flesh on it then as long as Meltheron's soul is willing he'll revive, but if not then maybe a bone would suffice? Or the marrow in it?
This was amazing! I was absolutely entertained by this, thanks for such amazing content. This is the most awesome and interesting dragon so far.
I was running Rime of the Frostmaiden and decided to do a little twist (partially due to how little info was given). I generally ran her as a senile dragon who wasn't really aware of Meltharond's fate. When the party encountered her, she was resting on the ground in a blizzard, covered in snow. A side character (who tried to get them killed), suggested going on top of this snow hill with a throne to take some magic items. This resulted in Arveiturace going berserk the moment they tried to touch Meltharond. I also decided to tie her in with one of the characters who resembles a tiefling and has white dragon blood within. Story is their single mother fled from the Dale after becoming pregnant with PC. I decided the frost maiden forced her to carry a child with Arveiturace and what little of Meltharond there was using magic or whatever. Arveiturace, being too senile to tell, is incapable of recognizing said PC as child, especially after the incident with trying to steal from Meltharond.
Honestly I really wish I had seen this info sooner, there's so much more I could have done with her.
i suddenly want to make a sailor that has at one point been abducted once by Arveiturace but talking with her has now set himself on a quest to try help her by ether becoming a strong enough mage to ether resurrect her friend or become strong enough and enough of a friend to take his place
im seeing a Goliath with one of the sailor backgrounds, a wizard but what subclass...
Lonely white dragons in your area.
Loved the video man! Can't wait for the next!
This is actually kinda cute and wholesome
This video was amazing! Thank you for all the work you do!
If you can activate something, could you also DE-activate it? That might be even more useful against others and the things they aren't "holding", such as mentioned clothing. Though I'm guessing this "holding" would be more of an "actively being used" and you could consider protections given by clothing as "held", whereas a wand not being used (or held) currently would not be "active". It would be an interesting thought though to discuss in the setting.
I love these stories about these legendary dragons, they make them more like characters instead of just another big monster to slay. It makes me not want to use them in combat situations but have other conversationalist encounters or even have them as quest givers
When they come out, you should cover the 2024 dragons
As someone who has encountered Arveiturace a couple of times in Rime of the Frostmaiden, I was VERY interested in this video in particular
It's amusing to me that even dragons have booty calls
They ESPECIALLY have booty calls. They’re like… the horniest creatures in existence.
I’m playing in an Ice Wind Dale campaign (all our first times playing a long term module) and one of our party members got teleported to the spine of the world and I’m 99% certain he ran into this dragon. Really interesting to learn more about this ancient dragon.
She is a bit like Fate's Gilgamesh then, uses multiple magic items to attacks her foes, since its staves and wands she relies on thats more like Caster Gilgamesh
Also a dead friend
I can fix her, bro
Party I DM for met her the other day, though I had changed her to be a Crystal Dragon, as I'm introducing a few more gem dragons into the world.
When they meet her she was upset that Arauthator, her mate, had left with Talis the White (the new White Wyrmspeaker), dropped some info on the cult, and the Draakhorn, then the party left, though not after trying to convince her to come along with them on Skyreach Castle in case they run across Arauthator. She declined, saying she might go and find herself a nice Silver Dragon, as Arauthator clearly didn't care for her enough.
If i bought it, can i print it so everyone can read it? (I Mean the Magic Item Pdf)
of course!
@@MrRhexx I'm not sure if you have read this already, but any how.
I have an idea for a hag Class. Instead of spell slots it uses a modified spell point system (found in DMG page 288-289) that works a bit like The Deva class's Holy Energy. instead of getting all the points back on a long rest, it gets very few points back again once a day. in return, it can get points back every time it ruins someone else's day, and either have a very high point cap or have none.
if you have plans to improve the Familiar class I have some suggestions for some sub-classes.
1. and 2. there should be a Fiend subclass that focuses on debuffs, and a Celestial subclass that focuses on healing and protection.
3. and 4. there should also be an Aberration subclass that focuses on Lovecraftian horror and Mindfuckery (effects such as charmed, frightened, Madness, Compulsion, Confusion, and other things that are playing with people's psyche), and an Undead subclass that focuses on lifesteal and a bit on debuffs.
5. and 6. there should also be an Elemental subclass that focuses on Elemental protection and improving their ally's Elemental damage, and a Fey/Plant subclass (other than the Pixie) that focuses on Druidic magic.
7. an Ooze and/or Construct subclass would be nice but I can't think of anything that those subclasses would focus on specifically.
that's very nice of you to ask, it's not like he can really stop you from printing a pdf.
@@marcogenovesi8570 We need to stay polite and friendly to anyone and respect anyone else wishes he made it to sell it, yes but this can lead to piracy.
I am the kind of people who doesnt hack their consoles for free games or something like that... also i am a Mexican so the piracy here is our daily basis still i have integrity... So that is why i ask for this now he grant me permission i will go to print it and make a cover for it to add it to my collection and play with it the Wednesday and have fun also i am reading it... while writing this on my phone and bro... some stuff here is really broken as a DM i won't allow certains things in here
@@KDImaginingAU if it makes you feel better. Piracy has been shown to actually add to the bottom line of every product that is worth buying and is the death knell of something that doesn't have value. Tldr piracy leads to bigger payouts due to most ppl will pay after using it. Been studied quite extensively.
This dragon would be an awesome quest ending for a player that has to stop playing but also allow them to make appearances on occasions (under the DM's control as a non player npc with a dragon or am occasion the play may stop in and do a one shot with their old party). The player's character is always out there having their own adventures.
While we're taking a draconic tour of the Sword Coast, will we get a Klauth video? He's a personal favorite of mine. Very fun video!
Have you seen Mathew Lillard as Bag of Nails vs Klauth? Peek dnd.
Is Arauthator really meant to have died in Rise of Tiamat? He’s a CR 13 adult dragon fighting a part of 4 8th level characters in his own lair. I’m about to run the sea of moving ice chapter with my players soon, and as far as I can tell it doesn’t seem like the players stand much of a chance, especially if you make good use of his lair actions. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong when the fight actually happens though.
Lore on Gnomes, goblins, and halfings please