Getting to Know Each Other - December 2016

[Colonel Kane]

Stealing Morihalda's idea... My mornings are often crazy, so I'm going to try to post questions the night before. Unless I forget. Or get distracted.  

 

Question for December 2nd, 2016

What do dragons do with all of those princesses they kidnap?

 

(question suggested by Werkrobotwerk)

keep them until they turn into a raging witch, and then use their broom as a toothpick. 

[Werkrobotwerk]

Stealing Morihalda's idea... My mornings are often crazy, so I'm going to try to post questions the night before. Unless I forget. Or get distracted.  

 

Question for December 2nd, 2016

What do dragons do with all of those princesses they kidnap?

 

(question suggested by Werkrobotwerk)

I like to think it's a giant lizard match making service, princess doesn't like her arranged marriage she pays off a dragon to "kidnap" her away from her future husband's arms, and then stomps anyone who tries to save her that the dragon doesn't think is a good match.

 

Alternatively princesses are the purse dog of fashionable dragons. just kept around to show off to other dragons until the princess stops being cute.

[LordJosh]

12/2: Drink tea and discuss the inner workings of the Monarchy; plotting a populist revolt that conveniently will end up with the Dragon in power.

[RouterMike]

Question for December 2nd, 2016

What do dragons do with all of those princesses they kidnap?

 

 

Dragons catch princesses for bait. Dragons do not need to go out and scrounge up piles of coins and magic treasure. You go capture a princess and the heroes bring the piles of loot to you. One party at a time

 

FYI, I have to decline answering yesterdays question, as the post would be deleted, or move this thread to Beekepers. The strangest three are sexually related, and I'll add that I was a real elfhole in my 20s. Ask me at Reapercon when I can next make it out there.

[canuckotter]

Good thing I posted the question last night, it's been a silly morning! So here's my own answer... 

 

I like to believe that some dragons sneak themselves into court in a series of disguises over the centuries, generally in very minor but well-connected roles. Elderly and slightly senile court ladies, for example, or the king's distant cousin's great-uncle. Always quite genial and pleasant and very careful not to overstay their welcome, but slightly scatterbrained and vague. The kind of person who has no power, isn't a threat, but also isn't a target, and is able to go everywhere and talk to everyone. The elderly court lady might find herself quite lost and somehow wander into the princess's sitting chamber without the guards noticing her going by, that sort of thing. And so they're able to keep an eye on the court and look for lost souls who need rescue. Staff are easy to take care of - just sneak them out one night and fly away with them to the new home you've established for them. Even nobility are reasonably straight-forward, with moonlight escapes or "bandits" on the road, or other such nonsense. But royalty... that's where it gets tricky. 

The dragon can't save every unhappy prince or princess - these are kind dragons, but they know that if they're always absconding with royal kids, it'll be too disruptive. So many princesses are left to their fates. Maybe they're forced to marry an old man to cement an alliance or something, but the dragon knows the old man and knows that they're as good-hearted as a powerful noble or foreign royal is able to be and the princess will be relatively well-treated. But sometimes, things get really ugly, and that's when the dragon intervenes.

 

Now, the dragon can't just run off with the princess. Princess goes missing, it'll cause turmoil all over the place, armies will be marching to look for her, wars might start, that sort of thing. The dragon can't have that. So the dragon wanders away from court, comes back in their true form, and demands a "sacrifice." Ideally there'll be just one awful suitor, and that suitor will be particularly brave and heroic and the dragon can sit back and wait for that suitor to come rescue "their" princess, fry them alive, then be "defeated" by the first halfway decent champion to come along. Then the dragon's gone, and no-one will think to look for them, and meanwhile the dragon's able to go back to court and keep an eye on things in peace. Sometimes it works out perfectly, and there'll be multiple suitors and one of the less-favoured ones is actually the princess's favourite and is also renowned for their battle prowess so the dragon can face that knight and lose right away, thus earning the princess's chosen the right to ask her hand in marriage with no death involved.

 

Much more frequently though, the suitor's going to find an excuse to weasel out of facing the dragon themselves. In that case, the dragon faces a difficult choice. If the court as a whole is truly corrupt and irredeemable, the dragon can simply lay waste to the castle and use some particularly well-placed blasts of flame to deal with the worst offenders (these attacks typically take place on days when the dragon's courtly persona has arranged a large party of some sort outside of the castle a short ways, and the attack happens while most of the serving staff is busy setting things up but none of the guests would have arrived - keeps the common folks relatively safe while the dragon deals with the nobility) and then flies off. The kingdom's left shattered, and when no-one can find the princess they assume she was burned up in the attack too and don't come looking for her. It's messy and there's always collateral damage, but sometimes it's the only way. Otherwise, the dragon is forced to roast a few knights until the king gives up, then collect the princess, and very conspicuously fly off into some very distant place that the kingdom simply can't reach, to deter the king from sending people to "rescue" the princess. Far from ideal because there's always some numbskull who decides to win the king's favour by chasing after the dragon anyway, and so the dragon has to pay some people to keep an eye out for such a questing moron and eliminate them so they can't return to the castle with word that the distant land where the dragon theoretically resides has no knowledge of the dragon after all, which could blow the dragon's cover.

 

There are small villages scattered throughout many countries where people sometimes just show up without explanation. A few coins change hands, and a family has a distant relative who's suddenly come to live with them, and everyone in town knows not to ask questions. Sometimes the new people in town have startlingly few callouses and virtually no grasp of how to perform even the most mundane activities of daily life, and speak with remarkably posh accents... but again, the townsfolk know not to ask questions, and help the newcomer find their way.

 

 

... OK, I went on a little too long there. But I was having fun.  

[Chaoswolf]

Wow!

 

You put a lot of thought into that, bravo!!

[TGP]

 

 

Stealing Morihalda's idea... My mornings are often crazy, so I'm going to try to post questions the night before. Unless I forget. Or get distracted.

 

Question for December 2nd, 2016

What do dragons do with all of those princesses they kidnap?

 

(question suggested by Werkrobotwerk)

keep them until they turn into a raging witch, and then use their broom as a toothpick.

The Otter's version was longer but I liked it better.

[canuckotter]

I feel like there are some good stories in that idea. Maybe a YA story about a wannabe-hero who discovers the dragon's secret and then has to decide what to do about it? Ooh, what if the hero was the princess herself, stumbling into the dragon's plan to rescue her, but not really realising what's going on so she ends up knocking everyone's plans right off the rails?  

 

... crap, I might need to spend some time writing now.  

[FaekiasDracon]

 

 

I always imagined that princesses were part of some kind of diet/health food craze among dragons.

See, I'd always assumed that princesses were a junk food treat.

That depends on how huge their, um uh, tracts of land are...

[NomadZeke]

-redacted-

[TGP]

Stealing Morihalda's idea... My mornings are often crazy, so I'm going to try to post questions the night before. Unless I forget. Or get distracted.

 

A worthy idea.

 

10PM Eastern Seaboard Time is 3AM the next day London time anyway. So it's posting on the correct day for Xherman or Beagle.

[canuckotter]

Question for December 3rd, 2016

Has your time here on the forums had any significant impact on your life? Or is it just a fun way to spend a bit time with some friends and pick up a bit of inspiration and/or instruction?

[NomadZeke]

Yes.

[Glitterwolf]

Question for December 3rd, 2016
Has your time here on the forums had any significant impact on your life? Or is it just a fun way to spend a bit time with some friends and pick up a bit of inspiration and/or instruction?

 

I think the hanging out part with online friends and learning hobby stuff IS a significant impact on my life.

 

Also I have painted more since I visit this forums

[haldir]

Question for December 3rd, 2016

Has your time here on the forums had any significant impact on your life? Or is it just a fun way to spend a bit time with some friends and pick up a bit of inspiration and/or instruction?

 

Well had I not signed up for the forum way back in '03 I'd probably never had met so many good friends & had yearly trips to meet those friends so a BIG definite YES!