I've never been a fan of dragon-slaying. Well, actually, you could say I hate the concept entirely as somebody who loves dragons. So when I found out I'd be playing the Dragon of Icespire Peak DnD module with some friends, my first thought was literally how I didn't want to kill the dragon. I saw the cover of the box and it's a picture of a dnd party fighting an ice dragon, so I knew it'd be a foregone conclusion if we succeeded in this module that we'd kill an ice dragon as the finale. But... what if it didn't have to be like that? I didn't want to kill the dragon. So here's how I saved this dragon from being killed by the town of Phandalin, who had started sending dragon-slaying adventurers up the mountain at it merely for having the audacity to exist.

On day one, I showed up with a character entirely designed around accomplishing my goal. I was a Drake Warden Ranger with the Folk Hero background. My folk hero backstory was that I'd once saved and returned a kidnapped ice dragon egg and returned it to their parents - a pair of adult ice dragons. In exchange for returning their egg, they blessed me with an ice drake spirit that would always stand by my side and defend me. This allowed me to be a folk hero amongst ice dragons of sorts, and the ice drake gift became my drake 'pet' as a ranger. I set it up that way as my character doesn't believe in holding dragons in subservient positions such as mounts or pets, and instead I much preferred he had a non-sentient, magic-based little sidekick. This ice drake spirit also would help me show any ice dragons I met that I'd met their kind before and would potentially be better left talked to, rather than attacked or eaten. I also knew the Draconic language and had dragons as my preferred "enemy," so I could seek them out better. I also set my best stats in all the roleplay stats and dumped constitution, so I was very diplomatic but a terrible fighter. My drake also could never be anything other than ice, which was a restriction I put on my character.

I knew if I wanted to meet my goal, I couldn't just show up with a character designed to do this. I needed to get the entire party on-board too, which would require some serious roleplaying. I set out immediately introducing myself as a defender and advocator of dragonkind, arguing that dragons are not always the villains the bipedal races make them out to be. I cited my backstory as evidence that sometimes other parties do things to anger dragons and they have every right to defend themselves when provoked, demonized, attacked, or stolen from. I urged our party to err on the side of caution and not immediately declare the dragon the enemy in this conflict.

My diplomacy succeeded with the party, and we very quickly all got on the same page with the goal of figuring out the mystery of the situation. Why did the town of Phandalin dislike the dragon so much that they were willing to spend a hefty sum for its death? Had the dragon done anything to harm the town? Had the town done anything to harm the dragon? We set out to do a bunch of smaller quests in the area to level up, get some gold, and look for clues.

The town was bringing up that mining shipments were being disrupted by the dragon's activities, but failed to cite any evidence of such. I was immediately suspicious, given bipedal races tend to blame dragons for all their problems, warranted or not, and that we'd fought orcs and wererats around the area that were indeed interrupting mining operations, but hadn't seen any evidence of destruction from this dragon.

Our first information about the dragon I received was when our cleric saw a vision from the dragon's perspective at a religious shrine inside a monastery. The vision was described to us by the dm, and he mentioned it sounded like there was another dragon nearby that was in pain, crying out. I found this very intriguing, as it didn't quite sound like something that'd be in the vanilla module. Why would there be another dragon crying in pain? Does this mean the dragon the town has spotted is being manipulated or controlled by someone else, I thought? Is our dm homebrewing content?

Eventually, we did find the dragon as it descended upon a monastery we'd just visited. I was nearly speechless as I was staring across the field at the very creature I'd sought to try and do my best to save from being doomed to being a slain raid boss. What was he like? Was he a murderous, brainless monster that'd attack everything on sight? I sure hoped not, as I had no idea how I'd spin that favorably towards what I wanted to accomplish, and, unfortunately, dragons are portrayed like that very frequently in popular media. It's one of my pet peeves, actually, that really annoys me in fantasy settings. I decided the best way to approach this dragon was to not be deceitful. Our party considered sneaking up on it, but I was like no! If we approach this highly intelligent creature with deceit, we will get a bad response. I decided to walk straight up to it in plain sight and try to speak to it in draconic, my ice drake spirit right at my side as proof of my previous good will towards dragons. If I got eaten, then it was meant to be. That's the kind of character I made, and he'd die before harming a dragon.

Then, shortly after, while we were leaving the monastery, the very dragon landed and entered the monastery to eat some orc bodies we'd left behind. I spotted something as I approached the dragon, its keen, icy eyes watching me acutely as it peered out from the monastery. It was wearing ... a... heavy, metal collar around its neck. Hm. That's definitely not on the box art. The dm is .... he's HOMEBREWING! This was the point where I felt my plan may actually be possible. If I not only had the part on-board with my goal, but the dm's support and willingness to redirect the campaign as well, this meant we had a chance. All we had to do was stick to our plan, play well, and we'd be able to save this dragon! I spoke to him. I introduced myself, and he snarled at me. I stood my ground, and he growled. I asked his name. No response. I asked about the collar, alarmed to see such a thing. He acted fearful of us and flew off, leaving our party a bit rattled but otherwise unharmed. We'd had our first encounter!

I was so excited after that session. At this point I was totally hooked on this campaign, now knowing it was totally possible. I came to the next session. We had a quest off in some other part of the world, but I kept using Primeval Awareness over and over again while we were adventuring to see if this collared dragon was nearby. Sure enough, I detected it and then spotted it way up in the sky. It was following us. I found that very intriguing.

We had a brief quest in a place called Axeholm where we ran into some strange monsters that smelled of dragon's blood. It was odd, and noted.

Then, one of my worst fears happened. We got word of a destroyed mining shipment and it was, of course, being blamed on the dragon. This time, however, unfortunately, when we arrived at the scene, it was undeniably done by this ice dragon. Ice everywhere. Dead dwarves littered the ground. Living witnesses gave their reports. He did it. I was worried if this dragon truly was attacking this town, I'd have a much lower likelihood of finding a peaceful resolution that didn't leave the town and its quest abandoned by our party. We decided to set up another mining shipment along the road, a cart with fake dwarves summoned with some illusion magic spell our sorcerer had that made them look like they were trying to get it unstuck from a deep pothole in the road. We waited for what felt like ages, until the very same dragon came swooping down to smash the cart. Once more, I approached it, drake at my side. That drake really did wonders for this, and may have been the only reason my character wasn't being immediately attacked. I tried to speak to it again. This time we'd brought a bunch of tools to try and take its collar off. It refused. I asked why it was destroying the mining shipments. It said it had no choice and tugged at its collar with its claw. It was magical. It then flew off, leaving me unharmed, but threatened if we ever set foot in Icespire Peak, it'd kill us.

So I was now absolutely one hundred percent certain the dm had set up an alternate big bad guy at the end of the campaign for us that was controlling this dragon to do their evil bidding. We suspected a rival mining operation had somehow gotten ahold of the dragon and was using him. We, of course, geared up with cold weather clothing, leveled up once more, and set out to Icespire Peak to see if we could find where his loved one was being held. I was like ninety percent sure my interpretation of that vision was correct and that this dragon desperately needed a party to help him and his loved one be free.

We got up to Icespire Peak. The dragon was flying back and forth along the mountain as if on patrol, clearly tasked with guard duty for whatever was going on up there. Thankfully, I'd taken Pass Without Trace, which greatly aided our party in remaining undetected. The last thing I wanted was for our party to have to choose between ourselves dying and fighting the ice dragon. That'd be a complete disaster. We were very careful. At the top, we ended up infiltrating a fort covertly. We found a gnome in there that was wearing a headband that had it mind controlled. Dispel Magic removed the mind control, and the gnome came to. We spoke to it, but it was totally confused and had no clue what was going on. The dragon landed on the roof of the fort, but we were still undetected by any hostile parties.

We pressed further in, ultimately sneaking into a large cavern with a gnome standing in the middle. He was wearing a mysterious helmet. There were several other gnomes inside mining, all wearing those headbands. There were chemical vats and ore piles and pipes and gnomish stuff all over the place. Then, I spotted .... his loved one. There was an ice dragon in a cage in this cavern. She was emaciated and barely conscious. Worse, she had IVs attached to her, her blood being drained and used for some nefarious purpose. I think I in-character heaved at this point, and we knew we'd found the baddie of our campaign.

Our party was wary of the gnome with the helmet, thinking he may have a mind control band on as well. Rather than attack him, we tried to remove his helmet. The gnome was immediately hostile and before we could get his helmet off, he entered a contraption that was very, very strong - the final boss. On my first turn, I sent my drake spirit to go comfort the dragon that was in the cage. She was in such bad state, she barely lifted her head to acknowledge the presence of my drake spirit, but was glad for it nonetheless. I too stood by the cage, trying my best to comfort the dragon. We fought the gnomish contraption, but it was a hard fight. We weren't sure if we'd manage to save this dragon but if not I was gonna die trying. Then, the gnome started speaking loudly, screaming for something to come help protect his property.

In came the dragon wearing the collar. I think the entire room must have frozen as he entered. Would he be hostile? Would he attack us? The dm rolled a d20. After the roll, the dragon with the collar ran right up to me and stared me in the eyes. Six seconds of talking. "We're here to save her. And to help free you. We're not your enemy. He is, and if we die, all will be lost." The dragon looked at me, then looked at my ice drake nuzzling against the shoulder of his captive loved one, and sat down staunchly in front of the cave.

Another round passed. Our group was dropping. We were dying in front of the dragon trying to defeat this gnomish contraption. On my last turn before I got knocked out, I used cure wounds on the captive dragon in the cage. The dragon's collar sparked, and it lurched forwards and then stopped. I think it was trying to help us, but the collar's control over it was just too strong. I too think if I didn't have the drake, if I hadn't talked to it earlier, if I hadn't wasted a turn sending my drake into the cage, if I hadn't stood there by her and tried to console his friend, he would've surely succumbed to the collar and attacked us for certain. But he didn't.

In a razor-thin battle, we barely squeezed out a win and the contraption fell silent. The gnome fell out, dead. We did it! "Are you free?" I asked him. "No," he said, tugging at the collar. He was not free, and his will was battling it. After investigating that strange helmet the gnome wore, we figured out how to deactivate the collar and we opened the lock off the heavy-duty cage his loved one was being held in. Immediately, he was at her side, nursing her. I asked permission to do a medicine check to remove the IVs and was allowed to do so.

I wrote a lot more than I realized here, but long story short, ultimately we ended up being able to speak to not one but two beautiful ice dragons in this campaign. We were able to set up an agreement with the town as well where the dragons would agree to protect Phandalin from orcs, ogres, and other threats in exchange for quarterly tributes - donations to their new hoard. We ended the campaign having accomplished everything I set out to do. The town no longer wished to slay the dragons of Icespire Peak. The dragons were not going to be hostile towards the town. We stopped an evil horror from happening. And, of course, someone else in our group wanted to set up an inn in Phandalin and he got his wishes too. In his inn, he tells the tale of what we did and has tons of stuff up on the walls that describes our adventure. It serves as a place to see a story that tells future adventurers that dragons aren't always monsters.

I'm sometimes shy about how much I love dragons in real life settings. I strongly debated just doing the campaign, killing the dragon, having fun with my friends anyways, and just rolling with it. I'm really glad I opened up about what I really wanted and really went for what I wanted to see happen here and stood up for it. It may just be a fantasy game, but I'm proud of what I did. I hope you enjoyed reading this story!