D&D: Silver and Steel
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houseofstrangeSo I watched a MrRhexx video about Steel Dragons that was very interesting, though my eye was caught by one of the various pictures he used more than once, and thus inspiration struck.
As much as I would like to fit this idea into the Nightlands, I feel like it only works properly in D&D proper, since the steel dragon life model would not mesh well with Nightlands dragons.
So this idea is actually got a basis in old D&D character ideas, that of the silver dragon who joined the planar adventuring group that preceded the FunLovers.
Both the FunLovers and the unnamed planar group that were their prequel were based on job class descriptions and subgroup side panels in my 3E books, namely the Forgotten Realms campaign guide and the Planar Handbook.
FunLovers was heavily based on two panels, paladin orders and monk orders, with the core of the group being two paladins, one a male aasimar of Sune, the other being a redheaded woman dedicated to Kelemvor. As an aside, Imoen was part of this team post-BG, though she was going under an assumed identity.
The planar group partly explained the origins of the paladin of Sune, as his grandmother was part of the group while she was a young woman, and while traveling the planes, ended up in a relationship with a celestial.
But the important part is that another member of the group was a young GISH elfmaiden wanting to find a way to Faerûn, as her deceased mother was originally from there. What eventually was revealed to be a young silver dragon, the only surviving child of a dimensionally displaced silver dragon. When the group eventually found a gate to Aber-Toril she finally was able to go to the homeworld of her mother and find her mother's lair (located in a remote mountain location, so still unplundered) and claimed it for herself, and the hoard her mother had established there.
This same half-planar silver dragon would later become friends with post-BG Imoen, establish a friendly association with a Ki-Rin who established a monastery on the other side of the valley.
But to carry on with the new story, Silver (for sake of a simple label since I still don't have a name for her) feels a need to go adventuring again, so closes up her lair and heads out with her collection of Bags of Holding (her mother had been trying to gather a new hoard in BoHs, so Silver learned that habit in her childhood), and headed out to find some adventure and maybe some additions to her hoard.
The group she ends up joining up with is once again led by a charismatic young paladin seeking some glory in honour of his unspecified patron god (in reality, it's Bahamut). Silver's other side gets uncovered in an incident where the team run into a red dragon and she goes a bit nuts and transforms to fight it off.
However the big incident is when she and Paladin get isolated from the rest of the team and something forces not just her, but him as well into dragon forms. He's a Steel, and by all rights, it should not be possible for a Steel to be forced into dragon form, because their shapeshifting and Vaulting is so thorough. Silver however has, by this point, had a chance to study other dragons (maybe her friendship with Imoen got her into Candlekeep at one point) and had read some info about the few Steel dragons who live in Faerûn, so realises Steel's confusion about being forced to shift is because he has been so totally submerged in his human persona that he had practically buried his draconic self.
Silver becomes his protector and friend, with them eventually ending up in a relationship.
However there is the fact that they share similar over-all lifespans, so some time down the track, when this human life grows old, he ends up asking her to become his soulbond and be his friend and guide in future lives. Silver decides she will treat his future lives as reincarnations of the paladin she first met him as. His next life after that one, he becomes a monk raised in the monastery of the Ki-Rin across the valley from Silver's lair. Silver also offers Steel a place in the cave system of her lair to store all his artworks, since his paladin life was his first after reaching adulthood and had not yet established his own storehouse.
As an aside, Silver's lair belonged to another dragon prior to Silver's mother, who on death let his spirit merges with the land, so Silver's lair also has that dragon's spirit protecting it as well. Between that, the Ki-Rin, a number of other good aligned nature related being in the valley (like dryads, treants and such) and a storm giant quintessence, the vallty is a spot of quite concentrated Good that is highly protected from outside threat.
More Thoughts 1/6/19:
Silver's unknown father may be a Radiant Dragon. Silver suspects this because she has a moderate ability at Daylight and Heal Moderate Wounds spells. Not nearly at the same level as the average Radiant, but Silver is a half-silver dragon who takes after her silver mother.
Edit 8/7/19: Due to being born in the Outlands, Silver may have had some unique instincts she was born with - a sense of how to act in the Outlands. It may have included things like being disobedient in Excelsior (the Celestia Gate Town) being utterly ixnay, because of the Lawful nature there. These instincts may have atrophied in the years since she finally reached Faerûn and truly settled down there, but could potentially be awoken again if she somehow ended up back in the Outlands, but given she has put herself through a Naturalisation ritual and has no intention of visiting the Planes again, it would take a major incident to force her out of the Prime Material. /Edit.
Silver and Steel have a full-blooded dragon daughter who they raise living mostly amongst human society. Temp designation: Silverblade.
Silver's religious beliefs have her mostly honouring Kereska (dragon goddess of magic) because she identifies as a sorceress a lot, especially in her elven identity, Hlal (dragon goddess of humour, inventiveness and pleasure) because those concepts helped her cope during her youth in Sigil, and Bahamut (dragon god of Good dragons, metallic dragons, and justice) simply because she is silver and Good aligned.
Steel is straight up a follower of Bahamut, especially in this life as he's a paladin of Bahamut.
Steel's home city is Athkatla.
Silver owns several apartment buildings across several human cities. She tends to offer living spaces for odd races, like half-dragons, Dragonborn, aasimar, planar travellers, half-elves. She reserves the penthouse apartment for her own use, though she will allow friends and allies she trusts to also use it.
The apartment building in Athkatla has a dragonborn family who are followers of Bahamut. The patriarch of the family is a paladin, senior in the paladin order that Steel is a member of, and his wife is a priestess of Bahamut. This dragonborn family live in Athkatla because most of the Dragonborn hate the dragon gods, so a family who are closely affiliated with the Platinum Cadre do not have a good time in Tymanther so migrated to find somewhere better. The family don't know Silver is a dragon, at least not until the battle where she offers to let Steel ride her into the battle.
Story Plot:
Silver and Steel, some time a 6-10 years after having Silverblade, have cause to go to Waterdeep. Silverblade gets separated from her parents and, because she has so far spent her childhood practicing her shapeshifting a lot, gets noticed by a member of the Confluence - the half-Steel organisation in Waterdeep who are dedicated to fighting shapeshifters. A particularly hard-nosed half-dragon captures her and immediately declares that no 'shifter deserves to live, dragging her back to the Confluence base. However Silver and Steel track their daughter's trail and catch up at the Confluence base, getting into an argument with a few of the Confluence members and when the particularly hard-nosed one outright says Silverblade deserves to die, both Silver and Steel shift to their dragon forms to really shove it in the half-dragons' faces just who they are facing off against. The particular half-dragon holding Silverblade loosens their grip enough for her to get away, shift to her dragon form and climb up onto Silver, turning to spit insults in Draconic at the half-dragons.
There may have been a minor follow-up about this incident, maybe even with it being Elminster who comes to chat about what happened. Either way, it blows over as a misunderstanding and the hard-nosed half-dragon who first captured Silverblade ends up being punished for not looking into the exact nature of the 'shifter he caught, especially since she was a young child.
Edit 4/6/19: This plot may not be viable because I have heard in a video that Waterdeep has a mythal that keeps dragons out. Maybe it could still happen if Silver and Steel have basically passports to enter the city, but then that may cause bigger problems because two dragons transforming inside the city? That'd cause issues. Added: Though given that Steels apparently are relatively common in Waterdeep, there may be some special allowance for a small family of Good-aligned dragons.
An undetailed list of rough character ideas for the rest of the team Silver and Steel are part of.
Steel - Human Paladin of Bahamut (Steel Dragon in deep cover, not conciously aware of such until forced de-polymorph).
Silver - Moon Half-Elf Sorceress-Warrior multiclass (Silver Dragon in disguise, half Radiant). Edit 10/6/19: Reasoning Silver as being a Gish would probably be easy given her Planar background. She could have found a Githzerai combat instructor in her youth in Sigil who taught her how to effectively mix sword-work and spell-work.
Male Half-Orc Fighter - City-born and raised, very civilised and erudite for a half-orc.
Female Drow Cleric of Eilistraee - Old enough to have lived through the time Eilistraee was dead, converted to Selûne during that time but switched back to Eilistraee when she returned. Keeps leaving small offerings at any Selûnite shrine or temple she crosses, out of respect for Selûne being her patron during those years.
Male Human Bard - Thinks he's the gods' gift to women.
Male Half-Elf Ranger - Incrediblely quiet and serious.
Female Autumn Eladrin Druid
Female Halfling Thief
At eight members the group is a bit large, but they are also very effective and get plenty of work because of it.
More Argentum
Silver was born in the Outlands, in the gate town linked to Celestia.
When Silver was a child, she and her mother (Argent) were in a kerfuffle where someone threw around Banishment spells. Silver was hit and banished to the Outlands, appearing not far from the Celestia gate town. She found shelter in a boarding house ran by a Deva woman. She was there for around two months before her mother got there and took her home to Sigil. As a result, her mother used a substantial amount of her modest treasure hoard to buy
Anchoring Belts so they could not be Banished and separated. Argent got a belt for herself because she was concerned that if she got banished, it would leave Silver lost and alone while Argent was thrown to Faerûn. While she wanted to go home, she wanted to take her daughter with her.
Argent's fear was ultimately fulfilled by a different cause to a banishment spell, but Silver was affected by that Banishment she went through as a child and kept wearing the belt until she was able to make herself a Naturalized Denizen of Faerûn, since now that she had found her way to her mother's world and found her mother's original hoard, she did not want her origin in the Outlands to result in her being thrown out of her adopted homeworld.
Silver also regularly wears a Circlet of Defense - an enchanted headband that acts as a helmet - while in Elven form. It also allows her to wear her hood up most of the time so her silver-white hair is not so obvious.
Steel has steely metallic irises, but it takes a very close look to spot it. It's his one tell that he's a dragon and is very discreet. Silver only spotted it after the forced-polymorph incident, when he turned back into his human form and she was hugging him while helping him calm down.
Steel may be part of the Radiant Heart. This presumes that the Radiant Heart expanded the list of venerated gods to include Bahamut, or at least respect him in his subsidiary role to Torm. By Steels time Anomen may be a respected past knight of the Order, with Narri respected as an ally of the Order. There may still be Delryns in the order, descended from them.
Silver owns a medallion of Bahamut's older holy symbol, a star above a milky nebula. When asked about it, she calls it the symbol of Xymor, saying Xymor was a deity she worshipped when she lived in Sigil. It is only after her draconic nature was revealed that she elaborates that Xymor is an old draconic name for Bahamut and the medallion is an old symbol of him as well.
[Fall], the team's Eladrin druid is a cheerful sort who insists on mothering the team relentlessly. She has switched seasonal alignment a couple of times but never for very long and has switched back to Autumn quite quickly.
I want to note, Silver is an odd dragon. This is because of her Planar upbringing. Growing up in Sigil will result in a dragon who is not the usual kind. She is not as superior as most dragons, she likes being amongst humanoids even more than most silvers. She does still collect treasure for her hoard - that was something Argent instilled into her, the absolute necessity for a hoard. But Silver is very social and is less arrogant than most dragons.
Edit 4/6/19:
A porny idea I had this morning, Silver's apartment block in Baldur's Gate has a Sharessan feasthall downstairs. While stopping over in BG, on the way south to Amn, they find out there is a party happening downstairs and decide to attend. Silver and Steel ending up in bed together is not that big a surprise at this point, but what is a bit questionable is that Fall sets about to seduce [Ranger], with the help of some handy Sharessan... aids (i.e. potions).
I went a looked up love potions and the only official one is the Philter of Love. I am just going to handwave and say there is more things existing in the world than just the adventuring gear, so a Sharessan feasthall probably has specialty potions available that make celebrations a bit more fun, without causing debilitating Charm effects. There may however be some day-after recovery needed, specifically from the effects of any potions (actions taken during revelries may require extra recovery time).
Now while most of these potions are likely relatively harmless, the situation with Fall seducing Ranger has her specifically purchasing a stronger potion, possibly even one that has Charm effects. She also purchases a stronger but not *Charm* one specifically for Silver and Steel, because she wants to encourage them. This is the first time they have sex, so Fall's goal with them is achieved. Knock-on effects of her seduction of Ranger is forthcoming.
Okay, so to lay out a rough but coherent timeline.
[Argent] gets in a situation that may involve a fight against a red dragon where she gets thrown into the Outer Planes, around 200-300 before the Time of Troubles. While trying to find her way home, she meets a radiant dragon and they fall in love, mate and have a clutch of eggs. Their nest is attacked, [Radiant] is killed and most of the eggs either destroyed or stolen. Argent gets away with three. She finds a way to the Outlands, where she settles in some mountains on the side of the plane closer to the Good aligned gate towns. Only one egg remains viable and hatches.
[Silver] is born aprox. 100 years prior ToT.
Once Silver reaches a point where she can hold an elf polymorph for 4 hours in one go, Argent moves them to Sigil, as it is the most likely place to be able to find passage to Faerun. Silver is around her very young stage.
Somewhere in the range of Silver's latter very young and early juvenile stage, Argent finds a way to Faerûn, but it is time sensitive and re quires them to go through three other planes on the way. The second gate they get through lands them in the middle of a battle and Silver is hit with a Banishment spell that throws her to the Outlands. She finds her way to the gate town to Celestia and is taken in by the Deva who runs a boarding house. The Deva knows immediately that she is a dragon and starts taking her out for flying practice and teaching her how to use her radiant abilities.
It takes two months before Argent finds her way there. In a conversation that Silver eavesdrops on, Argent talks to the Deva about what happened to Silver's father. The Deva knows Silver is listening in, but later tells her she's old enough to know. The Deva also gives Silver a medallion of the holy symbol of Xymor - a star-shaped diamond above a blue stone speckled with silvery flecks looking like a milky nebula.
Afterwards Argent and Silver return to Sigil.
Some time during Silver's late juvenile period, Argent is killed. The killer was after her modest treasure hoard she had been collecting since being thrown onto the Planes. Silver gets away with her mother's Bag of Holding with the hoard in it.
Silver starts joining adventuring groups and traveling around the Planes, collecting treasure for her BoH hoard.
As a Young Adult, Silver meets a young human woman who is from Faerûn, they partner up and join an adventuring party. The young woman meets a wandering Ghaele and they fall in love. The party find a gate that will go to Faerûn. The party split up with some wanting to stay on the Planes, but Argent and the Faerûnian woman go through the gate. The woman's Ghaele love promises he will find her there.
Human woman heads for her home city of Waterdeep. Silver gets a map and heads for Argent's old lair. It is still there, untouched, unraided. Silver takes ownership.
Human woman turns out pregnant, has half-celestial daughter. As an adult, the daughter becomes a priestess of Sune and ends up having a son, Danar.
Time of Troubles happens. Silver takes refuge in her lair through the whole mess. Her teamate's grandson is around 12. Narri is 10, Imoen is 8.
Bhaalspawn Crisis happens in the south.
A couple years after the end of the Bhaalspawn Crisis, Silver, while out traveling in her usual Elven disguise, meets Imoen. They become quick friends, Silver asks her to keep an eye on Danar. Imoen agrees, assumes an alternate identity of Dani Rivlin.
At some point in the following years, Silver has a chance to visit Candlekeep in Imoen's company. She researches dragons while there, trying to learn more about how Faerûnian draconic society works. All books she finds are from human/Elven perspective so their helpfulness is questionable at best, but amongst them she reads an account of the Waterdeep Steel Dragons and a treatise on Steels dragons as a whole.
Spellplague forces Silver to go through her hoard and set aside all enchanted items and put them in a protected side chamber.
A Ki-Rin moves into a cave system at the other end of the mountain valley, setting it up as a monk monastery. Silver establishes friendly relations with the Ki-Rin, a pact of mutual defense, and a promise that the Ki-Rin will punish anyone who tries to raid Silver's lair when she is away. A Storm Giant Quiescent settles around the valley.
Silver chose to avoid any and all Abeiran dragons, instead concentrating on establishing as modest real estate empire in low and working class districts of multiple Sword Coast cities, taking inspiration from her accommodation experiences in Sigil. She keeps at least one penthouse apartment in each city for herself.
In the aftermath of the Second Sundering and the fall of the Dracorage mythal, Silver sets out adventuring again.
A couple of years into this stint of adventuring, she joins the human paladin [Steel]'s group.
A few quests in, the group run into a chromatic plot and Silver and Steel get separated from the rest of the team and in the process a powerful enemy forces not only Silver back to her draconic form, but Steel as well. They manage to escape, and find a spot to land, at which point Steel has a breakdown. It becomes evident that he is young and his past Vaulting is so thorough he blocked his own knowledge of his draconic nature. Silver talks him through shifting back to his human form, and hugs him until he is stable enough for them to get back to their teammates.
This precipitates the fast advancement off their friendship, with Silver acting a little as a mentor to Steel, at least on his draconic nature. They also find a common ground when it get clarified that Xymor is just another name for Bahamut, Steel's patron god.
The group head south, towards Amn at Steel's request. They stop over at an inn at one point but there is only three rooms left, two the have three single beds each, the other a double bed. Silver takes them and opts to share the double with Steel. Nothing happens beyond snuggling at this point.
[Fall] notices them getting closer.
They stop over in Baldur's Gate and Silver's real estate empire get revealed when she takes them to the building where her personal apartment is located.
It turns out the building is leased by a partnership of a Sharessan priestess and a Sunite priestess running a feast hall together. Most of the building is being rented by revelers seeking privacy. Silver never looked into it because the priestesses were doing good trade and bringing in good money, so Silver was profiting well off their lease. An in-depth discussion with the two priestesses eventually reveals that they run their feast hall all above board and very honourably - they supply fun and revelry without hurting people or unfairly charging them.
The group is invited to join in any of the evening revels while they are staying there (the Sharessan church has festival days every day of the year).
[Fall] investigates the potion trade the priestesses run in support of the feast hall and finds they have a selection of aphrodisiac, stamina, sensory enhancement and even moderate love potions. She puts out her own funds (her cut of the team's loot) to buy some, including some of the strongest the priestesses have in stock, asking them to add it to a bottle of wine, which she leaves for Silver and Steel. She also makes use of another bottle of doctored wine in her seduction of the quiet and broody team ranger.
Silver and Steel's evening is very passionate one, as they consummate their relationship.
Some point after this they go to Athkatla, where Silver starts to get to know Steel's life, his membership in the Order of the Radiant Heart, how well he gets on with the Athkatla nobility - he's an adopted son and has problems because the nobles sneer at an adopted child. The Radiant Heart was a way to get away from that, with the Order being mostly a safe haven from it, but even then some other members who come from noble families also look on him less than kindly, and that attitude is the reason why he decided to go adventuring instead.
Silver also finds out the building she has her apartment in houses a dragonborn family who left Tymanther because they had come to be believers in Bahamut, with the matriarch of the family becomign a cleric and her brother a paladin who is one of Steel's mentors. However this family do not have a positive opinion of mortal dragons, making Silver shy of letting them know about her trur nature, let alone Steel's.
Future events of their lives include a major military action Steel is part of and Silver offers her aid, letting him ride on her back in her dragon form.
I vaguely think this is before they marry.
When the subject of a having a child comes up, Steel outright says maybe they should retreat to Silver's lair and have a full dragon child. They end up doing so, but only have a single child [Silverblade] as that will be easier to raise in Athkatla.
**************************
I have been reconsidering the circumstance around the end of Steel's current life and considered the possible idea that they find a way for the romantic relationship to carry over from one life he builds to the next. Maybe between lives he doesn't recall the details but when he and Silver meet up, he knows she is his soulmate, and by extension, Silverblade is his daughter from a past life.
So another line of thought that is totally the product of the sort of ideas I mostly only get while in bed, and it does not totally fit into the whole course I initially thought up, but...
So, basically? Telepathically shared erotic dreams. I do figure this happens early on, and both Silver and Steel both are kinda struggling to not let it show in their waking lives, as Steel is a paladin and wonders if there is something going on to try and subvert him, though he has doubts that it's Silver doing it because, though he barely knows her at this point, she has seemed quite honourable, and Silver both has reservations about anything happening with a paladin, and issues about the simple fact that he's human. She's already enough of a crossbreed as she is, she doesn't need to consider the issues of a half-dragon child.
These dreams may carry on right up until the forced shapeshifting incident and finally come out in the aftermath when they start hanging around each other more due to shared draconic nature and Steel's need for support.
Edit: I slept on the subject of the shared erotic dreams... and I'm declaring it definitely part of the story. As I said before, both Silver and Steel thought these dreams were of questionable origin and did not know they were sharing them, so they both, separately, tried to hide the effect the dreams had (in the sense of heightened curiosity and interest in the other). It ended up, after the forced shapeshift incident, the subject of the dreams came out in private moment they started taking when they could. This probably spend up the development of their relationship, as it felt to both of them as if they had almost already been in a sexual relationship.
Another point that my sleepy contemplations did is that my feelings about [Fall]'s seduction of [Ranger] is rather honest and well-intentioned on her part, despite the tools she used to start with (she is Fae, so she never considered how questionable using potions might be). As it turns out, once clear-headed, [Ranger] was able to forgive the potions because he is willing to carry on this relationship.
I was idly watching old videos by Dael Kingsmill, and my comment on the video referenced Minsc, so I googled Miniature Giant Space Hamsters and ended up on the wiki to find that in some comics, Minsc got petrified as a statue in Baldur's Gate to be released some time in the next century.
So I wanted to find a way to work out if that could fit. So first thing, in my headcanon, Minsc married Aerie. But hey, that doesn't stop it from happening, but it does make things a bit sad for Aerie, having her husband go missing.
Now I really like the idea that Silver is a point of contact that the lingering parts of the old crew have - Imoen introduced Silver to her extended family, so Silver still has occasional contact with Aerie, and by extension, keeps an eye on the Delryn, Anchev, De'Arnise, Firecam and Corthala families, as well as Aerie and her kids, Jaheira, and maybe a couple of others Imoen knew. Now whether Silver had anything to do with Minsc and Aerie meeting up again I don't know, I'd need to actually check the dates involved. But suffice to say, I think Silver is passingly aware of where they are now, akin to her commenting on the Delryns and Firecams in the Order of the Radiant Heart when she goes to Athkatla with Steel.
***
As an aside though, I also considered the possibility that the Drow Cleric could be Jhaelrnya Illistyn, one of the FunLovers, but Jhae is a bard. I could fudge the subject and say the cleric is a friend of Jhae's though, but I don't feel like saying Silver knew prior to joining the group. I actually rather that be a random discovery, like "What? You know Jhae? Oh she's from your village? How much of a coincidence is that?". Because Jhae came from a small community of a few families of Eilistraeen Drow, so maybe [Cleric] came from the same place as well, she may have also been part of the core that kept things together while Eilistraee was dead.
***
Edit 8/7/19: Another point I looked up - the Dragorage and the Kingkiller Star in 1373 DR. I imagine Silver simply returned to her lair and put herself to sleep. /Edit.
As much as I would like to fit this idea into the Nightlands, I feel like it only works properly in D&D proper, since the steel dragon life model would not mesh well with Nightlands dragons.
So this idea is actually got a basis in old D&D character ideas, that of the silver dragon who joined the planar adventuring group that preceded the FunLovers.
Both the FunLovers and the unnamed planar group that were their prequel were based on job class descriptions and subgroup side panels in my 3E books, namely the Forgotten Realms campaign guide and the Planar Handbook.
FunLovers was heavily based on two panels, paladin orders and monk orders, with the core of the group being two paladins, one a male aasimar of Sune, the other being a redheaded woman dedicated to Kelemvor. As an aside, Imoen was part of this team post-BG, though she was going under an assumed identity.
The planar group partly explained the origins of the paladin of Sune, as his grandmother was part of the group while she was a young woman, and while traveling the planes, ended up in a relationship with a celestial.
But the important part is that another member of the group was a young GISH elfmaiden wanting to find a way to Faerûn, as her deceased mother was originally from there. What eventually was revealed to be a young silver dragon, the only surviving child of a dimensionally displaced silver dragon. When the group eventually found a gate to Aber-Toril she finally was able to go to the homeworld of her mother and find her mother's lair (located in a remote mountain location, so still unplundered) and claimed it for herself, and the hoard her mother had established there.
This same half-planar silver dragon would later become friends with post-BG Imoen, establish a friendly association with a Ki-Rin who established a monastery on the other side of the valley.
But to carry on with the new story, Silver (for sake of a simple label since I still don't have a name for her) feels a need to go adventuring again, so closes up her lair and heads out with her collection of Bags of Holding (her mother had been trying to gather a new hoard in BoHs, so Silver learned that habit in her childhood), and headed out to find some adventure and maybe some additions to her hoard.
The group she ends up joining up with is once again led by a charismatic young paladin seeking some glory in honour of his unspecified patron god (in reality, it's Bahamut). Silver's other side gets uncovered in an incident where the team run into a red dragon and she goes a bit nuts and transforms to fight it off.
However the big incident is when she and Paladin get isolated from the rest of the team and something forces not just her, but him as well into dragon forms. He's a Steel, and by all rights, it should not be possible for a Steel to be forced into dragon form, because their shapeshifting and Vaulting is so thorough. Silver however has, by this point, had a chance to study other dragons (maybe her friendship with Imoen got her into Candlekeep at one point) and had read some info about the few Steel dragons who live in Faerûn, so realises Steel's confusion about being forced to shift is because he has been so totally submerged in his human persona that he had practically buried his draconic self.
Silver becomes his protector and friend, with them eventually ending up in a relationship.
However there is the fact that they share similar over-all lifespans, so some time down the track, when this human life grows old, he ends up asking her to become his soulbond and be his friend and guide in future lives. Silver decides she will treat his future lives as reincarnations of the paladin she first met him as. His next life after that one, he becomes a monk raised in the monastery of the Ki-Rin across the valley from Silver's lair. Silver also offers Steel a place in the cave system of her lair to store all his artworks, since his paladin life was his first after reaching adulthood and had not yet established his own storehouse.
As an aside, Silver's lair belonged to another dragon prior to Silver's mother, who on death let his spirit merges with the land, so Silver's lair also has that dragon's spirit protecting it as well. Between that, the Ki-Rin, a number of other good aligned nature related being in the valley (like dryads, treants and such) and a storm giant quintessence, the vallty is a spot of quite concentrated Good that is highly protected from outside threat.
More Thoughts 1/6/19:
Silver's unknown father may be a Radiant Dragon. Silver suspects this because she has a moderate ability at Daylight and Heal Moderate Wounds spells. Not nearly at the same level as the average Radiant, but Silver is a half-silver dragon who takes after her silver mother.
Edit 8/7/19: Due to being born in the Outlands, Silver may have had some unique instincts she was born with - a sense of how to act in the Outlands. It may have included things like being disobedient in Excelsior (the Celestia Gate Town) being utterly ixnay, because of the Lawful nature there. These instincts may have atrophied in the years since she finally reached Faerûn and truly settled down there, but could potentially be awoken again if she somehow ended up back in the Outlands, but given she has put herself through a Naturalisation ritual and has no intention of visiting the Planes again, it would take a major incident to force her out of the Prime Material. /Edit.
Silver and Steel have a full-blooded dragon daughter who they raise living mostly amongst human society. Temp designation: Silverblade.
Silver's religious beliefs have her mostly honouring Kereska (dragon goddess of magic) because she identifies as a sorceress a lot, especially in her elven identity, Hlal (dragon goddess of humour, inventiveness and pleasure) because those concepts helped her cope during her youth in Sigil, and Bahamut (dragon god of Good dragons, metallic dragons, and justice) simply because she is silver and Good aligned.
Steel is straight up a follower of Bahamut, especially in this life as he's a paladin of Bahamut.
Steel's home city is Athkatla.
Silver owns several apartment buildings across several human cities. She tends to offer living spaces for odd races, like half-dragons, Dragonborn, aasimar, planar travellers, half-elves. She reserves the penthouse apartment for her own use, though she will allow friends and allies she trusts to also use it.
The apartment building in Athkatla has a dragonborn family who are followers of Bahamut. The patriarch of the family is a paladin, senior in the paladin order that Steel is a member of, and his wife is a priestess of Bahamut. This dragonborn family live in Athkatla because most of the Dragonborn hate the dragon gods, so a family who are closely affiliated with the Platinum Cadre do not have a good time in Tymanther so migrated to find somewhere better. The family don't know Silver is a dragon, at least not until the battle where she offers to let Steel ride her into the battle.
Story Plot:
Silver and Steel, some time a 6-10 years after having Silverblade, have cause to go to Waterdeep. Silverblade gets separated from her parents and, because she has so far spent her childhood practicing her shapeshifting a lot, gets noticed by a member of the Confluence - the half-Steel organisation in Waterdeep who are dedicated to fighting shapeshifters. A particularly hard-nosed half-dragon captures her and immediately declares that no 'shifter deserves to live, dragging her back to the Confluence base. However Silver and Steel track their daughter's trail and catch up at the Confluence base, getting into an argument with a few of the Confluence members and when the particularly hard-nosed one outright says Silverblade deserves to die, both Silver and Steel shift to their dragon forms to really shove it in the half-dragons' faces just who they are facing off against. The particular half-dragon holding Silverblade loosens their grip enough for her to get away, shift to her dragon form and climb up onto Silver, turning to spit insults in Draconic at the half-dragons.
There may have been a minor follow-up about this incident, maybe even with it being Elminster who comes to chat about what happened. Either way, it blows over as a misunderstanding and the hard-nosed half-dragon who first captured Silverblade ends up being punished for not looking into the exact nature of the 'shifter he caught, especially since she was a young child.
Edit 4/6/19: This plot may not be viable because I have heard in a video that Waterdeep has a mythal that keeps dragons out. Maybe it could still happen if Silver and Steel have basically passports to enter the city, but then that may cause bigger problems because two dragons transforming inside the city? That'd cause issues. Added: Though given that Steels apparently are relatively common in Waterdeep, there may be some special allowance for a small family of Good-aligned dragons.
An undetailed list of rough character ideas for the rest of the team Silver and Steel are part of.
Steel - Human Paladin of Bahamut (Steel Dragon in deep cover, not conciously aware of such until forced de-polymorph).
Silver - Moon Half-Elf Sorceress-Warrior multiclass (Silver Dragon in disguise, half Radiant). Edit 10/6/19: Reasoning Silver as being a Gish would probably be easy given her Planar background. She could have found a Githzerai combat instructor in her youth in Sigil who taught her how to effectively mix sword-work and spell-work.
Male Half-Orc Fighter - City-born and raised, very civilised and erudite for a half-orc.
Female Drow Cleric of Eilistraee - Old enough to have lived through the time Eilistraee was dead, converted to Selûne during that time but switched back to Eilistraee when she returned. Keeps leaving small offerings at any Selûnite shrine or temple she crosses, out of respect for Selûne being her patron during those years.
Male Human Bard - Thinks he's the gods' gift to women.
Male Half-Elf Ranger - Incrediblely quiet and serious.
Female Autumn Eladrin Druid
Female Halfling Thief
At eight members the group is a bit large, but they are also very effective and get plenty of work because of it.
More Argentum
Silver was born in the Outlands, in the gate town linked to Celestia.
When Silver was a child, she and her mother (Argent) were in a kerfuffle where someone threw around Banishment spells. Silver was hit and banished to the Outlands, appearing not far from the Celestia gate town. She found shelter in a boarding house ran by a Deva woman. She was there for around two months before her mother got there and took her home to Sigil. As a result, her mother used a substantial amount of her modest treasure hoard to buy
Anchoring Belts so they could not be Banished and separated. Argent got a belt for herself because she was concerned that if she got banished, it would leave Silver lost and alone while Argent was thrown to Faerûn. While she wanted to go home, she wanted to take her daughter with her.
Argent's fear was ultimately fulfilled by a different cause to a banishment spell, but Silver was affected by that Banishment she went through as a child and kept wearing the belt until she was able to make herself a Naturalized Denizen of Faerûn, since now that she had found her way to her mother's world and found her mother's original hoard, she did not want her origin in the Outlands to result in her being thrown out of her adopted homeworld.
Silver also regularly wears a Circlet of Defense - an enchanted headband that acts as a helmet - while in Elven form. It also allows her to wear her hood up most of the time so her silver-white hair is not so obvious.
Steel has steely metallic irises, but it takes a very close look to spot it. It's his one tell that he's a dragon and is very discreet. Silver only spotted it after the forced-polymorph incident, when he turned back into his human form and she was hugging him while helping him calm down.
Steel may be part of the Radiant Heart. This presumes that the Radiant Heart expanded the list of venerated gods to include Bahamut, or at least respect him in his subsidiary role to Torm. By Steels time Anomen may be a respected past knight of the Order, with Narri respected as an ally of the Order. There may still be Delryns in the order, descended from them.
Silver owns a medallion of Bahamut's older holy symbol, a star above a milky nebula. When asked about it, she calls it the symbol of Xymor, saying Xymor was a deity she worshipped when she lived in Sigil. It is only after her draconic nature was revealed that she elaborates that Xymor is an old draconic name for Bahamut and the medallion is an old symbol of him as well.
[Fall], the team's Eladrin druid is a cheerful sort who insists on mothering the team relentlessly. She has switched seasonal alignment a couple of times but never for very long and has switched back to Autumn quite quickly.
I want to note, Silver is an odd dragon. This is because of her Planar upbringing. Growing up in Sigil will result in a dragon who is not the usual kind. She is not as superior as most dragons, she likes being amongst humanoids even more than most silvers. She does still collect treasure for her hoard - that was something Argent instilled into her, the absolute necessity for a hoard. But Silver is very social and is less arrogant than most dragons.
Edit 4/6/19:
A porny idea I had this morning, Silver's apartment block in Baldur's Gate has a Sharessan feasthall downstairs. While stopping over in BG, on the way south to Amn, they find out there is a party happening downstairs and decide to attend. Silver and Steel ending up in bed together is not that big a surprise at this point, but what is a bit questionable is that Fall sets about to seduce [Ranger], with the help of some handy Sharessan... aids (i.e. potions).
I went a looked up love potions and the only official one is the Philter of Love. I am just going to handwave and say there is more things existing in the world than just the adventuring gear, so a Sharessan feasthall probably has specialty potions available that make celebrations a bit more fun, without causing debilitating Charm effects. There may however be some day-after recovery needed, specifically from the effects of any potions (actions taken during revelries may require extra recovery time).
Now while most of these potions are likely relatively harmless, the situation with Fall seducing Ranger has her specifically purchasing a stronger potion, possibly even one that has Charm effects. She also purchases a stronger but not *Charm* one specifically for Silver and Steel, because she wants to encourage them. This is the first time they have sex, so Fall's goal with them is achieved. Knock-on effects of her seduction of Ranger is forthcoming.
Okay, so to lay out a rough but coherent timeline.
[Argent] gets in a situation that may involve a fight against a red dragon where she gets thrown into the Outer Planes, around 200-300 before the Time of Troubles. While trying to find her way home, she meets a radiant dragon and they fall in love, mate and have a clutch of eggs. Their nest is attacked, [Radiant] is killed and most of the eggs either destroyed or stolen. Argent gets away with three. She finds a way to the Outlands, where she settles in some mountains on the side of the plane closer to the Good aligned gate towns. Only one egg remains viable and hatches.
[Silver] is born aprox. 100 years prior ToT.
Once Silver reaches a point where she can hold an elf polymorph for 4 hours in one go, Argent moves them to Sigil, as it is the most likely place to be able to find passage to Faerun. Silver is around her very young stage.
Somewhere in the range of Silver's latter very young and early juvenile stage, Argent finds a way to Faerûn, but it is time sensitive and re quires them to go through three other planes on the way. The second gate they get through lands them in the middle of a battle and Silver is hit with a Banishment spell that throws her to the Outlands. She finds her way to the gate town to Celestia and is taken in by the Deva who runs a boarding house. The Deva knows immediately that she is a dragon and starts taking her out for flying practice and teaching her how to use her radiant abilities.
It takes two months before Argent finds her way there. In a conversation that Silver eavesdrops on, Argent talks to the Deva about what happened to Silver's father. The Deva knows Silver is listening in, but later tells her she's old enough to know. The Deva also gives Silver a medallion of the holy symbol of Xymor - a star-shaped diamond above a blue stone speckled with silvery flecks looking like a milky nebula.
Afterwards Argent and Silver return to Sigil.
Some time during Silver's late juvenile period, Argent is killed. The killer was after her modest treasure hoard she had been collecting since being thrown onto the Planes. Silver gets away with her mother's Bag of Holding with the hoard in it.
Silver starts joining adventuring groups and traveling around the Planes, collecting treasure for her BoH hoard.
As a Young Adult, Silver meets a young human woman who is from Faerûn, they partner up and join an adventuring party. The young woman meets a wandering Ghaele and they fall in love. The party find a gate that will go to Faerûn. The party split up with some wanting to stay on the Planes, but Argent and the Faerûnian woman go through the gate. The woman's Ghaele love promises he will find her there.
Human woman heads for her home city of Waterdeep. Silver gets a map and heads for Argent's old lair. It is still there, untouched, unraided. Silver takes ownership.
Human woman turns out pregnant, has half-celestial daughter. As an adult, the daughter becomes a priestess of Sune and ends up having a son, Danar.
Time of Troubles happens. Silver takes refuge in her lair through the whole mess. Her teamate's grandson is around 12. Narri is 10, Imoen is 8.
Bhaalspawn Crisis happens in the south.
A couple years after the end of the Bhaalspawn Crisis, Silver, while out traveling in her usual Elven disguise, meets Imoen. They become quick friends, Silver asks her to keep an eye on Danar. Imoen agrees, assumes an alternate identity of Dani Rivlin.
At some point in the following years, Silver has a chance to visit Candlekeep in Imoen's company. She researches dragons while there, trying to learn more about how Faerûnian draconic society works. All books she finds are from human/Elven perspective so their helpfulness is questionable at best, but amongst them she reads an account of the Waterdeep Steel Dragons and a treatise on Steels dragons as a whole.
Spellplague forces Silver to go through her hoard and set aside all enchanted items and put them in a protected side chamber.
A Ki-Rin moves into a cave system at the other end of the mountain valley, setting it up as a monk monastery. Silver establishes friendly relations with the Ki-Rin, a pact of mutual defense, and a promise that the Ki-Rin will punish anyone who tries to raid Silver's lair when she is away. A Storm Giant Quiescent settles around the valley.
Silver chose to avoid any and all Abeiran dragons, instead concentrating on establishing as modest real estate empire in low and working class districts of multiple Sword Coast cities, taking inspiration from her accommodation experiences in Sigil. She keeps at least one penthouse apartment in each city for herself.
In the aftermath of the Second Sundering and the fall of the Dracorage mythal, Silver sets out adventuring again.
A couple of years into this stint of adventuring, she joins the human paladin [Steel]'s group.
A few quests in, the group run into a chromatic plot and Silver and Steel get separated from the rest of the team and in the process a powerful enemy forces not only Silver back to her draconic form, but Steel as well. They manage to escape, and find a spot to land, at which point Steel has a breakdown. It becomes evident that he is young and his past Vaulting is so thorough he blocked his own knowledge of his draconic nature. Silver talks him through shifting back to his human form, and hugs him until he is stable enough for them to get back to their teammates.
This precipitates the fast advancement off their friendship, with Silver acting a little as a mentor to Steel, at least on his draconic nature. They also find a common ground when it get clarified that Xymor is just another name for Bahamut, Steel's patron god.
The group head south, towards Amn at Steel's request. They stop over at an inn at one point but there is only three rooms left, two the have three single beds each, the other a double bed. Silver takes them and opts to share the double with Steel. Nothing happens beyond snuggling at this point.
[Fall] notices them getting closer.
They stop over in Baldur's Gate and Silver's real estate empire get revealed when she takes them to the building where her personal apartment is located.
It turns out the building is leased by a partnership of a Sharessan priestess and a Sunite priestess running a feast hall together. Most of the building is being rented by revelers seeking privacy. Silver never looked into it because the priestesses were doing good trade and bringing in good money, so Silver was profiting well off their lease. An in-depth discussion with the two priestesses eventually reveals that they run their feast hall all above board and very honourably - they supply fun and revelry without hurting people or unfairly charging them.
The group is invited to join in any of the evening revels while they are staying there (the Sharessan church has festival days every day of the year).
[Fall] investigates the potion trade the priestesses run in support of the feast hall and finds they have a selection of aphrodisiac, stamina, sensory enhancement and even moderate love potions. She puts out her own funds (her cut of the team's loot) to buy some, including some of the strongest the priestesses have in stock, asking them to add it to a bottle of wine, which she leaves for Silver and Steel. She also makes use of another bottle of doctored wine in her seduction of the quiet and broody team ranger.
Silver and Steel's evening is very passionate one, as they consummate their relationship.
Some point after this they go to Athkatla, where Silver starts to get to know Steel's life, his membership in the Order of the Radiant Heart, how well he gets on with the Athkatla nobility - he's an adopted son and has problems because the nobles sneer at an adopted child. The Radiant Heart was a way to get away from that, with the Order being mostly a safe haven from it, but even then some other members who come from noble families also look on him less than kindly, and that attitude is the reason why he decided to go adventuring instead.
Silver also finds out the building she has her apartment in houses a dragonborn family who left Tymanther because they had come to be believers in Bahamut, with the matriarch of the family becomign a cleric and her brother a paladin who is one of Steel's mentors. However this family do not have a positive opinion of mortal dragons, making Silver shy of letting them know about her trur nature, let alone Steel's.
Future events of their lives include a major military action Steel is part of and Silver offers her aid, letting him ride on her back in her dragon form.
I vaguely think this is before they marry.
When the subject of a having a child comes up, Steel outright says maybe they should retreat to Silver's lair and have a full dragon child. They end up doing so, but only have a single child [Silverblade] as that will be easier to raise in Athkatla.
**************************
I have been reconsidering the circumstance around the end of Steel's current life and considered the possible idea that they find a way for the romantic relationship to carry over from one life he builds to the next. Maybe between lives he doesn't recall the details but when he and Silver meet up, he knows she is his soulmate, and by extension, Silverblade is his daughter from a past life.
So another line of thought that is totally the product of the sort of ideas I mostly only get while in bed, and it does not totally fit into the whole course I initially thought up, but...
So, basically? Telepathically shared erotic dreams. I do figure this happens early on, and both Silver and Steel both are kinda struggling to not let it show in their waking lives, as Steel is a paladin and wonders if there is something going on to try and subvert him, though he has doubts that it's Silver doing it because, though he barely knows her at this point, she has seemed quite honourable, and Silver both has reservations about anything happening with a paladin, and issues about the simple fact that he's human. She's already enough of a crossbreed as she is, she doesn't need to consider the issues of a half-dragon child.
These dreams may carry on right up until the forced shapeshifting incident and finally come out in the aftermath when they start hanging around each other more due to shared draconic nature and Steel's need for support.
Edit: I slept on the subject of the shared erotic dreams... and I'm declaring it definitely part of the story. As I said before, both Silver and Steel thought these dreams were of questionable origin and did not know they were sharing them, so they both, separately, tried to hide the effect the dreams had (in the sense of heightened curiosity and interest in the other). It ended up, after the forced shapeshift incident, the subject of the dreams came out in private moment they started taking when they could. This probably spend up the development of their relationship, as it felt to both of them as if they had almost already been in a sexual relationship.
Another point that my sleepy contemplations did is that my feelings about [Fall]'s seduction of [Ranger] is rather honest and well-intentioned on her part, despite the tools she used to start with (she is Fae, so she never considered how questionable using potions might be). As it turns out, once clear-headed, [Ranger] was able to forgive the potions because he is willing to carry on this relationship.
I was idly watching old videos by Dael Kingsmill, and my comment on the video referenced Minsc, so I googled Miniature Giant Space Hamsters and ended up on the wiki to find that in some comics, Minsc got petrified as a statue in Baldur's Gate to be released some time in the next century.
So I wanted to find a way to work out if that could fit. So first thing, in my headcanon, Minsc married Aerie. But hey, that doesn't stop it from happening, but it does make things a bit sad for Aerie, having her husband go missing.
Now I really like the idea that Silver is a point of contact that the lingering parts of the old crew have - Imoen introduced Silver to her extended family, so Silver still has occasional contact with Aerie, and by extension, keeps an eye on the Delryn, Anchev, De'Arnise, Firecam and Corthala families, as well as Aerie and her kids, Jaheira, and maybe a couple of others Imoen knew. Now whether Silver had anything to do with Minsc and Aerie meeting up again I don't know, I'd need to actually check the dates involved. But suffice to say, I think Silver is passingly aware of where they are now, akin to her commenting on the Delryns and Firecams in the Order of the Radiant Heart when she goes to Athkatla with Steel.
***
As an aside though, I also considered the possibility that the Drow Cleric could be Jhaelrnya Illistyn, one of the FunLovers, but Jhae is a bard. I could fudge the subject and say the cleric is a friend of Jhae's though, but I don't feel like saying Silver knew prior to joining the group. I actually rather that be a random discovery, like "What? You know Jhae? Oh she's from your village? How much of a coincidence is that?". Because Jhae came from a small community of a few families of Eilistraeen Drow, so maybe [Cleric] came from the same place as well, she may have also been part of the core that kept things together while Eilistraee was dead.
***
Edit 8/7/19: Another point I looked up - the Dragorage and the Kingkiller Star in 1373 DR. I imagine Silver simply returned to her lair and put herself to sleep. /Edit.
