One of my favorite tropes in TV is the Easily Swayed Population. It comes up all the time, from the citizens of Springfield deciding they really want a monorail or the citizens in Life of Brian determined to make Brian the new Messiah, or the people of South Park pretty much any time. While it’s certainly a parody of how real people think, the reason it works as well as it does is that people can be very vulnerable to manipulation.

We want to be right about things, and to be in the know. Having our beliefs validated, no matter how ridiculous they might be, feels good to us.

Under normal circumstances, this is just part of the push and pull of life. We win some, we lose some. But if someone were to learn how to control that push and pull, to move people by drawing on their fears and desires, then that person could be truly dangerous.

Now imagine that person was a giant immortal creature that breathed poison and turned the very land around it into its spies and servants.

You have yourself a Green Dragon.

Green Dragons can be tough to run well. Whereas other Dragons prefer violence and terror, the Greens make use of strategy and cunning, manipulating their victims into bringing them the power and control that they desire. Your Players might not even know that their campaign has a Green Dragon at its heart until it’s far too late.

Green Dragons are cunning personified, which means their plans can stretch for decades, if not centuries. They make use of puppets and proxies, whispering to them from the deepest forests, and maybe even their servants don’t really know the nature of the being whom they serve.

Perhaps a logging concern finds their progress into the deep forest blocked. It seems like their equipment breaks, their workers go on strike, contracts are suddenly changed for no reason, or the foreman refuses to move forward. The woods themselves are turning toxic, with the very plants and animals conspiring against them. Every time the logging company tries to fix a problem, a new one emerges, and the owner of the company is determined to find out why. So they hire your Adventurers to find out, only for them to become yet another pawn in the game of a creature that none of them even know exists.

Maybe it is the Green Dragon itself who hires your Adventurers – not to solve the problem, but to create further impediments. A simple tale of corruption, a few easily-swayed Druids or other friends of the wilderness could help, and your Players – who so rarely inquire into the truths of the stories they’re told – do their best to stop the loggers and developers from tearing down this sacred wood.

And none of them know whose idea this really was.

In a lot of ways, the Green Dragon could be considered the most civilized of the Chromatics. Where the others rely on cruelty or brute force, the Green isn’t all that interested in razing kingdoms and tearing people apart with their teeth. After all, if they kill everyone, over whom can they exert power? The Green should see fighting as beneath it, and so the path to the actual Dragon should be convoluted and difficult, with as many innocents as possible in the way.

As with all the Chromatic and Metallic Dragons in the 2024 Monster Manual, we have four Green Dragons to play with in our games, depending on what level you’re working at.

The Green Dragon Wyrmling is the young one, and in my mind is the ambitious youth. It’s eager to prove itself and show off how clever it is, but they are no match for their elders. The wiser ones work in the service of older Green Dragons, learning the subtle art of manipulation. They find a wandering traveler, perhaps, or a merchant making their way through the forest and whisper subtle promises to them. In their way, the Wyrmlings might be the cruelest of the Greens. They have no grand plan yet, no immortal ambitions. They twist the desires of lesser beings for their own amusement, with no concern for the consequences.

The upshot for your Players is that the Wyrmling isn’t very good at this yet. It doesn’t have the Deception and Persuasion skills of its elders, so being pulled into its plans aren’t as dangerous as they could be. That doesn’t mean they can be careless, though. Interfering with a Wyrmling could mean drawing the attention of a Dragon far more cunning and fearsome.

The Young Green Dragon is beginning to come into its own. It has gained the Deception skill and is collecting servants from those who live in the deep woods. These Dragons are trying to separate themselves from their peers so that they may conspire without complications, so you might place your Players in the middle of a Young Green Dragon feud – two of these monsters who are battling for the same territory, pitting their minions against each other.

And at this point, the servants of a Green Dragon are likely to be more willing minions. Ettercaps, Kobolds, maybe some forest bandits will be amongst its emerging court. One day, if it survives, this Dragon will pull the strings of great nations, but that day has not yet come. This Dragon is still vulnerable, and still brash. If there is a Green Dragon that is easy to find and destroy, this is the one.

Adult Green Dragons are the ones that get truly dangerous. They have gained the Persuasion skill now, as well as their Legendary Resistances and Legendary Actions that makes these creatures mechanically viable against a full party. Moreover, these Dragons can cast spells. In addition to Detect Magic, they have Mind Spike, which not only does damage to a creature, but makes it impossible for the creature to hide from the Dragon.

And then there is Geas, one of the most terrible enchantments in the game. Not only does this spell compel a creature to perform a task the Dragon’s choosing, the creature takes psychic damage when they don’t.

This is where the Dragon starts truly building its network of servants. Local leaders, priests, powerful criminals may be brought before the Dragon, who infiltrates their mind and forces their hand. The more terrible or treasonous the task is, the easier it will be to control them, even without the magic of Geas. With care and patience, the Adult Green Dragon is now the puppetmaster, reveling in the knowledge that it is the one who moves the levers of power.

Ancient Green Dragons are the final stage in these creatures’ evolution. These Dragons barely need to lift a talon anymore to keep their schemes running. Their control over lesser beings is now absolute, and with the addition of Modify Memory to their spells at hand, they can actively disappear from the minds of those whom they control.

What’s more, you could pair an Ancient Green Dragon with other manipulative powers in the world. Perhaps they make an arrangement with a coven of Green or Night Hags. The Dragon controls the territory and has a long-term strategy, while the Hags are working on a more personal level, using curses and dreams to bend the locals to their will. Of course, both the Hags and the Dragon think they’re the one in charge, and finding a way to put a wedge between them would be an excellent task for your Party.

Incubi and Succubi would be an interesting partnership as well. They might be able to provide the Dragon with inroads to royal courts, seducing nobles and starting whisper campaigns. In return, the Dragon provides them with protection and information, working with them to forward both draconic and infernal plans. At least, as long as those plans align.

And if you want a very tense relationship, pair your Green Dragon up with an Ice Devil. While the Dragon is opportunistic and deceitful, relying on lies and cunning, the Devil is contract-driven and hierarchical. It may be evil, but it is evil in the service of a larger cause. Perhaps the forces of the Hells need a complacent population to further their moves against the Material Plane, and the Dragon finds the calculating cruelty of the Ice Devil particularly effective. The conflict between them could be a fascinating story to tell.

Placing a Green Dragon at the center of your campaign should not be a choice made lightly. When you do, you’re committed to creating a society that falls into its gravity. Whole communities of earnest but easily-swayed people find themselves part of a plan that stretches far beyond their petty lives and desires.

The Green Dragon allows you to explore what can happen when our desires for power or fame or rightness are exactly the levers that a terrible entity needs in order to gain control of us. It may give your Players a moment to pause and to think about themselves. About how much of what they want is theirs, and how much of it is the voice whispering to them from the darkness with terrible plans of its own.