In episode 3 of Heroes and Halfwits second season we were introduced to Ulka, a draconic bounty hunter with a heck of a mean streak and shapeshifting capabilities. Ulka is representative of one of my favorite aspects of the dungeons and dragons experience, the story telling and world building that is created in the moment.
At a whim the entire structure of the world being built can be changed, and provide new insights into everything.
Ulka began her existence simply as a bounty hunter character that was trying to retrieve an object that Albus stole earlier in the campaign. She was intiially identified as male, and probably was not intended to be a dragon at all! But intervention from a little bit of Geoffs metagaming, and some questioning from Michael and Ulka was turned into a She and a shapeshifting Young Black Dragon.
A little bit of creativity, on the fly world building, and metagaming from three different people resulted in one of the most unique and interesting NPCs that has shown up in the campaign thus far.
It really gets to the heart of what D&D is, and that is a collective storytelling experience. After I watched the episode I chose to write a little bit of fan fiction about Ulka, I dont know her canon backstory or anything like that for all the available info go to the Ulka page, these are just my musings.
Ulka[]
Black Dragons rule the sky of Jeebs underdark, opposite of white dragons that live upon the surface. Jeebs underdark is a world of impossibilities, it is a dark place with continents existing in the shape of Jeebs oceans, and oceans existing in the shape of its continents.
A world without a horizon at Jeebs core, it has no real sunlight only a pale blue sphere that hangs high above that ripples with a dying light no greater than that of the palest moonlight. Thus the inhabitants of this subterranean world do not differentiate its "surface" much from the tunnels that link it to the true surface of Jeeb.
Ulka was one of the black dragons that inhabited this world, a young one of fifty years just beginning to carve out her den with her acidic breath. But what most people do not realize is that dragons err on the side of mortality, and are not invincible spiritual creatures.
Ulka became the victim of a creature most rare a werehag. Most lycanthropes transform humanoid creatures into more animalistic forms, forms of lycanthropy that would transform them into other humanoid creatures would simply have no effect, but dragons would most certainly be effected.
Her first few transformations were not pretty to say the least, but she gained control sooner than most lycanthropes do. She thus found herself in a unique position among dragons of her age, the ability to walk among the humanoid races unnoticed and unseen.
And as it turned out this suited her just fine. As like many dragons she was filled with greed, and the humanoid races were willing to part with silver, gold, and even platinum for the sake of seeing their enemies destroyed.
And the visage of an old crone who could barely stand upright was one that most would not consider a threat, and thus often had advantage against those she hunted. Few would ever learn of her draconic secret and survive, to her emploters surprise she always got the job done, and thus a hunched over crone named Ulka became one of the most notorious mercenaries the underdark.
(Might have gone a little overboard here)