Natural 7

GLÅUGUST 2026 - 2

This is a continuation of my entries to the GLÅUGUST 2026 challenges. You can review all previous posts here:

If you want to follow along, you can read the Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2026 challenges here.

Challenge the Second

4 - Breathing new life into an old post

My friends was mad at me for posting about Dragons without including one of their favorite NPCs from a recent game. So, let's take another look at dragons!

The Great Muldovian! (yes, the '!' is vocalized)

Adult Amber Dragon, in D&D-like terms.

The Great Muldovian once lived within the Verdant Cradle, a dome of amber, honey, and tall flower-walls nestled deep within the Black Forest. His scales were brilliant orange and gold, shimmering and slick. Those who met him would tell tales of his booming voice, loud enough to make both your trees and legs quake. Atop his scaled head were two twisting horns, shaped like thorned brambles, that arched back towards his neck.

This was not the first dragon to inhabit the Black Forest. In fact, the Great Muldovian was a young cousin to the previous dragon which called this place home: Jeherokane Jadewing. When Jeherokane died, the Great Muldovian swooped in and rebuilt his lair from the ground up using his freezing-amber breath weapon to construct the Verdant Cradle.

Most common folk had never heard of the Great Muldovian or Jeherokane. The dragons in these parts kept greatly to themselves and thoroughly hated going to tea parties (though visitors, strangely enough, were always welcome at the Verdant Cradle). The Great Muldovian spent most of his time traveling across the realm in search of new and unique creatures, like unicorns and death cows and supposedly-extinct lizards. Unfortunately, travelers from distant lands counted as "an exciting new find!" and often became part of the Great Muldovian's permanent collection.

Becoming part of the collection wasn't so bad as it seemed, however! For, along with a near-eternity preserved in amber, you also gained one of the greatest conversation partners in the realm! Swapping stories, describing what made you unique among your kind, and playing games of chess were among the favorites of the Great Muldovian's past times.

When a vampiric druid wrestled for control of the Black Forest, many creatures were negatively impacted, including the Great Muldovian. Local adventurers, known as Unfinished Business, were able to remove a "deadly lance to the heart" (splinter), saving his life. Later on, these same adventurers rescued the Great Muldovian from that vampiric druid's foul experimentation. Unfortunately, the experiments left a lasting impact on the amber dragon's perfect vision. Those golden eyes, they see no better than a 90-year-old grampa looking for his glasses.

After the defeat of the vampiric druid and the cleansing of the wood, the Black Forest has taken on a new name: The Goldblood Weald. The Verdant Cradle has been largely abandoned, only a few lucky scavengers finding their way in through the bramble-protected entrance. Within are the cracked remains of amber-preserved creatures: exotic scaled fish from the northern archipelagos, strange infernal-horned humans from the desert kingdom, one of the jungle elves (frozen mid-leap), and so many insects. Traces of the Great Muldovian's once-resplendent lair have faded, but can still be found with a clever eye. His treasure was relocated, though his eyesight never truly recovered well enough to spot everything, so I'm sure a few baubles got left behind.

Where the Great Muldovian has flown off to this time? Well, who's to say.

Final Thoughts

We took a look at a new dragon to consider how we might develop interesting personalities for these awesome lizards. Writing about the Great Muldovian and Unfinished Business was a pleasure, though it was difficult to capture his true majesty just in text (I guess you kind of had to be there).

When my players first met the Great Muldovian, they were level 2. An adult dragon and level 2 characters. His funny voice and intimidating stature definitely did wonders for my table. They kept talking about this guy throughout the campaign.

I enjoy experimenting with super high level things in my low level games. Introducing the majesty and terrors of the world to people who cannot yet deal with them is a great way to inspire roleplay, inform future decisions, and offer bits of lore to characters to latch onto. I mentioned and introduced dragons, vampire lords, and a lich all very early on in the game, and while it made the party feel a little weird that they kept leaving places with "unfinished business", it led to them having lots of goals that were completed by the end of the game.

Thanks for reading! I'll see you next week!

Things on my radar: