Dragon-haunted Cabour

A ruined city, shrouded in mist from the dragon's nauseating breath. You have come here to find a relic, lost when its bearer fled from the terrible dragon. Years have passed since the ancient creature last was seen, but you know it remains here. Biding time. Waiting.
It knows about you, too.

NOTE: This is meant as a boss encounter, so there are a lot of things going on. Inspirations come from Arnold K's bosses and  dynamic encounter, stages from Whitehack and discussions on the Runehammer forum.

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Setup
A chasm across the board, a hill, several towers and trees. Scatter ruins.

Six hidden entrances to the dragon's lair.

Structures are close enough that you could make a desperate leap from one to another, far enough that it requires a roll, and high enough that falling results in substantial but not fatal damage (2d6, no armour, dex roll for half). All floors are in poor condition, breaks on a 1-in-4 unless the character moves with caution.

The relic
The relic is located by some of the scatter ruins (decide beforehand). It beckons quietly. 

Searching for the relic
A PC can search for the relic as a normal action by rolling WIS. On a hit, the referee says if it is close, near, or far. Searching at the exact correct location instead results in 1d4 effort (1d6 if some device is used) - at 10 effort the relic is found.

The dragon entrances
There are six entrances to the dragon's lair. They start hidden, but an entrance is immediately revealed if a character is adjacent to it. A PC can enter through an entrance as a normal action. If so, they are removed from the board. Next round the player rolls WIS: on a success, they can chose to enter at any known or a random unknown (not yet revealed) entrance. On a miss, they are ambushed by the dragon (Phase 1) or lost for another round (Phase 2+3).

The encounter

The encounter is played in three phases, defined by the dragon's activity: lurking, hunting, flying.

Phase 1: Lurking. Room TN 10
Timer. 1d6 TURNS, TN increases by 1

Dragon is not placed, hides in its lair. Roll 1d6 to decide in which entrance.

- TN increases by +1 per round.
- TN increases by an additional +1 for all PC actions that are not very quiet (roll DEX if in doubt), or +1d4 for all loud actions
 
When TN reaches 20 the dragon attacks from ambush (fire breath). After that, it retreats to a random non-revealed entrance phase 1 restarts.
If the dragon is found, phase 2 begins.

Finding the dragon
A PC can search for the dragon as a normal action by rolling WIS. On a hit, the referee says if the dragon is close, near or far based on approximate distance to the entrance the dragon is in. If a PC moves close to an entrance it is automatically revealed. If the PCs find the entrance where the dragon is, phase 2 begins.

Phase 2: Hunting. Room TN 15
Timer. 1d6 TURNS. Dragon gets another turn.
Dragon is placed and goes hunting for the PCs.
It targets, in order of preference: 1) as many as possible, 2) a mortal threat if present, 3) fleeing, cowering, hiding characters, 4) anyone else.

Nowhere to hide. Destroy at least one piece of terrain per turn, as a side effect of the dragon's attacks (example: it crashes through a wall to catch someone hiding on the other side).

When the dragon is reduced to 0 HP, phase 3 begins.

Phase 3: Flying. Room TN 15
Timer. 1d6 TURNS. Dragon gets another turn.
Dragon is returned to full HP.
It leaps up in the air and starts flying. PCs standing under it must roll STR or be knocked down from the force of its wings.

When the dragon is reduced to 0HP again, it crashes down (dead?).

The Dragon of Cabour

HD 7, Giant: 3d8, MV 4 (increasing by one per round flying, max double)
Fire breath. Use a template. Automatically hits everyone within for 4d6 fire damage & -1 to a random stat unless they evade. Full cover reduces damage by half. On doubles/triples/quadruples, the fire keeps burning on the area covered by the template for 2/3/4 rounds.
Can only be used when attacking from ambush or if foreshadowed one round in advance (free action).

Bite (1d10) + Claws (1d8) + Tail (1d6, knockdown). All have reach 3. 

Special. If flying, a successful claw attack means the dragon carries the target off to throw it or drop it in a following round.

Relaying setting

Note: This is an old draft, slightly reworked. I think it makes some valid points, but I'm doubting the distillation argument a bit. Concretely, it now seems to me that what is actually reducing overhead is presenting lore through things that the referee can relay verbatim to the players, or that the players can read themselves in the book. If this is true, it also includes less-spectacular things like boxed text and actual lore sections. Because of this, I've added a note on how distilling lore into fragments could be useful anyway. 

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I've been thinking about a sort of distillation process for presenting lore through in-game objects and locations. This has to do with my fascination with patterns and hidden meaning in rpg products. What I call "patterns" here is essentially what happens when presenting setting through a wandering monster table. Consider this small encounter table

25% giant scorpion
50% gnolls
25% nomads

From this table, you can infer that the region is sparsely populated by humans, dominated by gnolls, and that it is arid - a steppe or even a desert. From the monsters, you can also conclude that the region is rather dangerous. Giant scorpions are 7HD, and gnolls are about 5HD. So as a consequence, the nomads would either be capable fighters themselves, or have some reliable way of hiding. All of these things can be learned from the encounter table. All referee-facing descriptions of the region could therefore focus on other things. But the encounter table will also convey things to the players, by just existing. For example, if the players spend time in this region, they should soon learn that the most common encounter is gnolls, that scorpions and nomads are equally frequent, and what the general threat level of the region is.

This is the idea about a "pattern": to take advantage of aspects of the game that is communicated directly from the designer to the player, to say something about the world. Say for example that in this game, Druids are worse than Clerics: they get worse bonuses and less powerful options, etc. Even if the rules never state this, players will eventually figure it out. Or the online community will. And once people realize this, they won't play Druids unless they are highly committed. And so, via selection you have created a setting where Clerics are common and Druids are very invested, or where an new faith is replacing an old through numbers and resisted through zeal, without writing a single word about it in your game book.

My point here is that there is information about the setting that is hard-coded into the rules and procedures, and therefore external to the referee's rulings, and that can be exploited to create consistency and predictability without increased overhead.

But other aspects of the game can serve this function too. Building on Kyana's analysis of layered lore in Dark Souls, I'd like to contend that a) lore can be presented in fragments instead of info-dumps; b) this can lead to more, rather than less, engagement in the lore; and c) the resultant head-canon can be highly aligned with the "intended" canon, if supported by codified things that convey setting directly to the players.

I imagine a distillation process that goes something like this:
You begin with a raw lore statement, say: giants used to live here. From the implications of that statement - giants lived, have now died - you extract a specific, representative event (1). Say: Queen Yssa, last of the Giants, trading her kingdom for the corpses of her warrior-children.

From this event, you extract the material and mythical remnants (2). The hall where she surrendered her kingdom, the Giant crown she handed over, the great cart that carried the bodies, the broken armor of her daughters, the all-consuming sorrow, the Giants' tomb.

Then, you transform these remnants to game-objects, with uses, names, descriptions and locations (3). So the hall becomes a location on the map, the crown remains a crown, the cart might become a cart-wheel shield, armor is armor, sorrow becomes a spell or magical object, tomb becomes a location.

Finally (4), the game objects are given names and descriptions that alludes to the original event through association rather than explicitly. So the once hall-now location might become "Yssa's Surrender. A ruined palace of giant proportions, ravaged by war. It is considered sacred by those who grieve".

Like the encounter table, this information is transmitted directly from the game to the players, without increasing referee overhead: the players look at the map, note the location Yssa's surrender, and are free to draw their own conclusions how this relates to the giant crown they found last session, aided by their observations that there are no giants here anymore (but they fought skeleton giants), and that there is a spell in the spell list that induces a sadness that is too large for any human heart.

Addendum: Success is probably limited to rather basic setting ideas. However, as a rule of thumb, most good settings can be reduced to a limited set of basic ideas. (A Fascist space-faring empire in decline, venerating a dead feudal lord, locked in eternal war. Settler-colonists fleeing a necromantic war, hunting for treasures in a cursed forest. Etc). So if nothing else, the distillation process might help reinforce a theme and weed out everything unnecessary, making the lore more engaging even if you decide to go with the lore dump anyway.

Five merchants of sorts

1d6 
1. Peric, a hunter seeking shelter. Has pelts and herbs from the forest to offer and many tales from the woods, but must otherwise be provided for. If befriended, he offers to bring the PCs safely to their next destination.
Has1- Fur coat. AR 1, +1 fatigue, +2 shock save.
2- Leather knee-boots. +1 MV
3- Elk-skin armour. AR 2, encumbering as AR 3. Wearer may reroll initiative for wilderness encounters, the new roll applies only to her.
4- Healing herb (1d6). Chew on it to reroll death save for the following 1d6 rounds.

2. Orla, a wise-woman of the woods.Has
1- Salve of speed. +1d6 MV for 1d6 round.
2- Potion of luck. All tests are done with 1d30 for 1d6 rounds; after that, all tests are made with 1d12 for 1d6 rounds.
3- Talisman of protection. AR +1d6, no encumbrance. On a 1, the talisman breaks. The talisman is imbued with witchery; When donned, the bearer must roll under SPIRIT or have all saves reset to +2 (unless already lower). On a critical failure, they can no longer receive blessings from the saints.
4- Owl harness. A harness made of owl-feathers. AR 2, encumbering as AR 4, +2 Stealth.

3. Cliona, the merchant. A robust woman pulling a small cart with frenzied speed. On the cart is the corpse of her husband Flammen and their child Elan, shaking with fever despite the pelts that cover him. The merchants were attacked by wolves a few nights ago and barely managed to escape, but despite Cliona running their horse until its heart stopped, Flammen has already passed and Elan is dying from infected wounds. Is happy to trade what little they still have for any help.
Has1- Compass. On a WIS roll, characters can travel through the wilderness in any direction without getting lost.
2- A book, containing a clue.
3- Wine (1d6).
4- Merchants' cord. When used to seal a sack, jar or similar, anything in it is kept fresh for twice the time it would normally be. (stolen from the excellent blog the manse)

4. Oglon, a relic hunter. Travelling between battlefields and holy places, he traces the steps of martyrs and heroes seeking things rendered sacred by their presence. Currently on his way to Courant, he is happy to trade for gold, horses and provisions.
Has
1- The Finger of Eghan the Accuser, fourth of the Recreant Knights. Points towards guilt like the needle of a compass when a crime is spoken, but very frail.
2- The Other Finger of Eghan. As above, but points away from guilt.
3- A key. Supposedly to the library in Mersault.
4- Weak Theriac (3 doses). Drinker is cured from poisons.
(all purchases has a 50% chance of being counterfeit, one-use-only items)

5. Brenn and Bredd, deserters from the Witch King's army. Having hid for years and only braving the outside when the sun was at its highest, starvation finally drove them from their burrow. They dread the night for the Witch King is known to walk in dreams, and prefer to sleep underground unless drunk. They speak reluctantly and in whispers, of terrible creatures of bone and bronze from the bogs, of atrocities, and how fellow soldiers would wither and die as if their ghosts had left to never return.
Has
1- Generals' helmet. AR 6. Faint whispers echo inside. When seeing the helm worn, sentient creatures must save or else cannot move into contact with its wearer. Lose 1 SPI on a critical miss.
2- Black lodestone. When thrown to the ground it makes a metallic noise, like the clamour of armour. If allowed to rotate freely, it always points towards Ys.
3- Short bogman sword. 1d10, fast. Ordinary armour is useless against it. Lose 1 SPI on a critical miss.
4- A map, showing the location where the deserters hid a chest of war-gold.

6. Gwawl.