Dragon Rider
If you want to watch a hardened grognard turn into a little kid again, give them a dragon to ride. Personal discomfort and ruined pantaloons notwithstanding, everyone loves riding magical critters. You can tell because of the music:
- The Neverending Story
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Game of Thrones
- How to Train Your Dragon
- Family Guy
Also they tend to shout “Yeah!” a lot. The point is that critter-riding is one of those pure uncut Columbian grade fantasy tropes. It activates that reading-under-the-covers-with-a-flashlight part of the nerd brain, and reminds you why you fell in love with fantasy in the first place.
Speaking for myself, I got a bit misty there when I found that Game of Thrones scene. I’ve read the books, but I actually haven’t sat down to watch the show yet. It also reminded me that, in my current dragon-riding campaign, I really need to deliver on this trope. We’re two sessions in as of this writing, and so far I’ve kept the dragons and their riders separate. I think I’ve given my players dragon riding blue balls, and they’re going to rebel if they don’t get a sweeping orchestral score soon. A little Two Steps From Hell ought to do the trick.
I’m remembering Kobayashi’s first few times riding Tohru (‘Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid’).
T: ‘My scales are meant to turn aside holy swords!’
K: ‘My butt is not Excalibur!’
BRB. Watching the entire series.
Ah, I will never forget the joy of my player’s Irish Dwarfen Paladin (it was a campaign set in dark-age british isles but fantastical according to the myths of the time) when, late game, I rebealed that the fey spirit he’d been summoning as a winged horse steed was, in its own native habitat, a dragon: a dragon he could now take back to Ireland with him and ride into the final battles.
That’s a happy player right there.