Somewhere in the desert – probably not the same desert as the Brass Dragons we just met, but nearby – your Party is looking for an outpost that they’ve been asked to shore up. They have a line of pack animals that are carrying food and water and vital supplies in the hopes of making this lonely place a little more livable.

Before they went out, however, they were warned: beware of the Dragon. They didn’t get much in the way of specifics. Its scales shine like the clear blue sky, but it calls down lightning. It is strong and arrogant and demanding. Obedience may save your life, but not for very long.

So your Party is careful as they travel, always with one eye to the sky, hoping to catch a flash of blue on blue that can give them fair warning.

Which is why they’ll be very surprised when a Blue Dragon erupts out of the sand itself and begins to attack them from below.

Yes. They have a Burrow Speed. Have fun with that.

Blue Dragons might very well be the most fun of the Chromatics for a DM to play at the table. Blue Dragons are desperate for attention and validation, and will kill anyone who makes them feel like anything less than the most important person in the room. They are vain and deadly, quick to take offense and absolutely intolerant of any suggestion that it is inferior to anyone else.

So if you’re the kind of DM who really likes to ham it up at the table, this is the Dragon for you.

As always, let’s start with the Blue Dragon Wyrmling.

Think of the worst kid you know. The one who’s been told all their life how special they are, how clever. The ones who would make your life a living hell and just grin because apparently you can’t just up and beat kids anymore.

This is the kid who has flunkies. Wyrmlings will gather weaker creatures to them in an attempt to practice their bullying and intimidation skills. I could see a Blue Dragon Wyrmling finding a struggling pack of Bandits and announcing that they work for him now. Of course, some of those Bandits might not want to, which is why the first your Party will discover of the Blue Lightning Brigade is the charred corpse of whichever one of them thought that working for a baby dragon was beneath them.

Now the desert is being troubled by some Bandits or Hobgoblins or Jackalweres who have discovered that working for this little guy has two benefits. Continuing to live, of course, is one. The other is that this Dragonling is vicious and cruel and gets what he wants, which, in turn, gets them what they want.

The alternative is to remember that the schoolyard bully will also gravitate to someone stronger, someone who can protect them from the fallout of their actions.

Your Party is attacked by the Blue Lightning Brigade and, of course, they defeat the Bandits. The Wyrmling, however, is in good with a gang of Gnolls, or perhaps even some desert-dwelling Yuan-ti. They’ll go running right back to their patron for protection, absolutely daring your Party to do something about it. With that smug little grin on their scaly little face the whole time.

Learning power is a lifelong skill, and if a Wyrmling survives their misspent youth to become a Young Blue Dragon, they’ll start amassing it quickly and relentlessly.

These Dragons no longer need to attach themselves to more powerful creatures for protection, though they may do so in order to further their own goals. If the Wyrmling was the schoolyard bully, this is the adolescent snob. The teenager who just took their first class in philosophy and now has everything figured out. The kid who has dirt on their teachers and uses it to change their grade. The kid who just can’t be wrong, because being The Clever One is an inherent part of their identity.

That would be an interesting trap to spring on your Players, if they should meet this Dragon. The Dragon isn’t so much interested in fighting as they are interested in being right, which is a very teenage thing to be. If your Players are particularly clever, they can probably harness this to their advantage, getting the Dragon to engage them in a protracted game of “Um, Actually…” while they get their plan into place.

On top of that, of course, since Blue Dragons love beautiful, shiny things, this Young Dragon will doubtless be looking for the most beautiful and the shiniest. Rings and mirrors and swords that shine in the desert sun—these are the things they will covet as they begin their lair.

Which, if we continue our metaphor of the Young Blue as the most irritating teenager imaginable, suggests that they’re probably the type of kid who would buy a replica katana and claim it was an ancient blade that they wrestled from a fallen hero.

In fact, that could be a fascinating job for your Players to undertake. A Blue Dragon has discovered that the priceless treasure they thought they had is nothing more than a cheap knockoff. So they want your Party to do two things: First, find the real treasure. Second, find the man who sold the fake. Bring them both to the Dragon, and then be on your way.

Oh, and by taking this job, you’re officially part of the Second Blue Lightning Brigade. Do the name proud, kids.

Should a Young Blue live long enough to not get murdered by the people they’ve betrayed or just plain irritated, they grow into an Adult Blue Dragon. And now, what was kind of funny and weirdly endearing becomes actually dangerous.

These Dragons have learned how to exercise their power so that their influence covers entire nations. They’ve subjugated entire populations of followers, bandit armies, and perhaps even cults who are looking for something terrifying to worship. And these Dragons guard their power very jealously. An Adventuring Party who threatens that power is likely to find themselves at the wrong end of Lightning Breath very, very quickly.

Something as simple as a botched heist or an innkeeper asking your Players to please find their lost child could lead, eventually, to a Blue Dragon. The innkeeper’s child was kidnapped by a group hoping to extort money out of the innkeeper. That money, in turn, was going to fund an assassin that was meant to kill a rival criminal leader whom the Blue wanted out of power because they weren’t paying their dues in full.

By saving the child, you’ve messed up the whole plan, perhaps acting as a variable the Dragon didn’t plan for. And if there is one thing Blue Dragons hate more than anything else, it’s being wrong. You’ve made this Dragon look bad in front of the people it has subjugated, and now it has to save face.

Congratulations: Your Party has its full attention now.

And this only becomes harder once it has aged into an Ancient Blue Dragon. The Ancient Blues have taken their place with the true powers of the world, and have turned the lesser powers—kings, queens, emperors—into their puppets. There is nowhere your Party can go where their actions do not come up against the influence of the Ancient Blue Dragon, so your world should reflect that.

The territory of the Ancient Blue has moved far beyond the bullied and the tormented. The people living here are fully accepting of the force that shapes their world. The Dragon rules us, because of course it does. How could things be any other way?

In fact, the Blue Dragon’s holdings would be a great place to create the oppressive fantasy setting you’ve always wanted. In principle, everyone praises the Dragon, thanking it for its protection and benevolence. No one would dare speak against it in public, and even in private, they cannot be sure that a family member—even one of their own children—might not turn them in to the Imperial Blue Lightning Brigade for disloyalty to their master.

Perhaps people have little customs to honor their great and powerful overlord. Thanking it before they eat, maybe, or paying a special tax once a year. Children probably carry Blue Dragon stuffy toys that they play with and pretend that they are the ones flying about and razing kingdoms to the ground.

The reality, though, is one of unrelenting fear. Fear that they will say or do the wrong thing, that the Dragon will pluck them out of their lives and interrogate or berate them for their impudence and lack of loyalty. And then, only when this poor person has been decisively proven wrong, will the Dragon finally kill them. Everyone will see it, and everyone will remember what happened so that it never happens again.

The Ancient Blue is everywhere in this place, and with that comes a problem: if your Players should manage to defeat it… what happens then? Who takes over? What happens to the ordinary people when an orderly, if oppressive, regime is suddenly destroyed by a few well-meaning Adventurers? Will your Players be willing to deal with those consequences, or will they be off to their next adventure and let the dice fall where they may?

There’s no question that the Blue Dragons are evil. The problem is that they build societies—large and small—that require them to function. The Bandits who lose their Wyrmling are in trouble, just as the Great Sapphire Empire is in trouble if the Ancient Blue at its heart disappears. Wanting to live in an orderly, safe society shouldn’t require complicity with evil, but sometimes it does.

And that is the truest challenge your Players will face. The Blue Dragon has spent centuries making itself indispensable to those they rule. Your Players might kill it. They even might convince everyone that it deserved to die. But the next morning, the taxes still need to be collected, the borders need to be defended, and every ambitious ruler in the region will suddenly notice that the throne is empty.

Somewhere nearby, a shopkeeper is opening their doors. A bureaucrat is sitting down at their desk. A child is clutching their little Blue Dragon stuffy and wondering why everyone looks so frightened.

So ask your players, “What happens tomorrow?”