Hoard

A character I once had in one of Standing Bear's D&D worlds was a pseudo-dragon.

He was rather liberal with letting us run monsters as characters, and my pseudo-dragon was classed as a fighter-thief.

He was not very powerful.

But one day, that all changed.

The big-dogs of the campaign decided they needed to "run off" some time.

Us small fry didn't have the votes to prevent it, so everyone got 100 years older and got to submit a "what did you do during the break?" homework.

They'd secured their immortality, so it was no big deal to run off that long.  Pseudo-dragons are ageless, like real dragons.

Most everyone else was making a new character.

I asked about the local baron's vault.

It turns out it was not rat proof.  If a rat can get in, so can a pseudo-dragon.

Remember me being classed as a thief?

In Bear's world a thief got one experience point per gold piece stolen.

So I stole one per day from the vault.  For one hundred years.

Admittedly, this only moved me from 3rd level to 7th level; but my HP was based on that level now, instead of the racial hit dice!

I was a tough-ass pseudo-dragon!

The theft was small enough that no real investigation was conducted, though I remember an exchequer or two were hanged for their accounting failures...

When I later acquired a ring of teleportation and a ring of regeneration, coupled with the natural chameleon abilities...  I was an essential part of the group.

Plus, I never voted against running off time, the big boys appreciated that.