[Poindexter]

Say you wanted to run a game where all the players were newly hatched dragons, escaped from the lab that hatched em. They're quite intelligent, competent, and physically powerful straight out of the egg and lets even imagine they instinctively understand how to change into one specific metahuman form at birth, so they can blend into the community at large.  When I say just birthed, I mean like, them cracking out of their eggs will be the beginning of the "in character" portion of the game.

EDIT: I'm basically wondering how, if at ALL, one could convert the "dragon hatchling RCC" from RIFTS into a shadowrun friendly type of thing. The only way it could possibly work is if ALL the PCs were dragons though, so here we are, on strange idea avenue.

What advice would you toss me for running a game like this, as far as scope of the enemies, character gen rules, dragon politics, anything else you feel may be relevant, etc?

[Crimsondude]

Only Great Dragons can take metahuman form naturally. Adult Dragons need to use sorcery.

What you're describing as far as Shadowrun goes are True Drakes. They were officially introduced in The Clutch of Dragons and that should cover pretty much everything you want to know, including the point cost for various options at chargen. Short answer about enemies and politics is that they supposedly have free will, but that's not much comfort when they are the very "expensive" creations of the most possessive and dangerous of the Great Dragons.

[farothel]

In 4th edition there's some stuff about drakes (including BP costs and powers) in the Runner's Companion.  If you're playing 5th, you can still use this to get some ideas.

[MijRai]

True drakes are much more feasible; keep in mind that dragons take a looong time to mature.  While the Earthdawn connection is currently up in the air, there's a book from there that details dragon lifespan pretty succinctly.   

[Namikaze]

I'll toss in my recommendation of going the drake route too.  They might be thralls of a dragon, or trying to get out from under a dragon's thumb, or both.  It opens up some of the possibilities that I think you're aiming for without having to bend/break/rewrite whole rules.  Also, I'd expect to see drakes as a character option in Run Faster, which will hopefully come out this year.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

In regards to dragons, however, there's one small point of which you should be aware: from everything we've seen of SR canon, including what comes from SR-canonical ED, dragons will do almost anything to a) get stolen eggs back and b) utterly destroy the individual(s) who stole them.  According to dragon culture, it's the great dragons who ... hm.  Call it 'provide a hatching ground' for dragon eggs; adults may mate and produce one or several eggs, but they will have already met with one of the Great Dragons and arranged for that GD to foster the egg.

What goes on while the dragonling is still in the egg seems to be a combination of childhood instruction and almost literal molding; the parents of an egg don't determine the hatchling's form, the hosting great dragon does, the hatchling emerging as the dracotype that the great dragon is.  So a Western and an Eastern might mate and give the eggs to a Feathered Serpent - and the eggs will hatch into little feathered serpents.  During the egg-time, though, the great dragon does 'speak' with the growing intelligences, teaching and molding them.  I don't know if it goes so far as to teach them sorcery and spellcasting; you could say that it does.  However, according to the ED information, at a certain point adolescent dragons go ... well, 'feral' is the best description.  (And parallels to wyverns have been noticed.)  They're very territorial, they kill each other, adventurers kill them, etc. etc.  Eventually they cool down and enter into the Adult phase - but from the point where a hatchling is hatched to that adolescent stage is probably going to be quite a while, as in decades, and understand that in Shadowrun, the hatchling is not going to be MDC tough, as it were.

Great Dragons have been known to swipe eggs from each other (see Rhonabwy and the Sea Dragon for the best example - the eggs were turned over to Hestaby), but even that is a pretty major faux pas.  Any company that got a hold of dragon eggs would be best off turning them over immediately to whatever Great Dragon they could contact, and apologizing profusely.  If they didn't, well - neither the corporation nor its personnel would likely exist at the turn of the month.

[MijRai]

In regards to dragons, however, there's one small point of which you should be aware: from everything we've seen of SR canon, including what comes from SR-canonical ED, dragons will do almost anything to a) get stolen eggs back and b) utterly destroy the individual(s) who stole them.  According to dragon culture, it's the great dragons who ... hm.  Call it 'provide a hatching ground' for dragon eggs; adults may mate and produce one or several eggs, but they will have already met with one of the Great Dragons and arranged for that GD to foster the egg.

What goes on while the dragonling is still in the egg seems to be a combination of childhood instruction and almost literal molding; the parents of an egg don't determine the hatchling's form, the hosting great dragon does, the hatchling emerging as the dracotype that the great dragon is.  So a Western and an Eastern might mate and give the eggs to a Feathered Serpent - and the eggs will hatch into little feathered serpents.  During the egg-time, though, the great dragon does 'speak' with the growing intelligences, teaching and molding them.  I don't know if it goes so far as to teach them sorcery and spellcasting; you could say that it does.  However, according to the ED information, at a certain point adolescent dragons go ... well, 'feral' is the best description.  (And parallels to wyverns have been noticed.)  They're very territorial, they kill each other, adventurers kill them, etc. etc.  Eventually they cool down and enter into the Adult phase - but from the point where a hatchling is hatched to that adolescent stage is probably going to be quite a while, as in decades, and understand that in Shadowrun, the hatchling is not going to be MDC tough, as it were.

Great Dragons have been known to swipe eggs from each other (see Rhonabwy and the Sea Dragon for the best example - the eggs were turned over to Hestaby), but even that is a pretty major faux pas.  Any company that got a hold of dragon eggs would be best off turning them over immediately to whatever Great Dragon they could contact, and apologizing profusely.  If they didn't, well - neither the corporation nor its personnel would likely exist at the turn of the month.

Quite succinct!

[Poindexter]

In regards to dragons, however, there's one small point of which you should be aware: from everything we've seen of SR canon, including what comes from SR-canonical ED, dragons will do almost anything to a) get stolen eggs back and b) utterly destroy the individual(s) who stole them.  According to dragon culture, it's the great dragons who ... hm.  Call it 'provide a hatching ground' for dragon eggs; adults may mate and produce one or several eggs, but they will have already met with one of the Great Dragons and arranged for that GD to foster the egg.

What goes on while the dragonling is still in the egg seems to be a combination of childhood instruction and almost literal molding; the parents of an egg don't determine the hatchling's form, the hosting great dragon does, the hatchling emerging as the dracotype that the great dragon is.  So a Western and an Eastern might mate and give the eggs to a Feathered Serpent - and the eggs will hatch into little feathered serpents.  During the egg-time, though, the great dragon does 'speak' with the growing intelligences, teaching and molding them.  I don't know if it goes so far as to teach them sorcery and spellcasting; you could say that it does.  However, according to the ED information, at a certain point adolescent dragons go ... well, 'feral' is the best description.  (And parallels to wyverns have been noticed.)  They're very territorial, they kill each other, adventurers kill them, etc. etc.  Eventually they cool down and enter into the Adult phase - but from the point where a hatchling is hatched to that adolescent stage is probably going to be quite a while, as in decades, and understand that in Shadowrun, the hatchling is not going to be MDC tough, as it were.

Great Dragons have been known to swipe eggs from each other (see Rhonabwy and the Sea Dragon for the best example - the eggs were turned over to Hestaby), but even that is a pretty major faux pas.  Any company that got a hold of dragon eggs would be best off turning them over immediately to whatever Great Dragon they could contact, and apologizing profusely.  If they didn't, well - neither the corporation nor its personnel would likely exist at the turn of the month.

This is all very useful information. In light of all this, what about a private group of some sort who had figured out the secret to shaping and hatching dragon eggs? And what if they did so more according to the wishes of the parents, and for an exorbitant fee? Say, the "back-alley-hatching-clinic" you go to when you don't want the elder dragons to poke their noses in your business?

feasible?

[Namikaze]

Say, the "back-alley-hatching-clinic" you go to when you don't want the elder dragons to poke their noses in your business?

feasible?

It is incredibly unlikely that the dragon's don't know what's going on with just about everything in the world.  The reason they don't smite us all just for existing varies, but ultimately it boils down to the fact that most people don't threaten their interests.  A "back alley hatching clinic" would absolutely be one of the highest things on the dragons' radar.  So if you did this, and made the characters somehow have been successfully raised by this clinic - I'd strongly suggest starting the game with them being woken up in the middle of a huge firefight in which their "parents" are being slaughtered and they get "kidnapped."  At this point, the dragons that have successfully destroyed the clinic take over the care of the player characters, who have to re-learn everything they've ever been taught.  It might even be worthwhile for the players to get a couple of sessions in which they learn the "disinformation" of the clinic.  I put disinformation in quotes because that's how the dragons would see it, but it's not how the characters would see it.

[Crimsondude]

I'd allow it.

I don't know if an Adult would naturally trust metahumans just because they don't want a Great raising their eggs/hatchlings.

But generally speaking the idea of newly-hatched/created dracoforms escaping works a lot better with True Drakes than actual dragons. Easiest case would be that they were Alamais's True Drakes who were "born" prematurely when he died. They're still dracoforms and can take metahuman form, and it's easier to explain how they have no idea of the world or have Alamais's lessons about who's superior to whom and whatever else. You start the game with them awakening somewhere in the GeMiTo Sprawl as the big dragon fight is ending, and given the presence of many living and dead dragons in the rubble, their first instinct would obviously be to get the fuck out of town. It also gives you one Hell of an enemy hunting you down: Lofwyr.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

This is all very useful information. In light of all this, what about a private group of some sort who had figured out the secret to shaping and hatching dragon eggs? And what if they did so more according to the wishes of the parents, and for an exorbitant fee? Say, the "back-alley-hatching-clinic" you go to when you don't want the elder dragons to poke their noses in your business?

feasible?

I personally wouldn't say so, no.  Adult dragons have in the past raised their own eggs; it's pretty much universally been a fraggin' disaster.  An adult dragon, however, would raise their eggs themselves before turning them over to some 'private group'.  To make it happen at all, you'd have to go with a theft.

Your next challenge is managing to 'tune in' on the wavelength of Dragonspeech - which I'd describe as a mix of telepathy, empathy, mind control, an illusion-based 'entertainment' spell (which the dragon uses to show the eggling things), and possibly some other things, like psychometry - which is probably going to require multiple mages at multiple times, with some very strong wills and very clear imaginations.

All that said, it could be done - but like Namikaze and Crimsondude have said, your first session would probably start with 'place getting torn down around them'.  If I were going to roll with something like this, though, I'd take Crimsondude's GeMiTo / Alamais's True Drakes idea.  And remember, there's more than just one Great Dragon hunting for you.  Given the choice, I'd go with Arleesh ...

[Crimsondude]

Oh, true. Every Great and Adult that sided with Lofwyr is fair game. But Lofwyr's the most dangerous because you're not sure if he'd want to keep them or destroy them just to be rid of Alamais's presence. Arleesh seems to be wholly in the Kill on Sight camp. That's no fun. Though that said, they are only two of the interested parties. Aden, Ghostwalker, and Hestaby (If you can find her, and you can convince her, you might be able to hire ... The Orange Queen) can likely be used against Lofwyr just out of spite. Most of the Great Dragons don't even have (or seem to know how/care to) make True Drakes, which makes them neat toys for all of the Greats. Maybe some older Adults think they want or even deserve one. And there are metahumans who would love to kill, capture, or recruit drakes — Aztechnology, DIVE, Draco Foundation, Assets, Inc., Children of the Dragon, Church of the Dragon Reborn, Frankfurt Bank Association, and a couple others that haven't been mentioned but that I'd like to explore in the future (SR's still very Western-centric), random parazoologists, eccentric billionaires, wackos, blood cults, etc.

You don't need to have them escaping metahumans at birth to worry about being captured by metahumans.

[Namikaze]

After reading Crimsondude's story hook, I like his better. 

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Crimsondude, I get a different vibe from Arleesh - I think, presuming they existed, she'd destroy them if they DID resist, but if they surrendered, she'd examine them closely before deciding whether or not they were tainted.  I don't think she'd think they were; she's concerned with a deeper metaphysical taint than 'just' a nasty point of view.

Nevertheless, you have a wonderful list of People You Guys Gotta Keep Away From.  And now I want to run something along these lines ...

[Crimsondude]

While I would otherwise agree with you, I forgot to mention that my reasoning for why Arleesh would kill them is because she is such a loner, and wouldn't want the distraction of having to raise a bunch of drakes. She seemed only to side with Lofwyr because Alamais, Hestaby, and Sirrurg were in their own ways each making her work more difficult. They could be useful, but the cost:benefit ratio seems too lopsided to me.

Besides, you need at least one Michael Ironside character ruthlessly gunning for them, and she's the only Great that strikes me as being a legitimate threat. Plus, they aren't Tainted, but they aren't exactly "clean" because of their premature awakening and that True Drakes in SR all tend to exist at a disadvantage because they were rushed into production during the war. Perhaps its better to free the Blue Spirits from their shells than let them continue in this adulterated existence.