Adventure seed: Dragons vs. Ponzi!

I’ve been chewing through my pile of books to read. Almost done with League of Dragons…

Dragons vs. Ponzi!

So, here’s the background: dragons exist, in the modern world and everything. They are intelligent, they can easily speak human languages (and humans can speak draconic tongues, just to change things up a bit), and they’re not overtly supernatural.  Use the Naomi Novik template for their personalities: generally amiable enough, ready to integrate with human society, but still possessing the traditional draconic fascination with wealth and hoards.  In the modern era, they happily feed this fascination through bank accounts, day trading, government bonds, and the like: while most have a room full of shiny piles for the look of the thing, better to let the wealth go out and make more wealth for them, hey?

Only… one of the most influential consortium of dragons got taken by a swindler.  They got taken by a swindler, hard. To the tune of maybe a billion dollars’ worth; and even assuming that the thief can only convert that into a fraction of the original value, that’s enough to retire on.  It’s certainly enough to cause major civil unrest as the dragons involved go out to smell out and incinerate the dirty little sneak on their own.  The only reason that this hasn’t happened yet is that the dragons involved do understand that human beings are better at actual investigations than they are, so human investigators might very well find the swindler before a draconic one could. So the relevant authorities will be given a legitimate chance to solve this case first.

Enter the PCs.  They’ll be dealing with the aforementioned authorities, who want the swindler caught and put on trial for bilking both human and draconic investors; as well as the swindler’s allies and business associates, who rather want to launder a billion dollars’ worth of stolen property.  And, of course, the party will be undoubtedly dealing with the dragon consortium themselves, who would very much like the party to arrange for the swindler to have one decidedly last investors’ meeting with his victims.  

You see, it’s not that dragons don’t respect human laws, but this man stole from their hoards while he was a guest of theirs. Worse, that he lied and swindled them in the process.  Dragons understand the idea of an investment going bad, of course; they don’t like it, but they know that they have to accept that it happens from time to time, and that mere incompetence does not carry the death sentence in these enlightened days. But to deliberately mislead? There are limits to draconic amiability.

On the bright side, straightening all of this out will pay extremely well. Dragons are perfectly capable of understanding the concept of false economy; and the consortium is ready to spend the cash needed to get premium service. Just… give them premium service.  And save the receipts.  They don’t particularly care what the receipts are for, but you had best save them all.